Linux scares me..........

[crisp82]

So when they coded Linux, I think they put something in there to make it not like me 😀. Managed to get it to install, but it AFAIK wiped my 98 install (which I guess means that Linux has to install on the first HD as well). Could boot into it, but being a Windows Fanboi (love the title) I haven't a clue what I was doing. Was like watching a demolitions expert try to build a building 🙂. Plus the driver issues I had 🙁. Am I a big girl and being a wuss. Should I go and install Mandrake again for a dual boot XP/Mandrake setup?

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

You should read up and find out what it's doing under the hood, so you're not confused when the windows-work-alike-bugs-included gui messes up.

 

[Chaotic42]

Linux can install itself wherever. It doesn't have to be the first HD. It should have asked you at some point where you wanted to install it.

Linux refers to your hard drives (all IDE and SCSI drives and devices actually) thusly:

hdXY for IDE
sdXY for SCSI

X is a letter. It's the device (the physical drive). The first (or primary master) is "a". The primary slave is "b". See?
Y is a number. It's the partition number. The first is 1, the second is 2, the third is 3. Logical drives start at 5 (4 being the extended partition)

Windows 98 likes to be on hda1, or the first partition on the primary master drive. Linux can be on hda1, hdq13 or whatever (though you have problems if you have an hdq13 😉).

It will ask you where to install the root or "/" file system. You need unpartitioned (cfdisk calls this free space) space. In that, you'll create a linux partition. It will likely have the ext2 filesystem.

If your whole drive is devoted to Windows, you'll need to defragment, then run a partition managment program to shrink it. Either that, or get a new drive.

Grab a copy of "Running Linux" if you're serious about this. It's got a bunch of info in it.

Let me know if I can help with anything.

 

[imported_Phil]

crisp82, to be honest, Linux scares me too. I had Mandrake 9 on my machine on a test HD once, and for the life of me I couldn't work out what half the error messages meant. I'm guessing because I've gotten so used to Windows (since 3.11 lol) that it's difficult to jump into another OS.

If you're really serious about it, go find a bookstore and find some Teach Yourself Linux books or similar, always better as a reference tool than nothing! 🙂

Dopefiend

 

[crisp82]

Software never scares me. Maybe I'm being a Big Girls Blouse about this, but it is soooooo much different to Windows (not that I'm naive and was expecting a Windows Clone). Guess I just found myself in a rut. Couldn't run Windows 98 (error message was "Enter command line interperator address" or summit). Should I give it another go?

I need reasons and address for docs ppl!

 

[Farfrael]

Another of those useless threads ...

being a Windows Fanboi (love the title) I haven't a clue what I was doing

No surprise here. And OF COURSE you didn't take 5 minutes of your time to actually Read The F(amous) Manual, did you ?
Did you also try driving your car without learning anything beforehand ?

Should I give it another go?

No, do yourself a favor and stick with WinXP and all its nice features (activation process : you DID buy your version of XP didn't you ? Calling home etc etc )

As for some documentation about Linux .... i guess google hasn't yet appeared in your part of the Internet ...

Try ldp.org and justlinux.com you might find something usefull there 😉

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

Originally posted by: crisp82
Software never scares me. Maybe I'm being a Big Girls Blouse about this, but it is soooooo much different to Windows (not that I'm naive and was expecting a Windows Clone). Guess I just found myself in a rut. Couldn't run Windows 98 (error message was "Enter command line interperator address" or summit). Should I give it another go?

I need reasons and address for docs ppl!

linux docs 🙂

 

[crisp82]

Another of those useless threads ...

Nope

No surprise here. And OF COURSE you didn't take 5 minutes of your time to actually Read The F(amous) Manual, did you ?

Yep (or at least some stuff)

Did you also try driving your car without learning anything beforehand ?

Don't drive

No, do yourself a favor and stick with WinXP and all its nice features (activation process : you DID buy your version of XP didn't you ? Calling home etc etc )

Nope

As for some documentation about Linux .... i guess google hasn't yet appeared in your part of the Internet ...

Google can be vague. So can some of youi guys come to think about it.

Try ldp.org and justlinux.com you might find something usefull there

Thank you.

 

[Derango]

Well, your windows install might actually still be there. It probably messed up when it tried to set up the dual boot....

On second thought, since its mandrake, it should have done that on its own. Weird.

You might also want to try to head over to tinyminds.org (link in my sig). The whole point of tinyminds is to help out linux users of all skill levels, espcially the newbie 🙂 I think you'll find the climate a bit friendler than here (at times anyway) (espically as soon as Amesh finds this thread 😉 )

 

[spyordie007]

Originally posted by: Farfrael
Another of those useless threads ...
No surprise here. And OF COURSE you didn't take 5 minutes of your time to actually Read The F(amous) Manual, did you ?
Did you also try driving your car without learning anything beforehand ?

Should I give it another go?

No, do yourself a favor and stick with WinXP and all its nice features (activation process : you DID buy your version of XP didn't you ? Calling home etc etc )
As for some documentation about Linux .... i guess google hasn't yet appeared in your part of the Internet ...
Try ldp.org and justlinux.com you might find something usefull there 😉

No need to be a dick about it man, crisp I applaud your willingness to try something new!

I'm sure you learned an important lesson last time, I would definetly recommend trying again (and keep trying until you feel comfortable). Just be aware that learing something entirely new (anything, not just linux) can sometimes be a hard process so you may need a little extra patience as you get started. Dont get discouraged if you hose your first few couple of installs, use those mistakes as new learning opportunities!

Just about all of us had a hard time learning the concept of tying shoes, but through learning/trial/error/patience most of us can now do it without even thinking.

-Spy

EDIT: just thought of an even better example in case some of you genious's argue that you didnt have a problem tying your shoes:

How many times did you fall on your @ss while learning to walk?

 

[spyordie007]

BTW, next time if you want to avoid causing problems with your windows install you could always get your hands on another HD and swap out HDs. That way no matter what you do to the linux software all you would have to do is swap HDs and wouldnt ever have to worry about loosing your windows install or files.

-Spy

 

[Nothinman]

Did you also try driving your car without learning anything beforehand ?

I sure did. It wasn't very hard either, my dad pretty much forced me to learn by putting me in the driver's seat and telling me to drive him somewhere.

Google can be vague. So can some of youi guys come to think about it.

I would hazard to say that's usually by design, atleast with us. I know I'll be particularly vague in my answers to just to try to push people in the right direction without answering it for them, my doing all the work doesn't help either of us.

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

Google can be vague. So can some of youi guys come to think about it.

I would hazard to say that's usually by design, atleast with us. I know I'll be particularly vague in my answers to just to try to push people in the right direction without answering it for them, my doing all the work doesn't help either of us.

Yep. As they say, "give a man a fish, and he will eat for a day, teach a man how to fish, and he will eat for a lifetime".

 

[civad]

First of all, I think you should try to insert the WinXP cd and reinstall the bootloader.
In case the Win XP partition is still 'alive' everything should be okay.
That will help you recover from your "initial shock". Back up all your data, do the cd manufacturers a favor by burning a few cds.

Next, you should try to get a little more adventurous. Try reinstalling Mandrake again, this time AFTER reading as much as you can. I know its very difficult to contain one's eagerness, but this is something you have got to do. Better still, if possible, get hold of a good book on linux. Any book on Redhat is good enough for Mandrake 🙂

And Good Luck.

 

[Nothinman]

Yep. As they say, "give a man a fish, and he will eat for a day, teach a man how to fish, and he will eat for a lifetime".

I prefer "give a man a fire and he'll be warm for a day, set a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life", but to each his own I guess =)

 

[steell]

Where did all the crap about XP come from? In his initial post it says 98.

Anyway, when you install Linux, just tell it to install lilo to a floppy, that way it won't mess up your bootloader and when you want to run linux, just boot from the floppy.

Learning new stuff is fun 😀

 

[everman]

Stick with it! You may screw up a few times but doing a dual boot windows/linux isn't very difficult. You can have it install LILO (Linux Loader) which usually works fine.

 

[GonzoDaGr8]

Originally posted by: spyordie007
BTW, next time if you want to avoid causing problems with your windows install you could always get your hands on another HD and swap out HDs. That way no matter what you do to the linux software all you would have to do is swap HDs and wouldnt ever have to worry about loosing your windows install or files.

-Spy

Exactly the reason I use removeable HDD racks. That way, no chance of boning a Win install when I hose linux( Trust me, this happens often being Linux-challenged myself).

You may screw up a few times but doing a dual boot windows/linux isn't very difficult. You can have it install LILO (Linux Loader) which usually works fine.

SuSE and Mandrake make dual-booting extremely easy. Red Hat can sometimes be interesting doing a dual-boot with Windows.

 

[Bleep]

As you notice you get a lot of holier than thou attitude here, I am a new red hat user and a long time member of this forum but I have not ever been able to get a straight answer for anything relating to any specific problem with linux, mostly get the RTFM nazis, that dont think about the dialup person that the manual takes 3 to 4 hours to download.
I finially had to buy redhat and linux for dummies which got me going. 20.00 at the bookstore and worth every nickel.

Bleep

 

[crisp82]

I have another HD which I will probably run Mandrake on. I can't install LILO to a floppy, coz my floppy drive is broken 🙁. I know I should RTFM over and over, but in my eagerness I didn't research as much as I should have😀. Am I gonna have any problems with this hardware (sound card I know I will)?

P2 350mhz
Voodoo2 12mb PCI
RIVA TNT 16mb AGP
Aureal Vortex 2
Gigabyte GA-686BX
Supraexpress 56i pro

I know I should upgrade, but I'm not gonna, so please, no comments about it. Mods, please don't end it, this is helpful.

 

[drag]

AH, don't worry about the RTFM. The traditional way of learning on PC's is:
1 try something you thought was interesting
2. screw it up completely to hell
3. reinstall
4. try again
5. screw it up completely again
6. try to fix it
7. screw it up reEEEAAL bad this time
8. reinstall
9. try again
10. screw it up a little bit
11. RTFM
12. fix it
try something else... (rinse and repeat)

I call it my "Twelve steps to Geek-dom" or "OMG.. my skin is pasty white and my girlfreind stole my cat and won't return my calls... Gee I wonder how NFS works..."

Everybody had to go thru it. Thats why you get the holier than thou attitude sometimes. Cus they've been there done that.

But boot disks are realy a nessesity, especially when playing around with MBR's and boot up stuff. Even when you do EVERYTHING right it WILL still not work sometimes... See if you can grab a bootdisk for windows off of the internet or something like that... (and do get a new floppy drive, people that don't have floppies generally have a OS rescue disk on cd they can boot into to fix things and for that you need a cd burner...)

 

[Chaotic42]

Originally posted by: drag
AH, don't worry about the RTFM. The traditional way of learning on PC's is:
1 try something you thought was interesting
2. screw it up completely to hell
3. reinstall
4. try again
5. screw it up completely again
6. try to fix it
7. screw it up reEEEAAL bad this time
8. reinstall
9. try again
10. screw it up a little bit
11. RTFM
12. fix it
try something else... (rinse and repeat)

I call it my "Twelve steps to Geek-dom" or "OMG.. my skin is pasty white and my girlfreind stole my cat and won't return my calls... Gee I wonder how NFS works..."

Everybody had to go thru it. Thats why you get the holier than thou attitude sometimes. Cus they've been there done that.

But boot disks are realy a nessesity, especially when playing around with MBR's and boot up stuff. Even when you do EVERYTHING right it WILL still not work sometimes... See if you can grab a bootdisk for windows off of the internet or something like that... (and do get a new floppy drive, people that don't have floppies generally have a OS rescue disk on cd they can boot into to fix things and for that you need a cd burner...)

You nailed it on the head. I just use the CD as a rescue disk though. I could never get a floppy to work with my Tyan Tiger MP

 

[TheOmegaCode]

Originally posted by: drag
AH, don't worry about the RTFM. The traditional way of learning on PC's is:
1 try something you thought was interesting
2. screw it up completely to hell
3. reinstall
4. try again
5. screw it up completely again
6. try to fix it
7. screw it up reEEEAAL bad this time
8. reinstall
9. try again
10. screw it up a little bit
11. RTFM
12. fix it
try something else... (rinse and repeat)

I call it my "Twelve steps to Geek-dom" or "OMG.. my skin is pasty white and my girlfreind stole my cat and won't return my calls... Gee I wonder how NFS works..."

Everybody had to go thru it. Thats why you get the holier than thou attitude sometimes. Cus they've been there done that.

But boot disks are realy a nessesity, especially when playing around with MBR's and boot up stuff. Even when you do EVERYTHING right it WILL still not work sometimes... See if you can grab a bootdisk for windows off of the internet or something like that... (and do get a new floppy drive, people that don't have floppies generally have a OS rescue disk on cd they can boot into to fix things and for that you need a cd burner...)

HAHAHA, soo true...

 

[crisp82]

I'm impressed you have it down to 12 steps. I think I'm still on 15! I have a cd burner, neglicted to mention that. sorry. I think I have installed Mandrake around 6/7 times already, and only one of them booted and ran. Thats was the last one that screwed up my MBR me thinks......maybe it was my general stoopidness. Who knows?

Can I use the standard Windows multiboot loader, so much easier, u just press enter, no need to load it up then select.?

 

[Nothinman]

Getting Linux to be an option in the NTLDR menu is more of a pain than vice-versa. MS' idea of dualbooting more than one OS is using 2 of their OSes, they don't take into consideration other OSes.