linux

ajay() · Post by **ajay()** » Mon Sep 08, 2003 4:09 pm

Right I've got a pc (the very one I'm using now) with 2 hard drives, a big-ish one with my win98 installation on, and a smaller 8 gig one which has nothing but a recycle bin on.

Anyway I want to install linux on the small drive, but first 2 questions:

- i want the pc to routinely boot to the win drive, but for me to chose to boot to the linux one as and when i want; how can i do this?? (much newbie info please, this is all new 4 me!)

- to install linux on the small drive, do I have to format it then install linux or can i do it just by running the cd, then installing it to that drive?

(i dont want it installed to a win partitioned drive)

cheers
ajay()

Firthy2002 · Post by **Firthy2002** » Mon Sep 08, 2003 4:15 pm

1) Install a boot selector.

Post by **|darc|** » Mon Sep 08, 2003 4:20 pm

ajay() wrote:Right I've got a pc (the very one I'm using now) with 2 hard drives, a big-ish one with my win98 installation on, and a smaller 8 gig one which has nothing but a recycle bin on.

Anyway I want to install linux on the small drive, but first 2 questions:

- i want the pc to routinely boot to the win drive, but for me to chose to boot to the linux one as and when i want; how can i do this?? (much newbie info please, this is all new 4 me!)

- to install linux on the small drive, do I have to format it then install linux or can i do it just by running the cd, then installing it to that drive?

(i dont want it installed to a win partitioned drive)

cheers
ajay()

1) The distribution's installer will create a boot loader on the disk and let you choose between OSs.
2) The installer will also format that disk with a proper Linux filesystem.

AmadeusZull · Post by **AmadeusZull** » Mon Sep 08, 2003 4:20 pm

use grub and you can make winxp your main o/s to boot.

what linux flavor are you planning to install?

ajay() · Post by **ajay()** » Mon Sep 08, 2003 4:23 pm

thnx for the replis so far

as for which linux, i'm still deciding - currently trawling round trying to make me mind up
- i'm very open to suggestions!

Post by **Roofus** » Mon Sep 08, 2003 4:24 pm

Red Hat is a good newb distro

Post by **|darc|** » Mon Sep 08, 2003 4:25 pm

Roofus wrote:Red Hat is a good newb distro

if you dont want your system to be compatible with anything else i'd say yeah

seriously, get knoppix, and do a hdd-install with it
knopper.net

BlackAura · Post by **BlackAura** » Mon Sep 08, 2003 10:56 pm

Knoppix is pretty good, and you can just run it off the CD. Pop it in the drive, and it starts up. Of course, it's not much use at all if you want to play around with the system or install new software, unless you have in installed, or have another Linux system you can use to customise it.

Red Hat's OK, but it has a few general compatability issues with other, more standard, Linux distributions.

At one point, I had Windows on my main drive, and Linux on my smaller second drive. I would not recommend installing a Linux boot sector to your Windows drive though, even if it'll still be able to boot Windows. You would have to put the boot loader configuration on a partition on the second hard drive, with the boot loader itself on the first hard drive, so you need both drives to be correctly working to boot. If you format the second drive, you might loose the ability to boot your primary drive.

There are two ways around this. First, you can use a boot floppy, which will then load Linux off the second hard drive, without ever touching the first one. Alternatively, you can install the Linux boot loader to the second hard drive, and set your computer's BIOS to boot from that drive instead of the first one. That way, it'll load the boot sector from the Linux drive, and won't touch the Windows drive. Once you've done that, you can either configure the boot loader to boot Windows and Linux and give you a menu for it, or some BIOSes have an option to choose which drive to boot from.

Personally, I use Gentoo, but I would not recommend that unless you were familiar with Linux already, or were willing to learn and have a lot of time on your hands.

impetus · Post by **impetus** » Mon Sep 08, 2003 11:11 pm

I asked this same question a little while ago, here's the link with the replies I got.
http://www.dcemulation.org/phpBB/viewto ... highlight=

Meglomaniac · Post by **Meglomaniac** » Tue Oct 07, 2003 12:52 am

Any chance of a pic of your new PC Ajay()?

EvilSporkMan · Post by **EvilSporkMan** » Tue Oct 07, 2003 7:29 pm

Mandrake is quite a nice n00b distro - everything comes set up all nifty, tho you'll still have issues with deciding what software to install. I moved from Mandrake to Gentoo after trying Slackware, which was just too much required configuration for me. However, you have to have a relatively good idea of what you're doing to configure Gentoo optimally...it's not really n00b-friendly.

Ex-Cyber · Post by **Ex-Cyber** » Tue Oct 14, 2003 12:24 am

Do yourself a favor and make sure your /home directory is on its own partition. Here's why:

Unless you intend to dive into the Linux world head-first (which is a valid approach if you can spare the time/effort, and for which I wholeheartedly recommend a stage one install of Gentoo), any of the "newb" distros is a crucial stage. If your use is anything beyond superficial, the first newb distro you try will probably frustrate you a bit. You'll find some annoying limitations in the software. Then you'll go to the software's homepage and find out that your distro is 4 or 5 releases (and sometimes a major version) behind. Then you'll eventually get pissed enough to learn how to build the software from source. But then you'll find that your distro's libraries are outdated too (after finding that you have to install the -dev packages for the compiler to even find them), and the software won't work without a recent version. Then you'll try to compile the libraries from source. Eventually in doing all this you'll probably screw up something in a pretty hairy way that leaves your system in a semi-usable state, and you won't be able to uninstall because you did it outside the protection of a package system. At this point you're probably about ready to try something like Debian, Slack, or Gentoo, so you wipe your root partition and start over, and when you get everything installed and boot back up, you'll find that all your personal files are right where you left them, because /home is on its own partition.

I'm not trying to knock the "newb" distros; they're the fastest and easiest way to throw a complete Linux-based system onto your hard drive and get familiar with the bulk of the differences from Windows. But their structure is quite anti-enthusiast - they're designed to be used by people who want to do the same thing day in and day out. Essentially, they're made for corporate usage patterns, and if you like to play with Linux enough to run into the limitations spawned by that goal, your best option to avoid them is to move to a more "geek-oriented" distro. And obviously YMMV on the frustration-fueled path described above, but I think there's more to it than just my imagination (for the record, Slackware was my first distro back in the kernel 2.0.x days, and I more or less went Slack -> Debian -> Gentoo with a few oddballs in between; the description above is loosely based on some anecdotal evidence from others, not so much my own experience).

Hope this helps.

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