Question for linux users.

I'm about to install and check out Linux Storm or maybe a copy of Red Hat on one of my older comp's here at the place. Just simply because I'm getting sick of going thru all the crap with Microsloth everytime the wind changes. What does a guy need to know before he installs for the first time? And is linux very complicated to use? I noticed in the other thread there's A virtual machine program out for it as well. How does this help the overall useability of the Linux system? Thanks for all the tip's I can get on this one ^_^ .:attention: :nrocks:

1. first find out if they have support for your cpu. some don't have support fort 64-bit out of the box. this means you'll have to build a new kernel. PITA for a newbie

2. Slice up your hard drive
This is how I dual boot XP and Linux on one IDE HDD. I've probably done this at least 50 times.

Step 1.

Defrag your WinXP partition.

(You'll be resizing it and probably don't want files broken or scattered)

Step 2.

Resize your WinXP partition.

Use whatever program you want and are comfortable to shrink your partition

You will need at least 500MB for a linux swapspace partition and about 10GB for the distro

Step 3.

Lets's slice up your hard drive now

1. Create an 'extended' partition to hold your linux partitions.

2. Create a logical Linux Swap partition of at least 500MB at the beginning of free space.

3. Create a logical Linux(ext3,reiserfs,xfs) partition at the beginning of free space.

If all went smoothly your drive should be sliced up and looking like this.

http://img85.imageshack.us/img85/7836/partirk9pr2.png

Most linux distros will now recognize your drives as:

wind@wsXP = /dev/hda1

Linux Swap = /dev/hda5

Linux = /dev/hda6

Step 4.

Install your distro to /dev/hda6.
Install either GRUB or Lilo in the MBR.

Remember: Never delete your linux partition without first restoring the MBR to its original state.

3. Install Linux. if you find you don't like the flavor try another one. if you followed the above directions just re-install GRUB or LILO and everything should boot up fine.

4. i would suggest trying Zenwalk or Debian Etch. Zenwalk is very fast and will boot on 64-bit boxes. Debian has over 15,000 packages in its repository.

i think i see where i might have gone wrong. no wonder my harddrive is acting weird.

Silver -> how to did you restrore MBR to its original state?

2 thanks for the instructions.

I use 4 partitions. First is Winblows about 20GB, second is linux, 3rd is linux swap space. The remainder of the HD is a Fat32 partition I have named OSShare because both winblows and linux can access that one. I have the first 2 as primary and set the boot.ini file to recognize linux. so at startup I have a choice of which to boot into.

AS a noob to linux, i would try ubuntu. super easy to use and learn on. PM me if you want a detail description of how i did dual boot and installation on my laptop.

i think i see where i might have gone wrong. no wonder my harddrive is acting weird.

Silver -> how to did you restrore MBR to its original state?

2 thanks for the instructions.


Take your installation CD. Reboot with the CD in the drive and let it fire all the way up. You'll have three choices. Select R for repair.

You'll be asked which wind@ws installation you wish to repair, give it the answer, and then give the admin password.

Once at the prompt, type: FIXMBR

Answer yes, then type Exit. You should be able to boot into wind@ws at that point.

You can then boot from your Linux install CD and repair/redo your boot options in the manner you wish to set them.

http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/linux-newbie/32665-way-restore-mbr.html

thanx che

personally i have never restored my own MBR, several friends have had me fix theirs in the last couple of years. something i found very useful is a Kanotix 2006 RC3 Cebit Edition LiveCD. it has a tool to restore the 'original' MBR

Kanotix is a great debian sid based distro, unfortunately they have rumored to be moving to an ubuntu base

Kanotix is a great debian sid based distro, unfortunately they have rumored to be moving to an ubuntu base

Why would that be bad? Is ubuntu bad? That's the one I went with to try out linux and I kinda like it (I admit I don't know anything about linux at the point and have only had it loaded for 2 days).

Any info would be greatly appreciated.

Why would that be bad? Is ubuntu bad? That's the one I went with to try out linux and I kinda like it (I admit I don't know anything about linux at the point and have only had it loaded for 2 days).

Any info would be greatly appreciated.

Just ask :)
http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/
http://loll.sourceforge.net/


Don't know if it's safe :D
http://www.ebookspyder.net/index.php

& of course:
http://distrowatch.com/


personally i have never restored my own MBR, several friends have had me fix theirs in the last couple of years. something i found very useful is a Kanotix 2006 RC3 Cebit Edition LiveCD. it has a tool to restore the 'original' MBR

Kanotix is a great debian sid based distro, unfortunately they have rumored to be moving to an ubuntu base

or just dd ;)