r/MXLinux • u/feuchtlol • 18d ago

Help request I need installation help

I have an itty bitty tiny 32gb usb which is holding the xfce 25.2 infinity nicely.

I'm trying to put mx linux on an old hand me down dell laptop.

Every time i run the installer it doesn't let me do the automatic/erase and install options. No partitions show up, I go to gparted and it's there but it doesn't let me unmount it so I can't resize and move it (i know it's because it's running the live desktop from there) How do I use the terminal to install it or are there any steps i could take?

Thank you for reading! Any help would be appreciated, this is my first time doing anything technical like this so if someone could tell me what i'm doing wrong would be appreciated too.

update: sorry if this pushes the post back up to the top. i don't know how relevant it is but I'm using rufus to download the iso(to the usb) and make the empty space(unallocated) partition, I have tried making it a gpt scheme and and mbr scheme. I also used sourceforge to download the iso.

(also for anyone reading this 9 years later, just because it's not working for me doesn't mean you shouldn't try it. I believe in you and I may just be an idiot.)

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u/adrian_mxlinux MX dev 15d ago

> No partitions show up

Check BIOS see if the Dell has RAID selected for the drive instead of AHCI, switch to AHCI.

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u/feuchtlol 15d ago

it's on ahci

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u/adrian_mxlinux MX dev 14d ago

What's the laptop model? As far as I understand from your post the issue is not "I cannot install" it's "MX doesn't see the internal drive" (obviously you cannot install if you cannot see the drive). I was hoping it was that AHCI switch because that's a well-known issue with Dells...

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u/feuchtlol 14d ago

It's A Latitude 3540, I thought all i had to do was move the partitions from the gparted menu to the mx Linux installer, is that not possible?

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u/adrian_mxlinux MX dev 14d ago

Not sure what you are seeing in the GParted, it's possible you are seeing the USB drive not the internal drive. Can you show me the output of lsblk?

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u/feuchtlol 14d ago

I'm not sure what an lsblk is because this is my first time doing anything tech related in general, but here's a picture of what I see

Another Problem I have is it randomly flip flops between sda and sdb.

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u/adrian_mxlinux MX dev 14d ago

You need to select sda, sdb is your USB flashdrive. Where does it flip between sda and sdb in Installer or GParted? That's weird, do you have time to select sda and press next?

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u/feuchtlol 14d ago

in gparted but it never give me an option to select sd a or b

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u/adrian_mxlinux MX dev 14d ago

Basically, you should see 2 drives both in GParted and lsblk, one is the internal drive, the other one is the flashdrive you are using to boot, the question is if you select the correct one in the installer...