[alexrybicki]

If you're really interested I'll upload a quick tour of my desktop/playing minecraft to youtube. It's kind of fun.

That would be awesome (if it's not too much trouble).
I'm dling Linux Mint right now but not sure I'll have time try to boot it tonight.

So here's a question. One of the laptops may have a dead harddrive. It get a no operating system error when trying to boot up (was formerly an XP machine I think). I've read about distros like puppy linux where you can just run everything from RAM. Is this even remotely a possibility for running Minecraft? I'm guessing it's only got maybe 2GB of RAM.

It's pretty easy to record video with the gnome desktop, it's just a quick <Shift><Ctrl><Alt><r> key-press, although as far as I know there wont be audio. Give me a few min and I'll upload something.

As for running the laptop purely with a usb drive...it's possible. 2GB might be a little too low for comfort, you're going to want at least 4GB. I had an old laptop that my uncle gave me for awhile...I didnt even have a hard drive in it and it worked fine for a few months of use.
If you want a technical guide: https://help.ubuntu.com/10.10/installat ... files.html

In ubuntu there's a gui for creating usb boot disks from an ISO, and it's really easy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_Live_USB_creator

I'm pretty sure UNetbootin lets you install to a USB drive as well. You just have to configure your BIOS to boot from the USB drive instead of the HHD.

[jeniansmom]

As for running the laptop purely with a usb drive...it's possible. 2GB might be a little too low for comfort, you're going to want at least 4GB. I had an old laptop that my uncle gave me for awhile...I didnt even have a hard drive in it and it worked fine for a few months of use.
If you want a technical guide: https://help.ubuntu.com/10.10/installat ... files.html

In ubuntu there's a gui for creating usb boot disks from an ISO, and it's really easy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_Live_USB_creator

I'm pretty sure UNetbootin lets you install to a USB drive as well. You just have to configure your BIOS to boot from the USB drive instead of the HHD.

unetbootin successfully made a bootable USB drive for Linux Mint and I was able to boot the old laptop with it, but it does not see the hard drive, so I guess it's dead. Which in a way makes me happy b/c it gives me reason to experiment with running it from usb..I think I have at least a 4gb stick around here somewhere. Even if it fails it will be frustratingly fun to play around with. lol

[alexrybicki]

As for running the laptop purely with a usb drive...it's possible. 2GB might be a little too low for comfort, you're going to want at least 4GB. I had an old laptop that my uncle gave me for awhile...I didnt even have a hard drive in it and it worked fine for a few months of use.
If you want a technical guide: https://help.ubuntu.com/10.10/installat ... files.html

In ubuntu there's a gui for creating usb boot disks from an ISO, and it's really easy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_Live_USB_creator

I'm pretty sure UNetbootin lets you install to a USB drive as well. You just have to configure your BIOS to boot from the USB drive instead of the HHD.

unetbootin successfully made a bootable USB drive for Linux Mint and I was able to boot the old laptop with it, but it does not see the hard drive, so I guess it's dead. Which in a way makes me happy b/c it gives me reason to experiment with running it from usb..I think I have at least a 4gb stick around here somewhere. Even if it fails it will be frustratingly fun to play around with. lol

hmm, it might be that it doesnt mount the drive. Try installing gparted (sudo apt-get install gparted or click this: apt://gparted ) This should list any and all drives that it can see. If that doesn't work...I'm not sure what to tell you without actually seeing the drive.

[jeniansmom]

hmm, it might be that it doesnt mount the drive. Try installing gparted (sudo apt-get install gparted or click this: apt://gparted ) This should list any and all drives that it can see. If that doesn't work...I'm not sure what to tell you without actually seeing the drive.

Thanks for your help
gparted was already installed and it sees the cd drive and the USB stick just fine. So I went into BIOS to see what I could see there. Hard Disk Self Test says "#10008 - Replace Hard Disk". Oh well. It's a fairly decent machine otherwise...2GHz dual core with 3GB RAM so worth investing a little more time into I think. But not tonight Bed beckons.

[alexrybicki]

hmm, it might be that it doesnt mount the drive. Try installing gparted (sudo apt-get install gparted or click this: apt://gparted ) This should list any and all drives that it can see. If that doesn't work...I'm not sure what to tell you without actually seeing the drive.

Thanks for your help
gparted was already installed and it sees the cd drive and the USB stick just fine. So I went into BIOS to see what I could see there. Hard Disk Self Test says "#10008 - Replace Hard Disk". Oh well. It's a fairly decent machine otherwise...2GHz dual core with 3GB RAM so worth investing a little more time into I think. But not tonight Bed beckons.

hmm, sounds like the SMART is messed up somehow. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.M.A.R.T. It probably has too many faulty segments. I didnt actually look up the error code. I'm currently uploading the video to youtube. My framerate got killed from recording, but I guess that's to be expected. I'm running an Intel i5-2600k overclocked, but with just the integrated video. :/

As soon as I'm done uploading you should be able to see it here:
[youtube]q48mOUGV-6A[/youtube]

[jeniansmom]

looks great!
Thanks for sharing
Will pick your brain more soon.
G'night!

[lizardsrock4]

Ubuntu easy to use and install fast minecraft compatible 600 MB so even if u have like no ram its perfect

[Vailure]

I see my banner made into a video, sweet....


Lack of netflix is annyoing, but it's coming down the pipe...yay

[koalaboy13]

Backtrack 5!(not really) Personally I like KDE with Ubuntu but you could use XFCE if that is too slow. It may also be possible to boot off an SDHC card instead of a hard drive. Not all BIOSes support it but it lets you keep the OS off the drive without needing a flash drive always plugged in. Alternately you could force Ubuntu to load into RAM but that uses a LOT of memory.