Download and test Starbuntu:

After the download of its ISO image the Live System of Starbuntu (64 bit) can be burnt on a DVD or written on a USB memory stick and then can be booted from there (user name: benutzer; password: starbuntu). In case the boot process gets stuck, you boot once more but now in debug mode. Anyway, with this boot you can test Starbuntu without modifying the contents of the internal hard disk, and possibly install it on a storage medium.

In case you want to test Starbuntu's live system for longer, you could save it to a partition of the internal hard drive (example of partition label: 'Data_Partition' of the partition /dev/nvme0n1p7) and then make it bootable with a GRUB2 menu entry in the file /etc/grub.d/40_custom. The entry could have the following text:

menuentry "Starbuntu Live Medium" {

search.fs_label Data_Partition root   # 'Data_Partition' is just an example! See above!

set isofile=/Starbuntu-latest.iso

loopback loop $isofile

linux (loop)/live/vmlinuz boot=live fromiso=/dev/nvme0n1p7$isofile   # 'nvme0n1p7' is just an example! See above!

initrd (loop)/live/initrd

}   # End of the menu entry

Subsequently you have to execute the terminal command sudo update-grub. From now on the menu item "Starbuntu Live Medium" appears in the GRUB2 Boot Table which you can select and boot.

Installation instruction:

1. The partition intended for the installation should have a size of at least 16GB, preferably 32 GB.

2. First, boot the Starbuntu live system, start the disk management program 'gparted' and, if necessary, set up the target partition with a name as well as a small partition of size 32 MB, format it with fat32, name it 'EFI' and mark it as 'boot,esp' if such a partition does not yet exist on the target disk. Then exit gparted.

3. Then click on the desktop icon 'Starbuntu Installation'. At the beginning, a window appears for entering the user name, login name, login portrait, user password and root password, each with the password entry repeated. Then you specify the hostname and the partition for the installation and click on 'OK'.

4. The next window either lists any input errors found, which can be corrected by clicking on 'Back', or it shows an overview of the selected defaults. You should check this carefully again, because once you click on 'OK', the installation begins, which is commented on step by step.

5. After installation, the GRUB2 boot loader is located both at the beginning of the target partition and in the master boot record (MBR) that precedes each partition on the disk. When booting, GRUB2 opens a one-dimensional, unnested boot menu with all file systems on the disk.

6. If you are in traditional legacy mode, you could instead write a GRUB2 selection table for the relevant partitions into the master boot record, which is explained in more detail here. This way you get a two-dimensional nested GRUB2 menu structure.

During the boot process of your freshly installed system a language selection box appears with the alternatives English, French, German, Italian or Spanish. Please select your preferred language. After the system has changed to the selected language the desktop screen appears.

In case the boot process of the freshly installed file systems should get stuck, your computer is probably having problems with the Plymouth boot splash program. In this case, press the 'e' key as soon as the GRUB2 menu appears, remove the entry 'quiet splash' from the 'linux ...' line and then press the F10 key. After booting successfully, enter the command 'sudo e /etc/default/grub' in the terminal, authenticate yourself with your password, remove the entry 'quiet splash' from the line 'GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT= ...', save and finally enter the command 'sudo update-grub' in the terminal. This means that the GRUB2 entry you changed remains permanently changed.

If the problem still persists, please act as follows:

1. Reboot your computer.

2. As soon as the GRUB2 selection table appears press the key 'c'.

3. The GRUB2 prompt appears and waits for manually typed commands which have to be confirmed with Return. Please be aware that in this moment of the boot process your keyboard is still English and thus some keys don't match their labels:

4. Type search.fs_label <hostname> root

5. The next command is configfile /boot/grub/grub.cfg

6. Finally start the boot process with Return.

If that doesn't work either, there is an alternative:

1. Reboot your computer.

2. As soon as the GRUB2 selection table appears press the key 'c' again.

3. Type again: search.fs_label <hostname> root

4. The next command is: linux /vmlinuz root=LABEL=<hostname> ro nomodeset   # (nomodeset only if it doesn't work otherwise)

5. Now type: initrd /initrd.img

6. Now start the boot process by entering boot

Good luck!

Update Starbuntu:

After having installed Starbuntu successfully you should update the distribution from time to time. This is the case when the installed Starbuntu version (see /etc/lsb-release: DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Starbuntu <installed version> LTS") doesn't match any longer with the newest one (see www.die-starfingers.de/Starbuntu). In this case you download the newest version starbuntu-utils-...-all.deb as Debian package and then you install this package e.g. by means of gdebi.

If you use the Starbuntu program upgrade which reminds you every 8 days of a new system upgrade this checkup is executed automatically and Starbuntu gets updated on request.