This will be the first of a series, that covers multiple distros. Why did I pick Mint first?
No particular reason, it's a good, popular, well rounded distro. I will not make any attempt to grade these installs, I am just showing you how to do it. This tutorial assumes you already have MInt 22.1 USB created, and that you have a blank formatted disk in your computer. I will not be covering how to do dual boot, or any advanced things like that. This is just the basics. Maybe I will do the advanced stuff later.
Put lets put your USB drive in your computer, and boot up. This is the tricky part. Different computers do things differently.
If there is no bootable OS on your hard drive, your computer will most likely biit from the USB thumb drive. If it doesn't, you might see something similar to this.
Except yours will say "UEFI USB Device" or something similar. This is called your boot menu. Yours most likely won't look exactly like this one, but it will be similar. Just use your up and down arrow keys to select the USB drive and press enter.
If all goes according to plan, you should see something similar to this. This is called a grub boot menu. Usually this just stays up for a few seconds. As soon as you see it, you can use your up and down arrow keys to interrupt it. For now, we will just use the first option at the top. Go ahead and press enter.
Eventually, you should see something like this. Congratulations, you are officially booted into Linux. You can try different things at this point and make sure the internet works, and your sound works. Or, we can just double click on the "Install Linux Mint" CD Rom picture at the top of your screen. This will install Mint Linux to your hard drive.
This will be your first installation screen. Basically, you are just picking the language you want to use. But the next screen will let you give more details about your language. Once you've selected what you want, just click on "Continue" at the bottom.
Now you can give more specific detals about your language. You can use your mouse to select your language, and which dialect of that language you want to use. If you live n the US, you can just use the defaults here. Once you've selected what you want, just click on "Continue".
Now it will ask you if you want to use multimedia codecs. If you don't know what these are, go ahead and click "Install multimedia codecs". It will then ask you to enter a password. This isn't your login password. But you can use whatever your login password will be. This is the only distro I know of that requires this. I'm not sure why it does this.
Now of this particular computer, I only have one hard drive. I don't see an option to select which hard I want to use if I have multiple hard drives. But in this case I want to use the top option. I want to erase my entire hard drive and install Linux. I will assume that's what you want to do. If you don't want to erase your hard drive, stop now. Remove your USB drive and reboot. Otherwise click on "Install now".
It will tell you what it's going to do, for now we will just go with the defaults.
It will then ask you what time zone you are in. Usually it will detect this automatically, but if it doesn't, just click on the correct time zone and select "Continue".
Now we have to type in a few things. You need to put a user name in here. My name is Ray, so I just used ray, but it can be anything you want for the most part. No spaces. You can also name your computer anything you want. Again, no spaces. Finally you'll need to enter a password. You'll have to enter it twice. This is to make sure you didn't make a mistake the first time. Make sure this is a password you can remember. Write is down if you have to. But you absolutely need to remember this password. Otherwise you won't be able to use your computer after the install. Once that is done click on "Continue".
Next, you should see this screen. The important part is the blue line at the bottom of the screen. Right now your computer is gathering up all the files it needs to install Mint Linux to your computer. While this is happening, there is a little slide show we can watch.
..and the blue bar continues to grow across the screen. This can take several minutes, dpending on how fast your computer is.
Now we get another screen, with another blue bar to watch. Do not click on "Skip" here. Wait until the blue line goes completely across the screen.
Now it's finished installing to your hard drive. Go ahead and click on "Restart now". Once the screen goes black, you can pull your USB drive out. The computer should boot from your hard drive now.
Another thing about Mint, that is a little different from most distro's, is something called a MOK. (Machine Owner Key).
If you don't know what this is, for now just use your your up and down keys and select "Continue boot".
Now you should see this screen. Congratulations, you have successfully installed Linux. Go ahead and type in the password I told you not to forget. Once again.. Remember this passord! Don't forget it tomorrow. Press enter to login.
Now you will see a screen like this. You can go through the tutorial on your screen if you like. I would recommend going through it if you haven't used Linux before.
Once you are done with the tutorial, you can click on the little circular "LM" logo at the bottom let corner of your screen. This is where all your programs are. You're done! Happy Linux'ing! (Is Linux'ing a word?)
No particular reason, it's a good, popular, well rounded distro. I will not make any attempt to grade these installs, I am just showing you how to do it. This tutorial assumes you already have MInt 22.1 USB created, and that you have a blank formatted disk in your computer. I will not be covering how to do dual boot, or any advanced things like that. This is just the basics. Maybe I will do the advanced stuff later.
Put lets put your USB drive in your computer, and boot up. This is the tricky part. Different computers do things differently.
If there is no bootable OS on your hard drive, your computer will most likely biit from the USB thumb drive. If it doesn't, you might see something similar to this.
Except yours will say "UEFI USB Device" or something similar. This is called your boot menu. Yours most likely won't look exactly like this one, but it will be similar. Just use your up and down arrow keys to select the USB drive and press enter.
If all goes according to plan, you should see something similar to this. This is called a grub boot menu. Usually this just stays up for a few seconds. As soon as you see it, you can use your up and down arrow keys to interrupt it. For now, we will just use the first option at the top. Go ahead and press enter.
This will be your first installation screen. Basically, you are just picking the language you want to use. But the next screen will let you give more details about your language. Once you've selected what you want, just click on "Continue" at the bottom.
Now you can give more specific detals about your language. You can use your mouse to select your language, and which dialect of that language you want to use. If you live n the US, you can just use the defaults here. Once you've selected what you want, just click on "Continue".
Now it will ask you if you want to use multimedia codecs. If you don't know what these are, go ahead and click "Install multimedia codecs". It will then ask you to enter a password. This isn't your login password. But you can use whatever your login password will be. This is the only distro I know of that requires this. I'm not sure why it does this.
Now of this particular computer, I only have one hard drive. I don't see an option to select which hard I want to use if I have multiple hard drives. But in this case I want to use the top option. I want to erase my entire hard drive and install Linux. I will assume that's what you want to do. If you don't want to erase your hard drive, stop now. Remove your USB drive and reboot. Otherwise click on "Install now".
It will tell you what it's going to do, for now we will just go with the defaults.
It will then ask you what time zone you are in. Usually it will detect this automatically, but if it doesn't, just click on the correct time zone and select "Continue".
Now we have to type in a few things. You need to put a user name in here. My name is Ray, so I just used ray, but it can be anything you want for the most part. No spaces. You can also name your computer anything you want. Again, no spaces. Finally you'll need to enter a password. You'll have to enter it twice. This is to make sure you didn't make a mistake the first time. Make sure this is a password you can remember. Write is down if you have to. But you absolutely need to remember this password. Otherwise you won't be able to use your computer after the install. Once that is done click on "Continue".
Next, you should see this screen. The important part is the blue line at the bottom of the screen. Right now your computer is gathering up all the files it needs to install Mint Linux to your computer. While this is happening, there is a little slide show we can watch.
..and the blue bar continues to grow across the screen. This can take several minutes, dpending on how fast your computer is.
Now we get another screen, with another blue bar to watch. Do not click on "Skip" here. Wait until the blue line goes completely across the screen.
Now it's finished installing to your hard drive. Go ahead and click on "Restart now". Once the screen goes black, you can pull your USB drive out. The computer should boot from your hard drive now.
Another thing about Mint, that is a little different from most distro's, is something called a MOK. (Machine Owner Key).
If you don't know what this is, for now just use your your up and down keys and select "Continue boot".
Now you should see this screen. Congratulations, you have successfully installed Linux. Go ahead and type in the password I told you not to forget. Once again.. Remember this passord! Don't forget it tomorrow. Press enter to login.
Now you will see a screen like this. You can go through the tutorial on your screen if you like. I would recommend going through it if you haven't used Linux before.
Once you are done with the tutorial, you can click on the little circular "LM" logo at the bottom let corner of your screen. This is where all your programs are. You're done! Happy Linux'ing! (Is Linux'ing a word?)
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