Thanks, Roy, I'm going to save this post for future reference. ~Sean
--- In LINUX_Newbies@yahoogroups.com, Roy Charles <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > ----- Original Message ---- > From: kazman1914 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: LINUX_Newbies@yahoogroups.com > Sent: Sunday, February 17, 2008 10:16:13 AM > Subject: [LINUX_Newbies] The fun continues.... > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Hi folks, > > > > Well, I finally had time to reformat my desktop and reinstall Windows > > and Linux. I decided to use the Windows disk to create two partitions > > of approximately equal size (=2 x 95 gig). I then installed Windows > > on the first partition, and had quite a time getting things to work. > > For some reason the sound card would not work, even after installing > > the drivers from HP's site. Then I added Real Player, rebooted, and > > the sound card worked. > > > > Your mistake was to use Windows to create the partitions. Gparted comes with Ubuntu and all distros come with a variant of this which is much more flexible and robust that the Windows partition tools. > > > Using Gparted you can resize your partitions and create new drives in the freed space. The Windows drive should be the first one on the partition. The Linux drives can be made after this. It is advisable to have separate root and home drives. The Linux file structure uses the / slash instead of the \ slash. The root mount point is: /. The home mount point is: /home. You can also create a small swap drive. The swap drive should not exceed the amount of RAM on your system. Making it larger does not improve performance. The swap drive has its own format. The home and root partition should be formatted with ext3 which is the most common format type. You can use others, but it is best to use standard ones to minimize potential problems. > > > > > Next I tried installing PCLinuxOS, but it wouldn't work. I'd get to > > the point where I was installing files, and every time I reached the > > point where about 25% of the fies were copied, the system would > > freeze, and nothing would prod it to move. Fine. I downloaded the 32 > > bit version of Ubuntu per the advice I got here, and I was able to > > install. Things went much better this time. I was able to manually > > install, which I couldn't do previously. I took the non-Windows drive > > of about 95 gig and made two drives, one with about 85 gig and one > > with about 10; I chose the / symbol for the larger drive and "swap" > > for the other, and proceeded without trouble. (No, I didn't mean to > > create such a large swap drive, but I didn't select the number of > > megabytes correctly. Anyway, I have 85 gig to devote to Linux on this > > PC, and I think that will suffice for a long time.) > > > 85 GB is loads of space for Linux. I would make a small swap drive of 512 MB and a root drive of 20 GB and the rest used for the home drive. It does not matter what order you put them in. You can adjust any of these later on. You can even resize the home drive and make another root drive later on to run more than one distro! You can reuse the same home drive over and over. Just change the user name and two distros can share the same home drive. > > > Finding the right distro is a matter of trial and error. Use Live disks. If the Live one won't boot then there is no need to install it. It saves a lot of headaches. You can tweak most distros from grub (the menu that loads before booting the distro) to improve your chances. > > > > Laptops are notoriously hard to load Linux on. This is because they use more proprietary equipment and the manufacturers are reluctant to release information the the open source community. This isn't because Linux does not work. Open source developers must work backwards to create drivers. > > > > > Once again I've set up email, installed drivers that allow me to play > > music CD's, and downloaded software allowing me to watch videos on > > YouTube. I haven't figured out what to do so that I can listen to the > > partial songs that you can preview on some CDs on Amazon's site. I > > tried to install Real Player, but after I downloaded the Linux version > > of the program I couldn't do anything with it. I double clicked and > > got an error message. > > > > Ubuntu and several distros do not use proprietary software such as Real Player by default. They must be installed afterwards. Another example of this is Flash. Some distros such as PCLOS, openSuse and SimplyMepis are not so picky. One way isn't better than another. It is just a question of different philosophies. It makes it confusing for newbies since you do not necessarily understand the differences in the various approaches of the Linux developers. Open source is all about choice and doing things differently. In comparison Windows is the product of one company and Microsoft dictates terms to OEMs. > > > > > I can't get a DVD to play, but from what I'm reading online I'm not > > alone. I'm thinking about trying either Freespire or the pay version > > known as Linspire. The latter is about $50.00, which will defeat my > > dream of totally-free software, but what good is totally-free software > > that I can't use fully? I'll start with Freespire, though, and hope > > for the best. Hopefully I won't run into any problems installing it > > on my laptop. > > > Try VLC to play DVDs. Also load the Win32 codecs from the repositories. Freespire costs nothing. It is the same as Linspire. > > > > > I went into the Synaptic Package Manager and, without a clue what I > > was doing, managed to find and supposedly install Wine, but I can't > > figure out how to make it work, or to get it to download any windows > > programs. Is there a "Wine for Dummies" or some other book that tells > > you what to do step by step in such a way that those new to Linux can > > follow it? The program is not at all intuitive, at least not as far > > as I'm concerned. > > > > Wine does not include all of the libraries needed to make a fully functioning Windows version. Some are available for download, some are not. To get maximum compatitbility with Wine you can either buy a copy of Codeweaver's Crossover Office or use free programs such as Wine-Doors which give you a list of things to install. Once Wine is set up properly, it creases a dummy c drive in a file called .wine in your home directory. Files that start with a dot are hidden files. Hidden files may not be displayed by default. You can change the options in the file manager to display them. You don't have to mess with the .wine directory. when you click on a Windows executable file it will run in wine. You will see the installer open up shortly. Msi files will not open unless you first install this installer using Wine-Doors or similar program. > > > > > Well, that's it for now. It looks like Freespire is about done > > downloading, so it's time to create another disk. > > > > ~Sean > > > Another approach is to install Innotek's VirtualBox from the repositories. You will need help to do this successfully since certain development tools and the kernel headers need to be installed. also you will have to add yourself as a user to the vbox user group. This isn't too hard and is really rewarding once it is set up. However you will need a copy of Windows to install it in VirtualBox or VMWare. Wine does not require a copy of Windows. > > > Good luck! > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Connect with friends from any web browser - no download required. Try the new Yahoo! 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