Complete noob struggle to install Clear linux on disk partition

Q&A
1

Hello !

So, I had the wonderful idea to install clear linux on an old laptop to bring second life to it.
Long story short, it has been 2 days and I can’t even install the thing !

My goal : keep Windows 8.1 and partition my hard drive to install clear linux alongside Windows, I only have one single hard drive

So, here is what I did so far :
-Created & formated a usb flashdrive with Clear Linux
-Reduce the Windows partition to create some unallocated space
-I created two new partitions because I saw that you need one for boot and one the OS itself
-I rebooted my computer and accessed the BIOS
-Disabled safeboot
-boot on the USB to access clear linux live desktop
-launch installation from there

And this is the part where I don’t understand :
After selecting the language&localization options, I have to select the installation media
Selecting safe installation gets me the error “no safe media found”
I’ve read that I should go with advanced installation, so I did and it opened Gparted

There there is already something not showing the same as the pictures I saw online, for me the partition appear on the same disk, they are not on a new device like I saw on the web, so I have no idea if in the first place I partitionned the disk correctly

I however tried to format one partition in ext4 and one in fat32, but I don’t understand how to configure labes and boot point, like in the " Table 1. Default partition schema"
Can you even do it with Gparted ?

In the end I reformated the two partitions in clear, and kinda stopped because I have no idea what I did wrong, what to do next, or anything. Here is what Gparted shows me :

image
image1920×1080 274 KB

If there is any charitable soul, that would be appreciated, sorry in advance, my message is probably unclear but I’ll do my best to clarify anything you need.

Thanks

2

I recommended using the available space to install CL. I’ve tried making my own custom partition scheme in the past, and It does not work very well.

3

Thanks, but keep in mind, I’m a noob, what do you mean by that ?

Because if I have no option in linux to select any media for installation, except going the destructive one, and I don’t want to.

4

Keep in your disk only the Windows partitions, the rest of the space should be free.

Choose Safe Installation.

image

If you want to install CL into a laptop, use Enable Encryption to keep safe your data system.

Extracted by: Install Clear Linux* OS from the live desktop — Documentation for Clear Linux* project

Always perform a backup of your data.

5

image
(image not from my computer, just for clarity)

Thanks !
If I remove the partitions, I don’t get free space, but “unallocated space”, and when trying to go through the safe installation, it says the exact error there is on your image, and I can’t go any further

6

If that is free space to use you probably just need to format it as ext4, or create partition with 7.52GiB then format it with ext4 if selecting “Partition” Format to is greyed out.

7

You need more space in your image at the top just only have free 1.71MiB

image
image1380×776 114 KB

8

I did at some point ! but still no media found, however I got a new usb flashdrive, completely restarted from scratch and did the exact same thing, and now it worked lol !

Must have been a bug at some point I guess !

It’s currently installing, thanks for the help !

9

I don’t know but check your partition scheme.