Hi, Paulvdh Well I think I have figured out that my old Core 2 Duo laptop is actually a 64 bit machine (I had assumed that it was 32 bit) and I have found an option to boot it from a DVD. I see no option to boot it from a USB stick. I have downloaded an ISO image after learning what that is supposed to be. But now the process of Windows 10 verifying the ISO image seems too dang complicated.
If your laptop has USB then it is likely that it can boot from it. For some systems it is however done via the boot order for (hard) disks. The USB stick will be shown as one of the options in the boot order selection instead of heaving a special option to place USB in general above normal disks.
Yes the laptop has USB and everything works with no known issues. I liked your earlier comment about needing to run back and forth due to forgetting the thumb drive. Ahhh! Just now on a hunch…I tried plugging in the USB drive before turning on the computer…and indeed now it does list it.
OK thanks! It is bedtime here now but I will look into this further tomorrow…
Many corporate users stuck to 32 bit to this day because they were nervous of compatibility with some dodgy Excel VBA macro that was critical to Accounts
Thank goodness I was never an accountant. Maybe it was caused by COVID->massive unemployment but several USA states not so long ago had to draw (was it COBOL?) programmers out of retirement to deal with the surge in unemployment cases. I guess they are still running 40 year old IBM mainframes.
I learned FORTRAN in college; we would punch a deck of computer cards to run simulations on a networked IBM 360 system at Research Triangle Park. Go to our computer center, punch the cards, hand them to a clerk and wait maybe minutes or maybe hours for a printout, depending upon how busy they were. Usually try to go late at night.
I’m having breakfast while you’re half an hour late for bed 
In the 32 bit thread I already wrote about the “Pentium 4” series of processors:
Here is the procedure for verifying an ISO image on Windoze:
https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=291093
Also:
If I remember well, some (old?) PCs or Laptops can not boot from all USB ports. It’s possible that some work, while others don’t.
I recently completed this trauma with my desktop.
I downloaded Mint Cinnamon through Firefox onto a USB. The instructions were VERY easy to understand and follow. If you are having problems with whatever Linux you are considering, I would recommend going to the Linux Mint site and at least reading through their instructions to clarify any confusion you have.
Out of curiosity I also downloaded Mint to a DVD. Running Mint from a DVD was just a little slower than the USB stick.
Hi, jmk
Yesterday I indeed went to Linux Mint site and attempted to follow the instructions. I downloaded Etcher and ran it. But the Linux Mint site gives me this image of what I should see:
But what Etcher actually gives me is this:
So the instructions do not match what I see… I guess I am again in the situation of try this and try that?
Well I am now flashing…I hope I do not vanish in a flash…
Some success and some not so much… Launched Linux Mint; computer froze after opening a .docx file. Forced shutdown. Now Launched Linux Mint in compatibility mode and have opened a .xls file. I was surprised that these opened in Libre Office. The real key will be to see if I can run KiCad from Linux Mint running from a USB stick.(??). I have not yet taken the leap to install Linux Mint. I should not provide an extended running commentary here. But thanks everyone for pitching in to help.
Ahhh… The original Sneaker-Net. My father had stories of the quad at Northeastern turning white with discarded punch cards during exam time (mid-terms and finals).
I have taken the plunge and installed Linux Mint along Win32 with a partitioned HDD. Linux Mint has frozen once or twice already and I did a forced reboot. But now I am trying to figure out how to install a KiCad nightly. I need a recent nightly because my KiCad files are in version 5.99.
I am looking at https://kicad.org/download/linux-mint/
- Open the Software Manager.
- Select ‘Edit’ → ‘Software Sources…’.
But my software manager does not have an “Edit” button. I am pretty much stuck at the moment…
It’s an error on the KiCad website.
That part should be “Update Manager”.
Which stumbles directly into the next error on the KiCad Website.
The “other software tab” should be “PPA’s”.
(Almost looks like KiCad documentation is a bit stale).
It’s also possible there are some small differences between different flavours of Mint. (I’ve got Mint 20something with Mate Desktop at the moment).
I have not used the nightlies myself yet.
This looks like a good opportunity to install them.
I’ll be back in (hopefully) 10 minutes or so…
I’m back. In the meantime successfully installed Kicad-nightly 5.99.
Steps:
1.“Update Manager” / Edit / Software Sources -> Enter Password -> [Authenticate]
2. PPA’s / Add / “ppa:kicad/kicad-dev-nightly” [OK].
3. “Refresh” (this updates the database with programs that can be installed).
On a fresh install of Linux Mint, you probably have to “Install Updates” a few times, and this may require a few reboots. Reboots are not very common for Linux, but there has a lot been going on in the Linux Kernel lately, ant that is one of the few parts that need a reboot.
After you’ve added the “ppa:kicad/kicad-dev-nightly” to the packages database, you can exit the “Update Manager” (or leave it open, whatever) and open the “Software Manager”.
In the “Software Manager” you can search for Kicad, and then install the nightlies:
Thanks. Well before your last update I tried to install from Update manager. That got me a bunch of unintelligible choices. But now I go to software manager and that is installing without giving me any choice of builds.
You can search for the nightlys in the search bar.
It is divided into separate parts, so you can choose whether you want to install footprints, templates, etc.
I think I only selected “Kicad-nightly” and it installed all other sub packages also.
I do not get what you show. “No matching packages found” Maybe my entry in the update manager is wrong? I have kicad dev (nightly) and (nightly-sources). I do now know what is the difference. Keep in mind that this is on another laptop so I look there and type here…not doing copy paste to this forum. I understand if you might be doing other things…thanks for your help so far but I understand if you bail if you need to.
Update Manager / Edit / Software Sources / PPA’s
should list the nightlies.
I have both the repositories for 5.1 and the nightly listed.
Forget the “(Sources)”. Those are for the source code and not needed for mortals.
Thanks I did include both. I will go back to software manager and try again.
No it is not found. Maybe I need to change software mirror or something like that?
BTW this thread is supposed to be about XP. But I hope that an admin running this site can wait until I get this sorted out before moving or changing everything!
Changing mirror is advisable after a fresh install of Linux Mint because it searches for the fastest (closest?) mirror. But it is not the problem.
You can do that by clicking the boxes at “mirrors” (See mouse cursor)
Did you refresh the repositories in the update manager?
Installing Linux is the best solution to running KiCad on XP 
I normally prefer to use the command line for installing programs.
Copying some lines of text, and pasting them in a terminal window is just simpler and quicker then searching through menu’s.
You can do this by first closing the Update Manager and Software manager ( these lock the databases that the command line uitilities need) then open a terminal window with: [Ctrl + Alt + T] and then paste and execute the following 3 lines one by one.
sudo add-apt-repository --yes ppa:kicad/kicad-dev-nightly
sudo apt update
sudo apt install kicad-nightly
Well the software manager still refuses to give me access to the nightlies. I will try to access this page via Firefox on the laptop in question and try from there. But I don’t have any logins on that computer so this will take me a little while.
Well I logged in quickly but stuck again. Am I supposed to include your italic text including “yes”?
bob@bob-Latitude-D630:~$ sudo add-apt-repository
Error: need a repository as argument
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
An earlier comment mentioned “dodgy VBA programming.” 10 years ago I struggled with VBA and would have been happier if I could produce dodgy programs which ran sometimes.
I understand you are trying to explain this to me but I have no idea what I am doing here.
I think I need to figure out why software manager is not finding the nightlies.
sudo = "Do the following command with the privileges of another user (usually root)
add-apt-repository = Name of the command to execute.
–yes = Parameter to the command: Accept “yes” to possible questions (may be omitted)
ppa:kicad/kicad-dev-nightly = Name of the repository to install.
so yes, you need the “ppa…” part.
I copied the text directly from: https://kicad.org/download/linux-mint/
and there it was not italic. It’s just a quirk of this forum software I guess.