This portion of our tutorial will be about downloading and creating a Live PClinuxOS CD.

The first thing is to download what is called an ISO file. This is an image containing all the PClinuxOS files so that you can burn it onto a CD. You can download the iso image from this section of the PClinuxOS website: http://www.pclinuxos.com/index.php?option=com_ionfiles&Itemid=2

When the website opens up it will list off a number of countries. These are the countries that have computers (servers) with the iso software that you need to download. Choose the country that is closest to you.

If you choose a country that is further away then it will take that much longer for the files to transfer. Especially since the file you will be downloading is quite large. For myself, I chose United States since I live in Canada.

You will need to decide where you want to save the ISO file. I chose my desktop becasue it would make it easier for me to find after downloading.

It took about an hour and a half to download on my wireless internet.

Once you have downloaded the files, you will need to burn it to a cd with your burner software. I found that I couldn't use Windows XP's burning program to do this so I had to download a free program. This was CDBurnerXP and can be found at this website: http://www.snapfiles.com/get/cdburnerxp.html

In order to install CDBurnerXP you will need the latest .Net windows update. To check for this, go to Start, All Programs and then Windows Update

When the new window opens, it will offer you to do an express or custom update. Choose custom update. On the left side will be a list for you to choose from. The list will be of required, optional and driver updates. The .Net update should be listed in the optional updates. If it is not in the list, you should already have it installed. Now you can move onto installing CDBurnerXP.

The install of CDBurnerXP is quite simple. Just double click the file and follow all the steps and questions it asks. Once done, you can begin the burning process of the PClinuxOS iso.

Double click your new CDBurnerXP program. It will ask you which language to use. I chose English. It will ask you if you want to create a Data CD/DVD or an Audio CD. Choose Data CD/DVD. When the new window opens, click on File from the menu at the top and choose Burn disc from ISO file. On my computer, when I clicked this, it looked like the program shut down but a new window appeared. Here you will need to show the program where your ISO file is. You will see a button with 3 dots in the top right hand corner.

Click this. You will need to locate the ISO file that you just downloaded. Once you find it, click open and you will be brought back to your Write ISO window. Click on burn disc. The burning process will begin.

What I have found when burning CDs or DVDs is that it doesn't always work. Meaning that the program will tell you that the burning process failed. Don't be discouraged if this happens to you. Try another CD. If it doesn't work again, try changing any options that the program suggests or lastly, try different blank CDs. Some CDs don't work with some CD Drives or programs while others will.

After the burning has successfully completed, you now have a PClinuxOS CD that you can test on your computer.

Just slide it into the computer and reboot. If you system loads up with the cd in the computer and you see PClinuxOS, then you know that your computer can handle PClinuxOS. Once the desktop appears, do some browsing and testing of the programs it has. Check to see if the internet is working. Check to see if you can find and run the Open Office Writer. Unfortunately, the games won't be automatically available. We will get more into the installation of games later on in our tutorials.