Beginners Level Course: Configure Your PC to Boot from the CD/DVD drive
Configure Your PC to "Boot From A CD/DVD" You can start a Linux installation right from the CD/DVD drive. The way to find out is to look at your computer's BIOS. There's really no need here to go into what your BIOS is or what it does. (Just Google "how to change bios boot order") and enough help will be online...
When you turn on your computer, there's a little message that says 'Press DEL to enter setup'. If you don't see this message, your PC manufacturer has probably hidden it behind their own "Splash Screen" containing their logo. Just hit DEL anyway. Pressing DEL when your computer boots up will get you into the BIOS setup tools. It won't get you into trouble, unless of course you start pressing buttons randomly. You'll see a blue screen pop up with some menu items. What you need to select is the item 'BIOS FEATURES SETUP' You'll see some more menu items. There's one that says 'Boot sequence'. That's the one you want. If you use the page up/ page down keys, you can set this item so that it says CD-ROM first. That just means that it will look for the disk in your CD-ROM/DVD drive first when the computer boots. Press ESC and then choose the item 'SAVE AND EXIT SETUP'. Don't forget to set it back to 'C' when you're finished installing Linux. We'll remind you later.
If you can't boot from your CD there's an option to create a boot floppy. In your machine's BIOS, you might just see A,C - C,A and there's no CD-ROM mentioned there. Don't panic. You can make a boot floppy. They often come with boxed sets, but if yours didn't come with one, we'll cover how to create one further along.
