# Zorin not installing



## Vivid (Apr 4, 2012)

I ut zorin on a blank dvd and followed the instructions from their websit but it just goes to a gray screen that blinks black every couple of seconds this same thing happened with ubuntu but i found work around but i cant seem to find one now.


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## SteveThePirate (Jan 12, 2012)

Hi,

When does it switch to a grey screen? During install or after or in Live Mode? What are your computer model and specifications?

Steve


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## Vivid (Apr 4, 2012)

It would do it after i selected live mode and i had to tab to open up the command lines and i needed to delete the quick splash command and replace it with acpi=off but after restarting i couldn't get it to work off of the grub boot loader plus i noticed it didn't load on to the hard drive i wanted it to and my stupid self didn't uninstall it right so i had to reinstall windows im gonna try linux mint 13 when i get my laptop next week hopefully i wont have the same problem


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## Vivid (Apr 4, 2012)

My specs are AMD Phenom II X6, ASUS M5A88-VEVO mobo,675 watt power supply, EVGA GTX 550Ti, 16gb RAM


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## SteveThePirate (Jan 12, 2012)

So you got the installer to work though by tabbing in and typing "acpi=off" then? Apparently when i was reading up on this someone got it to boot by tabbing in and typing "no nomodeset" as well. Looks like it's a known issue in Zorin. Also I've never been able to get Zorin to work correctly before either (though i've not tried recently) my issue was it hung on the splash screen anytime i tried to load live mode or installation mode.

Hopefully you shouldn't have any issues with Mint 13 as it's the most straightforward Linux installation and set up out there at the moment in my opinion.

Also for future as you know now, just be careful about where you install your distro, always handy to take a note of what partitions and hard drives you have to avoid overwriting windows if you are dual booting.

Steve


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## Vivid (Apr 4, 2012)

Believe it or not i had the same problem with linux mint 13 and i remember trying ubuntu before and i had the same problem when i went to load live mode to install them and i know there a feature to install along windows. i was wondering if it will be easier to dual boot with a partition or to install alongside windows?

i plan on putting linux on an ultrabook im getting as long as i don't have any problems with installing it and getting it to boot.


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## SteveThePirate (Jan 12, 2012)

If your quite happy and confident, then it's best to partition it yourself rather than use install alongside windows only for the simple reason of redundancy. If you install alongside windows it will set up three partitions automatically for you, A boot partition, a swap partition and a / (which means root) partition which is absolutely fine but it will work in a way which is similar to the windows C: which puts your filesystem and your personal files together meaning if something was to go wrong you lose everything. 

Whereas if you partition manually and set up a boot, swap, / and /home partition, your personal files go into home separate from the root partition meaning if something goes wrong you re-install the OS and keep your personal files intact.


If you need a guide there's one on here; Linux and Manual Partitioning | Tech Support Forum
Apply this only to your separate partition for Linux and leave your windows partition intact.


By the way just to make sure, at the moment are you trying to install Linux in a Virtual Machine or in an actual partition on your computer? It's sounds like some sort of hardware incompatibility but you don't have a weird setup or anything, except 16gb ram which is a hell of a lot but that won't affect whats happening.


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## Vivid (Apr 4, 2012)

Ok i'll see what i can do with my ultrabook that im getting since it only has 500gb's of hdd i'll see if partitioning it myself is more space efficient. I installed linux straight to my hard drive i did it alongside windows and no i don't have a weird setup its just a normal computer that i built.


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## SteveThePirate (Jan 12, 2012)

There's a few cases of your graphics card the EVGA GTX 550Ti having issues, here's an interesting example of one when they swapped G-Cards it worked

Linux Mint Forums • View topic - Struggling LMDE 201109 Won't boot


I guess there's an issue with that G-card and some linux distro's


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## Vivid (Apr 4, 2012)

I followed the guide on making my own partition and i install the grub boot loader but when i restart the computer it just goes straight to the loading windows screen and doesn't give me any type of option to choose what OS i want to use.


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## SteveThePirate (Jan 12, 2012)

When asked where to install the bootloader which partition did you point it to?


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## Vivid (Apr 4, 2012)

the boot partition


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## SteveThePirate (Jan 12, 2012)

OK assuming in Linux your hard drive will be labled sda then try re-installing the Linux distribution again but when it asks you where then select sda (not sda1 or sda2 etc) this will hopefully make windows recognize that a new boot loader is installed at the root of the device.


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## Vivid (Apr 4, 2012)

Ok thanks that got it working hopefully linux mint was worth all this trouble and one last question about updating linux im guessing i only need to download the updates that have to do with mint and not ones that have to do with other linux OS's like oubuntu. and what do the levels mean next to the updates?


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## SteveThePirate (Jan 12, 2012)

Level 1 updates are specific to Linux Mint that the developers have released. Level 2 and 3 is for everything else that has been released by either Ubuntu or the applications and services that are installed such as the web browser and flash player. Level 4 and 5 updates should not appear unless you specifically tell the update manager to, these are untested updates that aren't recommended for beginners and non testers of Mint. 

Because Mint is based on Ubuntu which in turn is based on Debian there will be updates from Ubuntu which is recommended to be installed. 

Hope that helps

Steve


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## Vivid (Apr 4, 2012)

Ok thanks i'll make sure i install the level 1,2, and 3 updates thanks for the help linux has been pretty awesome so far.


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## Vivid (Apr 4, 2012)

I just need to figure out wine now is there any tutorials or anything on linux's website?


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## SteveThePirate (Jan 12, 2012)

What do you need to know about it?


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## Vivid (Apr 4, 2012)

like how it works how to run like a .exe file in it i had no clue lol or how to even install a program onto it


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## SteveThePirate (Jan 12, 2012)

Assuming you have it installed on your system then if for example you have word.exe in a folder, to install it you would do the same process as if you would in windows. WINE will be the automatic choice for these type of files and just boots up the installer. Not all programs are compatible though so depending what program you wish to use it's dependent on whether or not WINE can run it. Use this site to check compatibility. WineHQ - Browse Applications


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## Vivid (Apr 4, 2012)

Ok i don't need to put the .exe file in WINE itself i can just run it from the linux desktop and choose the WINE directory where i want it or just where it would go in the program files.


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## Vivid (Apr 4, 2012)

I managed to install a game and everything but it's still pretty choppy even with the -opengl after the .exe application i seen a comment that i could download microsoft direct x and run it with that but i just get "an internal system error occurred. Please refer to DXError.log and DirectX.log in your windows folder to determine the problem" is direct x doing that because its not compatible with wine?


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## SteveThePirate (Jan 12, 2012)

It has some issues, it might be worth downloading directx from their website for the latest version and see if that makes a difference.


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