Andrew J Fortune wrote: > > I am a Windows 95 user who has recently been introduced to the world of > Linux (Debian (2.0, I think ??)). I have partitioned off about 1 GB of my > hard drive to Linux, and the rest is DOS/W95.
You really need another partition thats 32Mb or 64Mb for a 'swap' partition. Linux will use that as additional 'memory' in addition to the physical ram your machine has. Its functionally equivalent to the swap file that Win creates except that a separate partition is safer than a file on your main partition. > I am trying to work out ... is it possible to share files between the two > operating systems (i.e. Linux and W95) ? No problem. There is a filesystem for Linux called 'msdos' or 'vfat' (for Win95) that can be installed as part of a customized kernel or as a kernel module. These filesystems once mounted (probably in /etc/fstab) allow read/write access to your Win partition. > Here is a practical example of what I mean.....I am trying to sell the > concept of Linux to a friend of mine who only uses W95 at the moment. > Suppose I wanted to create a screenshot (.BMP) from a session that I was > running in WMaker or Afterstep....how would I get it across to W95 so that I > could EMail the picture to him ?? > > (Is a BMP in Linux the same format as a BMP file in W95 ?) Binary files are copied unaltered. What you are probably thinking of is the CR/LF difference between Unix and Dos/Win when it comes to text files. Dos uses ascii 13/10 (CR/LF) to end lines in a text file, while Unix just uses the 10 (LF). > ...and talking about EMails, can anyone give me any leads on the best way I > can connect to the Net in Linux, surf the Net, send/receive EMails, > participate in Chat programs etc. ? Sure, but it my take a little learning at first (was for me). Once I got ppp (use pppconfig deb package) running (connected to my ISP), I just got Netscape Communicator from ftp://ftp.netscape.com and installed it. You can learn how the other, standard Unix, packages are installed and configured (you need a mail transfer agent, a mail user agent, and newsgroup reader) but these are really only needed if your planning on setting your machine up as a server. For end-user only type of activity (web surfing) just get Netscape. Note: Netscape is available in Debian 2.1 as deb files, otherwise make sure you get the glibc2 version from ftp.netscape.com (under the 'unsupported' dir tree). > > I'm experienced in W95, but I am only starting out in the world of Unix > (...a whole new world), so if any responses could be in layman's terms I > would be grateful :) > > Thanks in advance for your help !! > > regards, > Andrew J Fortune -- Ed C.