Hi A,
well, though I can't tell u much about Lycoris or why
it messed up with ur system, I can say something about
ur other question(&maybe a little about that first
one, too :-) ).
First, as I found out, the only way to get comfortable
with linux is to keep using it, no matter what
happens. That is what I did.
Next, there are quite a few Desktop versions of all
the major players in the market right now(of course
not free), ranging from 800/- to a little over 4000/-
in price. A better way to judge would be to keep in
touch with the issues of Digit, PCQuest or
LinuxForYou, which keep taking out
LiveCD('knoppixlike') versions of these desktops. So,
u can go ahead & just boot ur machine from these
LiveCDs & try these distributions out.
Now, a bit of my own experience. I purchased a Compaq
Presario a few months back, which shipped then with
'Turbolinux 10 Desktop' installed. Now, this is just a
machine with the contemporary config(P-4-2.8GHz, Intel
845GV orig. MB, 128MB, 40GB, CDR/W).
Now, Turbolinux 10D works absolutely fine with my PC &
has given almost no hitches throughout. A few
components like package management, Multimedia support
& players is absolutely brilliant; even better than
what I've seen in Fedora Core2. 10D by default mounts
ur windows(FAT32) partitions if u install it with a
Windows machine. The GUI is absolutely intuitive(much
like Windows), so almost anyone can get along fine. In
fact, 10D makes it easier to get to know Linux more.
As a last remark, I might add(thought people thorough
with Linux might scoff at me) that I have never used a
single command while working with 10D. That is the
power of the GUI given by the newer KDE versions,
which is more enhanced by the Turbolinux people.
Again, Turbolinux 10D costs $29 & a newer & terrific
distribution 10F costs $49($39 for 10D owners). That's
not a very high price, taking into consideration the
fact that 10F has legitimate PowerDVD support & leg.
support for Windows Media files.
As a recent development, I hear that Compaq machines
are shipping once again with Mandrake Desktops. So,
that must be a good choice, too.
About ur first question, if ur system, HDD in part.,
is not too old, u could try installing linux
distributions from scratch which are known to work
well a few times before settlling down with one.
So, go ahead & try any one of these distributions.
Just make sure about ur system's compatibility before
buying anything, if u plan to.
Viraj
--- A G <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> I am a re-newbie to Linux. A couple of weeks ago I
> got
> my hands on Lycoris linux. When I tried to install
> lycoris, it screwed my hdd big time. It never booted
> -
> which it should have, it never gave me the dual boot
> option - which it should have. I could boot from my
> dos floppy and access C:, but lycoris mess-up never
> allowed me to create any file from dos. I could just
> view. I had win98 se installed at that time. I
> though
> of trying to overwrite the mbr with my my win98se
> setup. But 98se setup used to abort. I had to DELETE
> my primary partition to make my system (win98se)
> work!
>
> Can anyone tell me what could hv gone wrong? My C:
> is
> 10 GB, D is 10, E is 15 GB and F is the remaining of
> the total of 40 GB.
> Is its because lycoris cant recognise large
> partitions. I remember in year 97, 98 that red hat
> didnt work fine with large partitions.
>
> I used red hat in late 90s. But then gave it up for
> the easy of use of 98se. I thought that lycoris was
> the better of linux for DESKTOPS. But I am
> thoroughly
> shaken with this linux experience.
>
> Can anyone tell me which linux works fine as a good
> desktop? It should atleast be as easy to use as
> win98se. (Btw, before this linux mess-up, my win98se
> worked fine for 5 years.)
>
> I also hv knoppix. Can anyone tell me how to install
> it to the hdd? I would like to install it on my last
> partition (F:\).
>
> ~A.
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