On Tue, 28 Dec 2004 00:44, Judy & Lindsay Roberts wrote: > Unfortunately, I am going to have to stick with the Live CD version at > present, as my wife isn't going to agree to installing a Linux partition > on the HDD. Never heard of insurrection? ;-) Wonderful stuff.
You could save the MBR for windows, create a couple of partitions for linux and install it. Create a separate boot device - CD or floppy. Now restore the MBR back to how it was, but with the new partition table. Her majesty will never realize that anything has changed, and you can get at your linux partitions via booting the floppy or cd you made. Take care to never ever mount the windows partition. Another pretty safe way of putting Linux on a 'delicate' desktop machine is to buy a second disk for linux. You can use the existing Windows boot system to boot linux. It requires a bit of jiggery-pokery, but Yuri did it and was kind enough to document it. See the mailing list archive for the period shortly after Easter. > It's Live CD or nothing for the time being, You can set up Knoppix so it saves it's configuration and your work to a floppy or, I think, usb stick on shutdown. > so that's where I'll need assistance Rob. > > Rob Wood wrote: > > Hi Both, > > I am a newbie myself struggling with various problems so I probably > > can't help much but I will try. Mandrake in my experience is > > reasonable to set up with a modem as long as you have an external > > serial or USB modem and not internal PCI or ISA type (these > > things depend on Windows), although it takes a bit of work. Printers > > like Laserjet 4 and 5 are easily setup by Mandrake almost > > automatically and I believe several modern printers provide Linux > > drivers. > > > > I tried Ubuntu just out of curiosity and it installed like a dream. It > > also detected my USB floppy drive automatically and it detects and > > writes to USB stick drives. It has an issue with my laptop hardware > > but then so does Win XP, and that was e*XP*ensive. > > > > I found Ubuntu the easier of the two so if your hardware is fairly > > standard, perhaps an installed version would do the job. Ubuntu is still fairly new, and therefore has a few rough edges. Even so I was impressed by it. I'm sure that in a year or so it will be the leading non-commercial distribution. You have to learn the Debian way of doing things. > > I'm afraid that is about the extent of my ability to help but I'm > > sure other members of the group will do much better. -- Sincerely etc., Christopher Sawtell
