201 new of 257 responses total.
The superblock is a block near the start of the filesystem that describes the organization of that filesystem. It includes a magic number (to say it's a so-so type of filesystem), and various parameters that the filesystem uses to locate the other data structures on that filesystem, such as the inode table, free block bitmaps, etc. The superblock is usually *not* block 0, because block 0 is reserved for the boot logic. In edition 7 Unix (ca. 1979 technology), the boot block was 512 bytes, and the superblock started in block 1 (blocks then being 512 bytes). In the berkeley filesystem (ca. 1984), multiple copies of the superblock are written to disk, scattered onto different cylinders of the disk. This makes it slightly easier to recover from certain kinds of disk catastrophes (like something that trashes the "real" superblock at the start of the disk.) 512 bytes is plenty of space for a really dumb optimized boot strap module in pdp-11 assembler, that is just smart enough to load "/boot" from the same disk and filesystem. In the berkeley fast filesystem (variants of which are used in SunOS 4 and 386bsd), 8192 bytes of space at the start of the filesystem are reserved for boot logic. 8192 bytes makes it easier to port this logic to new systems, and makes it possible to write the logic in C on many systems. This logic is "in addition" to the logic in the MBR on 386 systems; generally, the MBR would invoke the boot block which would load /boot which would load /vmunix (or /bsd or whatever the kernel is called on your system). In SunOS, the boot block has the locations of /boot written into it; a program named "installboot" must be run in order to write the locations of /boot into the boot block logic.
Somehow, I think we're talking the same thing w/ different
nomenclature..
yeah, the MBR is supposed to vector the bios to the /boot
partition and it's loading whatever the heck lilo creates from all
the assorted kernels you save as well as other OS's you care to
run.. I'd bet it's a chunk of lilo and either the actual kernel
or a chunk of what HAD been used to load DOS or Doze..
Near as I can tell now, the old slackware system that got
codwalloped was entirely due to my being a total neophyte to
building kernels and writing a zdisk/bootdiskette.. Because I
hadn't prepared said floppy, 95 got away with hammering me and I
had no idea how to get access to either /boot or / - thus ended
a brief flirtation with slackware..
Additionally, having been fried by 95 before, I am not at all
anxious to tempt the fates ever again.. There isn't anything for
Doze I can't live without or substitute something related.
resp:56 well, when I was trying to install freebsd as a second OS I kept selecting to have the boot manager thing installed, but I'd assumed that with it being the only system on the HD I could get away with the second option (standard boot record)
Re#57: If all else fails, you can boot with your original slackware setup disks, mount your Linux partitions on the RamDisk file system, then re-run lilo at the bash prompt, which should regenerate your LILO MBR. (Unless something has trashed /etc/lilo.conf.) Then issue a shutdown command and see what happens.
Frack! I meant #58.
resp:59 No, that won't work. That only works if you have another intelligent boot loader (such as NT or OS2) already running that you a) don't want to trash and b) can configure to run FreeBSD. If FreeBSD is alone, you have to install the bootloader from it, or nothing will boot.
Re: my floppy difficulties, back there somewhere, I got around the problem by rebooting to Win95 (Actually whatever DOS comes with Win95) and copying the files to the hard disk, then rebooting in FreeBSD and mounting the DOS partition. I just got a new external modem, and am now grexing from FreeBSD. As soon as I figure out how to configure my X-windows display stuff so I can get a display bigger than 320x200, and figure out which of the ports I installed was the POP3 client, I may be ready to do away w/ M$ in general...
XF86Config is a LOT of fun.. Just remember to always leave the
^alt+[backspace] enabled ;-)
Thanks, Pete!
And keep a backup copy of one that works... :) Actually, I've found that xf86config (the program, not the file) works pretty well. If you want high color depth, tho, you're pretty much stuck with a -bpp 32 somewhere on some command line.
Gods yes...
Switching X versions needed a new config - it said.. Thankfully,
I'd saved the old one - in paranoid fashion.. the OLD one worked
all the time.. the new one was an abomination!
Re #66: Or do what I did. Edit startx (it's just a shell script) to make -bpp 32 the default.
O.K. I finally got X working, but I'm stuck with some pretty crappy color (just what does a color depth of 8 = in terms of number of colors?) and suggestions on how to make that a little better? (I know that in Windows I can set it to 16 bit Ohh yeah....once you have FreeBSD installed is there some way to reinstall the bootloader thing? (i'm stuck booting from floppy right now...)
Use "XF86config" - 8 bit is.. 256 colors (guys?)
Yeah, 16 or 24 bit make life tolerable..
I'm under the direct assumption that somewhere on my system there is a program that I can run called XF86config, if so, where is it? do I run it from inside X? ^---C? ohh yeah...I've tried searching the web to no avail...anyone know where I can find something about getting the MWave modem thats built into an IBM ThinkPad 755CDV working under freebsd?
No, the program is xf86config, all lowercase. The config file itself is capitalized like this: XF86Config. 8 bit color is indeed 256 colors. You can actually use more than 256 colors, but only 256 at one time. If you have 8 bit color, you usually get bizarre color changes when you select programs like netscape, because they load thier own colormap. If you are using startx to start X, then you can do this: startx -- -bpp n where n is one of 8, 16, 24, or 32. That coresponds to 256 colors, High Color, and True Color (both the last two) on Windows. Its 256, 65,536, 16 million, and 4e9 colors. If you use xdm to start X, you will need to edit it's config files and add a "-bpp n" to the line that has the X server listed. I know of no way to install the bootloader in FreeBSD other than by installing. There probably is such a way, but I've never needed it. Try http://www.freebsd.org which is a pretty good web site.
hmm..the bootloader thingy? try /stand/sysinstall as root then go to the post-config menu..then to fdisk then type "q" to quit that should get you to the bootload thingy option...then go back to fdisk and type "w" for write changes....theres probillly a more simple way but i dunno know how....
Hmm.. I find:
/usr/X11R6/bin/XF86Setup
No "xf[86config]" of any type.. We're heading into system
differences, I suspect. Sorry about misleading about, I'd have
SWORN I ran that..
I have /usr/X11R6/bin/xf86config, which is a standard part of XFree86. If you installed X yourself, you didn't install the Xcfg.tgz package, which is very suprising. It's listed as needed. If it came that way from your distribution, that's again surprising. I'd switch distributions. There is a program called Xconfigurator which runs a stripped down X server and gives you a nice windows configuration program. You might try that. I don't really like it, tho.
Yeppers, I suspect the Xconfigurator is what I've been using
of late..Either I went too far in "cleaning house", or RedHat-
stuff took a few liberties..
Anyone here used Accelerated X? XFree86 doesn't support my i740 AGP video card, & i'm not sure if there's anything I can do to make it work or not. I haven't done too much mucking around with it, but what I have done leads me to think that paying $75 for a product that _should_ work right out of the box might be worthwhile.
(found xf86config, didn' do me too much good, so I think I"ll just have to live with 8bpp)
(resp:78 if you need more than 8 bpp, you need a command line option on the command line that starts the actual X server. If you are using startx, then try "startx -- -bpp 32" which will start with 32 bpp. Don't forget the "--", which signals startx that the following options are for X rather than xinit. If you use xdm, then you need to edit /etc/X/xdm/Xservers and add " -bpp 32" to the end of the line containing /usr/X11R6/bin/X.) resp:77 I use Accelerate X for my Diamond Monster Fusion. It's a brand new alpha server. However, until recently, I couldn't use Accelerated X because there wasn't a server. There is a way around it. Look here: http://www.uno.edu/~adamico/banshee/
Hmm. Not sure how useful that will be, as I'm not using a banshee or Linux, but I'll check it out in more detail later... Thanks.
if you read the page a little more it talks about how it could be useful on something that's not a banshee
Exactly. It should work exactly the same on any modern graphics card. I had it running on my banshee for several months, and it's okay. No acceleration, so it's a bit slow, but otherwise okay.
What's the point of 32-bit color? I was under the impression (perhaps mistaken) that 24-bit color already could generate more shades than the human eye could discern. Is 32-bit color just a sop to the 'more is better' crowd?
I've found that xanim (a video player for Linux) will work with 16 or 32 bpp, but not 24. Strange.
xearth, a "View of earth from space" program, won't work at 24 bpp either. Just 16 or 32.
Okay, here's /my/ situation: I'm running Red Hat 5.2 along with Win98, using Lilo (DOS is the default boot). For me installation went quite smoothly. I was a bit concerned that it might have trouble with my SCSI card (Adaptec 2940UW), but was delighted that Linux recognized it. Each OS has it's own physical HD...Sorta. I have three physical drives: Two 540 meg (C: and D:), and one 4.3 gig (E:-G:). I dedicated a little over a gig on the big drive. I've partitioned Linux into "/" and "/swap." I've also installed Linux in my laptop at work. That one shares a single 2.1 gig drive with Win98. Only problem with that setup is I can't get X to work right. It comes on, but everything's super- magnified. I've tried every video setting under Xconfigureator without success. At first, I thought I'd go with Slackware, cuz that was the one I'd heard about most, but after doing some research, I went with Red Hat. They were getting great reviews about how easy to install it was and about their RPM system, which was a big plus for me as I've heard manually installing Linux stuff was rather frustrating. Plus with the boxed version, they included a couple bonus CD's full of docs, FAQ's, apps, and not one, but two e-books on learning Linux in PDF format. And I paid a whooping 35 bucks for it; The regular price was $54. I guess the next question for me is, "What's next?" Well, as I speak...er, type, I've DL'ed WordPerfect8 for Linux. That'll be my first _real_ app. Whew! that sucker was big, over 26 megs. I guess I should start reading the stuff on the other CD's I mentioned, starting with the e-books. Anybody have any suggestions, comments about anything I've written, feel free. I'm still quite the newbie where Linux is concerned, but I want to learn it all. I'm hoping to eventually dump MF...I mean MS from my system. Have a good one.
what kinda laptop is it?
isn't there a trick where you press control-alt-plus key and it adjusts the resolution?
Keypad plus & minus - yeah, if you told X to use it.. And, if yer
setup has multiple modes.
Re. 87: It's a Fujitsu Lifebook 200 Re. 88, 89: Been there, done that, no help. And don't even _think_ of sugesting I contact Fujitsu. while the laptop itself runs fine, dealing with F'edupsu is a nightmare on anybody's street.
Super-magnified sounds like VGA resolution. You probably need to find out the chipset of your video hardware and get the specific X server for that set, which may be tough on newer models. I've only gotten suppord for my 2-year old Diamond video card for full functionality in the last 3 months or so. If your X software is less than 3.3.3 you might want to go to www.xfree86.org and download the latest version.
>Super-magnified sounds like VGA resolution. That's what it was alright. However, during setup, I specified I had SVGA, but nomater what res I set or monitor I specified, It kept droping back to VGA. However, since my post, I've had /some/ success: I switched from using Xconfigurator, a Red Hat-specific program I believe, to the std. XF86config. I was able to specify the exact chipset (Trident) I had. I now have a regular 800x600 display. Now, the only prob is the desktop and menus are all black; Icons, however, are visable. <Sigh!>...back to the drawing board, I guess.
Speaking of X, I'm having some trouble distinguishing between the terms "X server" and "Windows Mngr." Can someone clarify these, perhaps using the DOS world as an analogy? It's not vital, but I would like to be clear on what's what.
The "X Server" or "X" or "X11" is a server-program that provides
all the usual (and obnoxious) gobbledegook requisite of a Graphic
User Unterface (GUI) in a "windowing environment".
The "Window Manager" is a "client" program that adds another layer
between the user, the GUI - which is what this provides - and the
server.
_Theoretically_, you program to "X ne. X11" and the program is
supposed to run under ANY OTHER "window manager". This is prolly
a reasonable assumption, until you get to stuff like KDE and GNOME
and ENLIGHTENMENT - all of which require additional libraries for
support, and so do the better of the programs for them. This is
even a problem with Motif/Lesstiff programs, and I'm sure someone
can mention some more of these idiot-syncracies.
The client/server approach even applies to X and its own "font
server": with this "font server", you have the ability to teach
X and linux to use TrueType (and FreeType ;-) fonts in addition to
the typical unix font-crap. Unices are truly rich in client/server
examples and implementations.
This help any?
Re:#92 How much memory does your video card have?
*sigh* Even 4m is moer than enough for the basics.
Re. 92: Two megs., more than enough at 800x600x16-bit. But, hey, I'd be willing to settle for 256-color it it'll give me 800x600, or at least a true 640x480. At this point, after playing with every setting I can think of, I get three possible results: 1) A blank screen, which means having to re- boot to get back to normal. 2) A 640x480 display that shows all the proper backgroun/menu/text colors but blows everything up to 320x200 proportions, without a virtual desktop. 3) An 800x600 display that shows no background/menu/text colors (all black), but /does/ display all icons properly, and has the virtual desktop. As it stands, after a week of fiddling, I've given up on X and decided to concentrate on the other aspects of Linux, which there are plenty. I'll just have to chalk it up to one more reason never to get Fujitsu products again.
A week of fiddling isn't too far off if your set up doesn't click right out of the box. The best luck I've had in getting X set up for my video card was going through the recommended calculations by hand (well pocket calculator) and fiddling until I had it the way I liked it. Using all the configurators and auto-set up programs I've only been able to get close. Take a deep breath, relax, leave off of it for a while, then go back and read the docs (on my FreeBSD system the one about calculations is called VideoModes.doc and is in /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/doc/ but may be in a different place on your system) and see if you can't squeeze a compromise out of your video card/monitor combination (I had a 1-meg card doing 800x600 at 256-color and a bit of virtual desktop, but it took a lot of fiddling). Good luck.
2 meg was not enough video memory for me, and sometimes, at higher resolutions, even 8meg will give me the dreaded black windows.
Re. 98: Well, like I said earlier, this is happening only on my laptop, which considering it came from Fujitsu, shouldn't be too surprising. I'll never touch their stuff again. My tower box is running just fine, thank you. Your right about the docs. I've been looking through my RH CD's and there's a ton of info in there. Hopefully, there'll be something regarding laptops or LCD displays I can use. If not, there's a ton more of online docs, mailing lists, HOWTO's, etc.
I actually find fiddling with the video parameters in XF86Config to be kind of fun. It's useful not to have to settle for one of the standard screen resolutions (640x40, 800x600, 1024x768, etc) but instead can specify whatever best suits your needs. I currently run at a screen resolution of 1184x888. Why? Well, because it's the smallest resolution at which I can fit two 80-column text windows (xterm or emacs) side-by-side using a decent font and with a decent refresh rate (85 Hz).
Well, it's only fun if it works. Otherwise, it's just frustrating. Fortunately, there's a lot of non-graphic stuff to learn about. Today, I've discovered the benefits of VC's, which makes applying things I'm learing easier.
If by VCs you mean Virtual Consoles, yes, they are handy things, I need to set up more.
Update on X problem (see previous msgs. for details): I completely reinstalled RH 5.2, thinking that perhaps I was missing a vital X file (no pun intended). Still got the same results. However, when I started Netscape, what was black (except text) turned green. At least I could any text that showed up. Fortunately, when I closed the browser, the screen stayed green, enabling my to check out other apps, like Gimp. Running Gimp revealed some interesting info: 1) buttons don't always show up, but the text does. 2) I can view images, with all colors intact. So the question becomes, if I still have access to all my colors (16-bit), why won't the everything else, like normal background, window frames, etc. show up? Back to the drawing board.
( like I said erlier, you need more video memory )
You probably got scrambled color maps. You should run "startx" and save the results of stderr in a file - it's possible (for instance) that you are really using 8-bit color.
Quick test to set a different color depth can be accomplished with using the --bpp 16 (or whatever) option for startx. If that makes a difference then you've found the problem.
Re. 105: I don't think so. According to both Xconfigurator and xf86config, I should be able to use 24-bit color; I'm only using 16. No, I'm convinced it has something to do with either the screen itself, or the driver being used. Since Fujitsu won't give out such info, I'll have to focus on the driver. Re. 106: Since I'm still new at this, could you tell me how to do this? As for using 8-bit color, I'm pretty sure that's what I end up with. When I exit X, I see various msgs. mentioning 8-bit color and others saying such-and-such res. not loaded. Re. 107: Thanks. I'll give that a try.
Ran across this web site the other day and it has some tips for setting up XFree86 on laptops. Dunno if it'll help or if you've already seen it, but: http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/kharker/linux-laptop/
Re. 109: I'd seen this before, but discounted it 'cause the author was using Debian instead of Red Hat. Now that I know a bit more, I'll take another look at it. Thanks for the reminder.
Here's a few other URL's to go for help:
http://www.linux.org/hardware/laptop.html
This is an index site, with links to specific case-histories people have
published as they work the kinks out of a specific installation. There are
specific links for the following Fujitsu models:
Fujitsu 635T
Fujitsu FM-V
Fujitsu Lifebook 280dx
Fujitsu Lifebook 420D
Fujitsu Lifebook 500
Fujitsu Lifebook 655TX
Fujitsu Lifebook 735Dx
Fujitsu Lifebook 790Tx
Fujitsu Milan
http://galt.cs.nyu.edu/students/fox/notebooks.html
This is a tech-reference which lists the specific PCMCIA and video
chipsets used in various laptops. A great help to me as I was shopping,
to make sure I didn't succumb to some 'great deal' that had an unsupported
video chipset.
There's also a linux-laptops mailing list where you can ask questions, and
share what you learn!
subscribe at majordomo@vger.rutgers.edu. If you don't know how to use
majordomo, e-mail me and I'll send you a help document.
Re. 111: 'Tanks for the info, Rick. The first link I've been to, as described in 110. I'll check into the second. Right now, I'm diving into the numerous FAQ's and HOWTO's on the RH CD's. That should keep me busy for awhile. Although my laptop wasn't exactly a "great deal," It does apparently have a supported chipset, according to XF86config. Anybody know, off-hand, what the vertical/horizontal freqs. are for an LCD screen at 800x600? I've been playing hit'n'miss with the settings as the manual doesn't list them.
I had some similar troubles with X and high-colour. after wracking my brain over the problem, I discovered that for some reason, even after setting up the SGVA server with XF86Config, that it was defaulting to using the VGA16 server. I finally cleared it up by installing the XSVGA server package, and when it configured itself, it asked if I wanted it to be the default server. said "yes" and it's been working happily at 800x600x16bpp. I'dlike to go higher, but I don't think that the CT64300 VLB card that I have has enough RAM to do that. KDE looks much better now... and speaking of xearth, does anyone know of any clones of it for the Win16/32 platform. I've tried several other crappy world time proggies for Win9x, but none of them do what Xearth or the KDE World Watch does.
For XEarth on windows perhaps the following URL will do the trick: http://www.softlab.ece.ntua.gr/~mario/projects.html Haven't looked at it myself, so can't say whether it's worth the time or not. Controlled by a tray icon apparently.
Re. 113: I'd tell XF86config to use the SVGA server, but depending on other settings, it would drop back to the 8-bit server. I think the only chance of getting this worked out is if I actually show what's happening to someone who knows Linux/Xfree, and right now I don't know anybody who's into it in my area.
Is /usr/bin/X11/X a symlink to something?
usually to your server: lrwxrwxrwx 1 root wheel 22 Apr 6 19:05 /usr/X11R6/bin/X -> /usr/X11R6/bin/XF86_S3
Well, finally some good news (to me, anyway). I FINALLY got XFree86 up and running! How'd I do it? Not sure myself, but I'm sure it had something to do with using XF86Setup, instead of Xconfigurator or XF86config. When I first ran XF86Setup, I didn't expect anythng different from before, but when an actual color, GUI came up, my hopes were raised. But then, after a few attempts with dissapointing results, I figgered I was right back where I started from. But why? After some more fiddling about, I managed to get things working using the 16-color server. Not exactly pretty, but it did work. After reveling in my accomplishment (remember, I'm still a Linux newbie), I took a chance and bumped it up to the SVGA server. And it worked! I now have 256 colors to play with. Now if I can get it up to 16-bit, I'll be content.
I dunno... that "conifigurator" thang was a wash for me too..
Setup was the way I went as well..Go figure.
This should be (hopefully) my last mention of XFree86: It's now fully functional at 24-bit color...<sigh!>
Yay!
Congrats! Configuring X can be a frustrating task.
Caldera 2.2 is supposed to be as easy as windoze shrink-wraps to install. It 's install program runs from inside windoze, including the x86free stuff. all hardware is autprobed, sound suposedly works(!). I'll know in a few days. I've had good experience with caldera's 1.2 product, so I'm optimistic.
Good luck, Steve. It certainly is a learning experience, though I must say I had good luck with Red Hat's install program.
Gentlemen! One of the IT magazines i had seen recently, gave away Redhat Linux 5.2 CD with it's latest issue. And i got the idea to try and install it. But i'm a bit weird case.....i'm on a network and the systems guys won't accede to your requests to get it installed on your pc the direct way. And when i read the Installation manual, I got pissed off about the danger it might do to the Windows OS running already...since i can not take a backup as the floppydrives are disabled usually. So if any of you guys can make sense out of my need to get Linux installed on my machine...if there is a way to do it with out major hitches..i would be thankful to you. I can ask the lIBRARIAN here , who has the CD to load it in his computer and i can access it via the company net...that's themaximum i can do...so if u still have a way out ...please..help me.
See "loadlin" - see the README.
The best way to make sure you don't trash your windows OS, is to install linux on a separate hard disk. With some care, you can even take out the disk Windows is installed on while you're doing this, and if windows isn't in the machine, there's no way linux could possibly trash it. So far as the "floppies being disabled" - that sounds just plain weird. It's possible that "floppy boot" might be disabled - if so, that's something that you should be able to enable by booting the machine into the rom bios setup program. Another option might be to beg for some old hardware to install linux on. Linux will run fine on a 386 or 486 - machines which it would be silly to install windows 95 or 98 or NT on.
This response has been erased.
You can do it. You'll just have to be very careful to make sure you know which partition is which. What you'll probably want to do is *delete* the partition you're replacing, and create two partitions in the resulting empty space -- one for a Linux filesystem, one for Linux swap space. The key here is to MAKE SURE YOU DON'T DELETE THE WRONG ONE. :>
But ROM-BIOS setup program is itself with a password which only the systems guys know. Do u know a way to bypass this and enable the drive, marcus?
Either remove the battery from the MB or thre is sometimes a jumper on the MB to clear the bios. Find out brand/model of MB and look on internet.
you might also consider the possibility that your organization places restrictions on the use of its PC's for a reason. It is, after all, their property. They might reasonably assume that you are 'damaging company property' if you make unauthorized improvements to it's OS. Save the hassle. I have three Linux-capable systems sitting here gathering dust at my feet. Look me up, stop by, and we'll build you a Linux system! I could even supply an old ethernet card, so you could put it on the network, and access it from the company PC. Actually, that would be necessary, since I have only one keyboard and monitor. Once the system is built, you'd have to run it as a headless server, and access it via telnet or X from another machine.
Definitely, if you can't get some sort of official blessing to install linux, don't waste your time. It is likely that the reason your DP people have disabled floppies, is because of fear of viruses. Your DP people may not be able to tell you this, because chances are that they actually only have 1-2 qualified people who really know what they are doing, and the rest are just preaching "the company line" without really understanding the why. Your DP people are probably also organized to do their work "most efficiently", which in many cases means they don't always listen good to external (ie, "customer" input), and may not be prepared to deal with "exceptions" (ie, anything that is different than what they think you need.) If the major reason you are doing this is because of personal reasons, and your company isn't willing to invest in your education (some are, some aren't), then you may well have no alternative but to find your own personal hardware and install linux on that. One of the nice things about linux is that it *does* run on low-end hardware. In the US, it is not uncommon for companies to simply throw away perfectly good 386's and 486's that would run linux fine, because they no longer runs anything the company supports, and isn't valuable either to the company, or on the public marketplace. If you can interest your manager or other powers in the company in your project, then you have a decent excuse to "do this officially". If you can get someone high enough on your company to bang on the DP folks, this may be a trivial operation. There are, in fact, perfectly respectable reasons for your company to be interested in linux. It is, after all, a lot cheaper than MS$, and makes a dandy web server, database engine, or can be used for a variety of other non-sexy jobs that MS$ doesn't handle nearly as gracefully. If you can find a specific such application, and your company has any interest at all in saving $, you may well be able "underbid" your DP department by showing that you can do this more cheaply than they can. This will work best, of course, if you pick a project your DP department isn't particularly keen on, but that other people in your organization do care about. If you pick a project your DP department *does* care about, or if they are worried about being out-competed by you and put out of a job, they are likely to underbid you anyways, and eat the costs, or can come up with all sorts of other good reasons why they and not you should win. In addition to picking an unappetizing project, and sounding as non-competitive with your DP department as possible, you may also want to consider picking unattractive hardware. For instance, if your project is at *all* interesting to the company, it may be easier than you think to include a modest hardware budget in that project. $4K may seem like a lot of money to you, but it may be less than the monthly electric bill for electricity. Now, with that $4K, you could buy an awfully sexy pentium /// system. But you might be better off ordering a sun system (solaris), or a power macintosh system (mklinux or darwin). The thing is, the pentium system could easily be converted to run NT or to play awfully nice games on the DP chief's desk, and they know it. Even getting this machine from the loading dock to your office, without someone putting in a bios password and installing "the standard" stuff, could be tricky. The sun or macintosh will be alien stuff to them -- if they don't want to learn linux, they certainly won't be interested in these other machines. Chances are good these boxes will make it to your office with a minimum of mistakes.
First and foremost i wish to thank Rick and Marcus.
As I SEE IT tthere are a couple of things that i need to tell you guys. The
first thing...
Iam a telnetter from India. working for a firm that makes the
application systems of a great number of clients in US , y2k compliant. SO
my job doesn't require me to do exactly Rocket science. So i plan to learn
some thing about which every magazine woith it's name has gone gaga gaga
about.
Now the Red Hat Linux v.5.2 CD which had been issued along with the
latest issue of a PC MAG. HERE OFFFERS ME A GREAT OPPORTUNITY. I learn that
you need atleast 600mb of HD space.That some how i could make up for. But
taking a backup and even riskier..a windows OS crash..are two of my greatest
worries.
Now to the question of DP people. I know that this thing of Network
security is of paramount importance to them and that they want to avoid any
Viru attack that might jeopardise their systems. I also know of myself to be
a healthy Individual..i.e who will only learn the things like Linux...and
definitely not one to try some peeping tom stuff. I plan to buy a PC myself.
But as of now with the salary that i get..it would take a great saving from
my part to get a decent PC. I even tried out some attempts at acquiring
useless systems in and around my work place. But it just simply doesn't
exist..this thing called...hardware gathereing dust..any where in India.
Atleast i have never come across any such thing.
So what's my point then?
I want to just get a hand on Linux, work on it fora couple of months
and gain a knowledge of the server side workings of this system before i get
my own hardware and try out setting up a Board of my own. The last point was
debated by a large section of grexers in Winter Agora about setting up grex
like systems in India so that some of the weirder things you get to see on
this system on account of some one from India doing a thing or to out of
curiousity or otherwise could be prevented. Well it might soundas a loftier
idea. But that's Ok. Because that's what it is.(:).
So i am impressed by the thiongs Rick and Marcus posted here.
Rick How can i contact you and make use of the hardware you are referring to?
Two thinkgs you might want to get straight with your DP folks -- the first thing to impress on them is that Linux is virtually immune to viral attacks. Not necessarily 100% immune -- but because Linux is a protected mode OS, and has a real notion of user privileges, it's much less prone to the problems MS has. In addition, simply because Linux isn't compatible with Windows, a windows virus is going to find Linux most inhospitable. If their major concern is viruses, then they actually ought to be very excited about the possibility of exploring what linux can do - in fact, linux can do SMB, file sharing, network printing, and email, and it can do all of these things with less resources than Windows NT, so it ought to be intrinsically interesting to the DP folks. The other thing to get straight with them is just how hard it will be to reinstall Windows if you trash your machine. The way most DP departments try to set things up is that per-user stuff is *not* stored on individual machines, but is instead stored centrally. The local disk on the PC is used to store the applications and other windows stuff. There is some sort of central copy of a workstation disk image. The central file storage is backed up onto tape regularly. If a workstation trashes itself, a new one can be wheeled into place, installed in at most an hour or so (from the central disk image), and the user can resume work with their latest files. A new machines can be set up just as fast, and it is also possible for people to use workstations in other offices, if necessary. In some cases, there's no local disk at all, and instead the machine is booted "from the network", and has only network disks mounted. These schemes are big wins for the DP department; instead of treating each user machine as a special case, and sweating blood if one of them blows a disk, they can do most things centrally, with much less effort. So, if your DP department does stuff like this, trashing windows shouldn't be any big deal - it's just a special case of the "blown disk". If they can give you the details on how to reload a system "from scratch", then they could let you worry about this if you manage to kill windows, and save themselves that much more grief. If trashing windows *is* a big deal for your DP department, then they are already asking for trouble -- on a personal level, a blown disk is a relatively rare event, but on a company wide basis, if the company is of any size at all, a blown disk will become almost a daily occurrence. In any event, if your company *does* treat each machine as a special case, they really *ought* to have some means to back up machines, and restore them from the backup copy. If you can arrange to try to install linux after one of the regularly scheduled backups, or if you can arrange for a special backup just before installing linux, you really shouldn't have any fear of trashing Windows, although you'll still want to be a bit careful. Also, one other thing, even if you can't find a complete separate system, have you tried finding *just* a spare hard disk? You might find that quite a bit easier than a complete system, and it may be less scary to install linux on a separate drive than to figure out how to shrink the windows partition and add a linux partition on an existing drive (although, supposedly, this is not hard to do.) A small IDE drive (which should be easiest to get) may not give you enough room to install X, sources, and man pages, but it's at least enough to give you a compiler, shell prompt, and the basics of linux. The more solidly committed your company is to windows (instead of dos), the more useless a spare 100 Mb IDE drive will be. Something worth doing here is to see if your company has a pile of "dead, dunno why" PC's sitting in the corner somewhere. This is a good place to look for that 100 Mb IDE drive. If your shop is Windows-centric, you have good prospects of finding a 100 Mb drive, because it's not large enough to hold Windows or otherwise be "useful". If there are enough dead machines, you can also play Dr. Frankenstein and swap computer components until you put together a live system. That is, if someone else hasn't already beaten you to this.
Yeah. I like this idea of installing Linux ona separate drive. The manual
says once you have freed up from your existing hard disk a storage space of
around 600mb, you can start the installation process. It is here that i
really get confused. Because the same manual says you have to be careful
partitioning this disk space. I don't get it. Can you clarify if you know.
Because it is i guess one of the easier ways to install. And he also talks
about a swap disk..I defintiely needhelp in here.
I just have around 600mb of hard disk space..and how can i create a
separate drive, partition it and install Linux there?
Well from the people i have talked to (read DP folks) it is absolutely clear
that any of these ideas..like convincing them about the meaningfulness of
using a Linux OR trying to impress upon them the efficiency of doing things
using it or aking them directly that you are interested in learning Linux,
AND THAT IT BE CONSIDERED AS PARTT OF TRAINING ...all of them are useless in
front of them. SO the best way would be to Install it with out their
Knowledge...i mean explicitly asking them and convincin them may not work.
well as or the backups ..they are there.with every weeks files being backed
up. But to get them if u do some thing stupid, you need to go thru an ordeal
of securing the permissions of a score of Project Managers etc. If this was
possible smoothly , you might as well ask them that u want Linux installed
on the machine. So i definitely think that a official way maynot be of much
use..
Of course your DP folks said "no" to you. This is what they are trained
to do. You are trying to convince the wrong people. You need to
convince your managers. Your DP folks will be trained to say "yes" to
anyone of sufficient rank. What "sufficient" means depends on the
company, but as a general rule, figure out who has purchasing authority,
and proceed from there (power of the purse strings). In any event,
don't proceed unless you can get someone to say "yes" who outranks the
project managers that would have to approve a disk restore should you
manage to zap windows. If you can't do this, consider switching
companies. If you proceed, and don't have sufficient permission, you
could end up involuntarily switching companies.
You have to be careful about partitioning for several reasons:
(1) it's hard to redo later
(2) if your partition tool allows you to overlap partitions, you
may be able to destroy other data on the disk.
(3) if you get something too small, you may run out of space.
if you get something too large, you may be wasting space; less
serious but still annoying.
(4) a swap partition is backing store for your computer's main memory.
I think windows uses a special swap file for this. Some versions
of unix also support swapping to a file, but in general, this
is less efficient than swapping to a large linear partition.
as a matter of curiousity: I know that you can get to a dos partition from any (right?) of the PC unix things, but can you get to a non-dos partition from Windows 95 or DOS?
No. M$ is completely igerment.
Actually, I believe Windows 98 knows about NTFS.
there may be another alternative.... I believe that RedHat 5.2 CD-ROm is bootable itself. I also believe that there is a 'demo mode' which will create ramdisk, and then call for mounting of the 'live filesystem' CD which is included in the boxed set. This will let you get a feel for working with Linux without making any permanent changes to your system. Of course, it's dependent on having a PC that can boot from CD. Mine are all too old, so I can't try this myself. You said that your floppy drives have been disabled. I wonder if they also disabled the boot from CD option in the bios, as well. This method would give you a clean system every time you booted it, so you couldn't do much in the way of customization. The next step would be to create an UMSDOS filesystem. This does not require re-partitioning, but instead is a unix filesystem creatted within a DOS file. for that matter, you can do a full linux installation in a UMSDOS filesystem. Unfortunately, all my spare hardware is sitting right here at my feet in Michigan. The shipping charges to India would be much greater than the hardware is worth. For that matter, this weekend I'll be attending a convention in Dayton, OH which is reputed to be the largest electronic flea market in the world. Typically, sunday afternoon the parking lot is littered with hardware the vendors don't want to haul home. I wish I could think of a way to send you a container full of PC parts!
The RedHat 5.2 CD is indeed bootable. all you need is a BIOS that supports booting from CDROM. Any motherboard manufactured in the last year should support it.
I don't remember an option, however, to boot a live system directly from the CD. The live-system-from-cd option I saw required a minimal partition on the HD, I believe. Granted, the last time I looked at it was quite a while ago. BTW, RedHat 6.0 is out.
I'm pretty sure you can go straight off the CD...you can in FreeBSD 3.1 anyhow... (but considering how much I actually know about the subject; "ignore the dancing monkey")
Here is what the RedHat 5.2 FAQ says on the subject: E.6.12.1 Question I would like to be able to use the live file system on the cdrom to boot. E.6.12.2 Answer Red Hat Linux no longer supports the Live boot feature due to the change to a modular kernel. Because of this change, booting from read-only file system is not practical. The cdrom does contain data in its /live section that can be executed in rescue mode, but one needs to set the PATH and LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variables.
re #145... what exactly does that mean? Re Rh 6.0. yeah Redhat 6.0 is out.. I ordered it for $1.99 at linuxcentral.com not a bad price if you don't have a need for the manual
It means you can't boot the live system on the CD-ROM. It's only there for the rescue disk.
I have been able to boot the RH 5.2 CD...that is how I installed it. was that not supposed to happen?
No, you can boot the CD to install. You can't, however, boot the *live* filesystem on the CD. Theoretically, you could boot a real, complete system from the CD. However, since the advent of kernel modules, you can't have them on a read only file system (don't ask me why) so you'd need at least one filesystem not on the CD, so they don't see a point in allowing you to boot the one on the CD except for rescue purposes. (I hope that was clear enough...)
the question is.. who would want to boot a live filesystem from the CD anyway? i mean everyone has a hard drive.
Well, it's real HARD to mung up a R/O filesystem that CAN'T become
writable, no matter what..
And it frees up the HDD for all the files that change..
Think about it.
Isn't CD ROM access slow compared to a typical hard drive? Also, these days everybody not only has a hard drive, they have an eighty bazillion gigabyte hard drive. Plenty of room for the full OS and plenty more.
Info World magazine a couple weeks ago had a columnist mention the Caldera 6.0 release of Linux. Evidentally it had a very friendly graphical install, and would even set itself up a partition on the same disk as Windows 95 in a very cooperative matter.
Re #152: I think the point is that you could play around a little with Linux before deciding whether to go through the trouble of repartitioning your drive.
Well ! Since i think i was the one who started it all, maybbe i should
be a bit concerned about it. I have almost given up the idea of working on
Linux. Fortunately, my brother recently purchased a COMPAR Presario . So i
think i would try it out (this booting from Read only file system is still
a good idea for novices like me probably,who cannot actually say that their
HDD is theirs). But the major problem is that my brother stays in a different
place than i am and both these are 600km apart. So i guess..it is stilla
problem.
BTW, someone said Redhat 6.0 is much easier to install and can even partition
the disk...if that is true i guess m y job is further simplified.
Thank you Rick, Marcus, Daniel, Scott , John and others.
systems guys...Hope they won't take me to task..:):)
Missed a thing about "involuntarily switching companies"...not a bad idea actually..every one's job is simplified..even the HR'S ..as they are finding it difficult to maintain a lot of Y2K professionals in herewith out any work and salary still...some sort of white professionals...much like whit elephants (Indian Public sector loss making companies).
I'm sorry, that last response was a bit confused. Would you care to re-phrase with an emphasis on simplicity and clarity? Thanks.
Forget it russ if it is not clear. It is for Marcus...sorry anyway.
Hey, FreeBSD Release 3.2 was released the other day. I should be getting my CDs in a week or so, so if anyone out there needs to borrow them let me know... I'm in the southwest corner of Michigan, but plan to head up to Ann Arbor sometime in the next few weeks...
The problem with involuntarily switching companies is it doesn't look good on one's resume.
Wish my client had asked me for an on-site assignment in U.S..no non-bootable floppy drive problems...no pestering people on BBS..no involuntary switching of companies...hmmmmm..WISH I WAS THERE..
We pester people on BBS's here too. We even switch companies involuntarily, sometimes. It's not paradise.
I have a somewhat unusual situation. I have a computer with 3 hd windows on c and Mandrake Linux on e. When I originally installed Linux it wiped out the master boot record on c Win98 so it wouldn't boot. Scott helped me fix that by suggesting I do fdisk/mbr from the win98 boot disk which fixed the problem so win98 boots now. My question is can I install lilo on the e drive so I can set it up as a dual boot machine? If so how do I do this? I have the Mandrake 6.0 cd-rom (which is esentialy red hat 6.0). Also Linux won't recogonize my pci (non win modem) which seems to be on com 5 for some reason, there seems to be no option for setting ttyS4 on kpppd the Kde x windows interface for pppd. Thanks for any help rendered!
As I understand lilo: It still would use the MBR on C:, but if
you have E: set up with a /boot partition, it can reach it fine.
I myself have DOS living on the front half of C, and the rest of C
and all of D are RedHat.. I gave myself a 2M /boot and there seems
to be no problem at all, placing it on C or D. In my case, I stuck
the /boot partition on the C drive with /dos and, /root (or / - I
can't recall).
Now, if we just had a neat way to restore OUR "mbr" after doze got
thru mangling it ;-)
Don't use kpppd <shrug>.
Re #164: Yeah...I wish Linux had a DOS utility to replace a damaged lilo, but since lilo doesn't understand the filesystem and needs the kernel location hard-coded in, that's not really practical. FreeBSD's 'EasyBoot' program (which is really just a partition-selector -- the actual bootstrap program is in the boot block of the FreeBSD partition) can be installed from a DOS floppy. FreeBSD recently changed to a new bootstrap program, and I'm not sure if I like it or not. It's more reminiscent of a SPARC boot ROM than the old bootstrap was, and is probably a bit more intuitive than the old one. It has the same functionality; you can still boot any file in the root filesystem, on the fly. I've had a little trouble getting it to remember my IRQ settings and such (FreeBSD lets you configure them at boot time), but that's probably due to my using a 3.2-RELEASE kernel with 3.1-RELEASE rc scripts. For now I've been fixing it by compiling in the settings I need when I build the kernel, but I should fix it properly one of these days.
I'm afraid this doesn't quite answer my question (go slow I'm a newbie to Linux). How exactly do I put lilo somewhere other than the space occupied by windozembr? I need windoze for apps like Pagemaker, Homepage, etc, so I can't just trash it. Botting Linux from a floppy would be fine as well. My understanding is that the bot image for linux is on my e: drive (maybe hc5). Is there a file I can configure on my boot floppy to int to this so I don't have to reinstall Linux? Again thanks for any help rendered. Ignore typos, I'm too lazy to fix them. :-)
I need a RedHat 5.2 bootfloppy. Is there a way to make one of these from DOS/Win95? Actually what I really need is the install floppy, not just the boot floppy.
re: 167..
"Read My Lips.." Lilo lives in the MBR - there is only ONE MBR.
It stores either the 95 bootstrap, or the the lilo bootstrap.
The difference IS, lilo can play any field - win95 is selfish and
self-centered.
re 168..
Rawwrite..
ls -al /mnt/cdrom/images
total 4343
dr-xr-xr-x 3 root root 2048 Jan 13 1999 .
dr-xr-xr-x 14 root root 4096 Jan 13 1999 ..
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 235 Jan 13 1999 TRANS.TBL
-r-xr-xr-x 1 root root 2048 Jan 13 1999 boot.catalog
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 1474560 Jan 13 1999 boot.img
dr-xr-xr-x 2 root root 2048 Jan 10 1999 oldones
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 1474560 Oct 13 1998 rescue.img
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 1474560 Jan 13 1999 supp.img
ls -al /mnt/cdrom/dosutils
total 411
dr-xr-xr-x 6 root root 4096 Nov 3 1998 .
dr-xr-xr-x 14 root root 4096 Jan 13 1999 ..
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 332 Jun 5 1997 README
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 706 Jan 13 1999 TRANS.TBL
dr-xr-xr-x 2 root root 2048 Nov 3 1998 autoboot
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 62 Jul 15 1998 autoboot.bat
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 17982 Jun 5 1991 copying
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 172096 Oct 14 1998 fips.exe
dr-xr-xr-x 4 root root 2048 Nov 3 1998 fips15c
dr-xr-xr-x 4 root root 2048 Nov 3 1998 fips20
dr-xr-xr-x 2 root root 2048 Nov 3 1998 fipsdocs
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 39910 Jul 28 1996 gzip.exe
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 32208 Aug 22 1996 loadlin.exe
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 87210 Jan 13 1997 lodlin16.tgz
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 14305 Jul 28 1996 rawrite.exe
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 2017 Jul 28 1996 rawrite3.doc
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 9480 Jul 28 1996 rdev.exe
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 13614 Aug 23 1995 restorrb.exe
re # 169 If this is the case how do I configure lilo so I can dual boot? I thought you could use a floppy to boot linux as well. This option probably actually makes sense for me as I want to learn Linux slowly so I can learn how to set up an apache web server. However my main productivity apps are in Win98, I wish it were different, I know Micro$oft is evil, however I can't just throw away all my desktop publishing and web development software on principle <shrug>. Anyway also please keep it simple i.e. tell me the name of files I need to edit to configure lilo, the content to place in the files, the location of the files and where they should be saved to. The only way to grow the Linux community and overthrow Micr0$oft in my opinion is too make it easy enough for low level pseudo geeks like myself to install. 1/2 :-) <set micro rant="off> Thanks again for any help rendered.
the file is /etc/lilo.conf.
you run lilo to reset it.
here's my /etc/lilo.conf:
boot=/dev/hda
map=/boot/map
install=/boot/boot.b
prompt
timeout=50
verbose=1
compact
image=/boot/bzImage-2.2.12
label=2.2.12
root=/dev/hda7
read-only
image=/boot/bzImage-2.0.36
label=YESppp
root=/dev/hda7
read-only
image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.0.36-0.7
label=NOppp
root=/dev/hda7
read-only
other=/dev/hda1
label=dos
table=/dev/hda
You can create a Linux boot floppy. I believe putting in a formatted floppy disk and executing the following command from Linux will do it: dd if=/boot/vmlinuz of=/dev/fd0 You'll probably have to be root to do this. I haven't done it in a long time, but I think that should create a very basic boot floppy for you.
re #173 Ah but you see I can't boot now because I had to replace my win98 mbr, which seems to have trashed lilo. I suppose I could I could disconnect the ide cables from my win hds and reinstall Linux on this drive?
This is why you created that bootdisk, right?
Re #174: Download the boot/rescue floppies for your distribution, and use RAWRITE to write them out. That will let you boot your linux installation. You'll probably still want to make a boot floppy the way I described, though, because it should boot your system right up without having to go through all the prompts on the boot/rescue disks.
Or write one when you recompile the kernel: make zdisk.
Yup. Which I believe does pretty much what my command does, except with a freshly-compiled kernel. It's always a good idea to have a recent boot diskette around -- it'll save you from all kinds of trouble.
Well here is my situation now. I do have a boot floppy I made during the Linux installation when I run it I get the following: Lilo Press return (or wait 10 seconds) to boot your Linux Mandrake system from /dev/hdc5 If you want to use a rescue disc type rescue now. boot: Loading Linux.... (it gets through putting 4 dots on the screen) then Error 0 x 10 I also managed to make a resue disc that seems to boot me into a stripped down Linux with emacs and a few other applications. The recue disc is called something like Tom's root boot. What should I do from here to get it to boot from a floppy to /dev/hdc5? If the next thing doesn't work Im going to reclaim the hd space for windows. How does one reformat a Linux drive to fat16 anyway? Thanks for all your time and paitence with a Linux newbie.
The boot floppy will stop at a prompt for entering "extra parameters". If you
just hit Enter, you get the stripped-down Linux (and get prompted for the root
disk later). At this prompt, type in
root=/dev/hdc5
This should get you into your system. Then log in (to an account with the
necessary permissions) and type
lilo -C /etc/lilo.conf
Assuming your lilo.conf is good, this should restore your LILO MBR.
Where'd you get 'Tom's root/boot'? I've seen that one recommended, but when I went to look for it the other day, I didn't know where to look.
re #181 It came on my Linux mandrake 6.0 distribution cd room which was included with an issue of the magazine Maximum Linux which i got at Safeway
re 180 I don't think this root boot stops except in the very begging for anything. It's all on one floppy so I know it dpesn't ask for another disk. Is there anyway to put lilo and whatever else I need to boot on floppies? I don't want to go through wiping out my win98 mbr again. Thanks to everyone for paitnece with a Linux newbie. Or could I put lilo on e: and switch to that drive with the bios when I boot up? If so, how?
No luck with either boot floppy. Is there some way I can reinstall again and have lilo go onto a floppy as opposed to the mbr of the c: drive? I don't want to go through losing my win 98 mbr again. What would happen if I pulledc the IDE cables from my two win98 drives when i did the reinstall would lilo go on e:?
Slackware used to have a 'create boot floppy' option during installation. Don't know if it still does.
Hmm that does me no good having mandrake 6.0. If there is no way to install Linux without overwriting my win98 mbr I shall have to reclaim my linux gig drive for windows. How do i do that?
Sounds like you are in the position I was a few years ago, due
to that goddamned 95..
At this point, yer pretty well fubar. You could *TRY* to run
the Mandrake (semi-RH) installation again: it should give you
access to fdisk and/or Disk Druid. And, you should be able THEN
to muck around with the "linux partition" - if you USED one.
For me, it was just all around less hassle to NOT fight the RH
install and just reinstall over the old install - AND MAKE A BOOT
DISK THIS TIME. I emphasize this because, that boot disk will be
aware of all the partitioning, and get you into the MAIN, HDD
SYSTEM. Once *there* you can _always_ so "lilo<cr>" and insure
the MBR is reset.
(man, we *really* need an anti-terrorist tool to combat this
win95/mbr-battle)
I made a boot disk and the godamn thing doesn't work. I don't want to write over my win98 mbr AGAIN. I have to say I don't think this Linux stuff is ready for prime time if it won't install easily next to other OSs. I'll ask one more time can I pull my ide cables on my fat16/win win hds and install it all on one disk and then use the bios to select the os?
bwahahahahahahahaha!
You want to blame LINUX because:
1) you didn't create systems disk;
2) winfuck95 ignores other OS???
Man, yer better off stickin' to the winblows stuff.
Hey, does your BIOS include boot settings? Some BIOSes are set to ignore the floppy on bootup, but it's something you can configure so that it will try the floppy and then the C: drive.
re #189 Look asshole if you would actually read my responses I did create a boot disk and a rescue disk and they didn't work. If all Linux users were like you no noe would try Linux, it's a good thing I know most Linux users aren't like you. re #190 Yes i can change which disk boots the system in fact I have it set now now to check for a then c. I'm a little hesitent to reinstall Linux until I know a way I can do it without destroying the Win98 mbr. That's why i was thinking of trying the install with the IDE cables removed from the windows drives. I'm just not sure if the drive letters will be reassigned once the cables are hooked up and if this will confuse the bios for booting the system.
Re #183:
All on one with no prompts? Hmm, I haven't encountered *that* one.
Goto the Slackware website and download the following: Any boot image, any
root image, and rawrite. Then use rawrite to make up a set of floppies.
Come to think of it you can skip the root image. *This* boot floppy will stop,
as I described in #180, and let you mount your own filesystem.
The bios doesn't know about A,C, etc. It does know about disk drives 0,1, etc (the floppy drives), and about drives 80h, 81h, etc (the hard drives). If the setup menu talks about A,C,etc., this is a polite fiction, not reality. So far as pulling IDE cables goes -- it depends a bit on how you have things setup, and a bit on your hardware. You probably have 2 IDE connectors (primary and secondary), each of which can connect to up to 2 drives (cd-rom, hard disk, etc.) On each IDE connector, you can have a master, or you can have a master and a slave. You can't have a slave without a master (but some drives, particularly cd-rom drives, may figure out there's no master and "become" the master.) Hard disks usually have one or more jumpers that can be used to select master/slave. Now, one thing I unfortunately don't know is how dual IDE bus systems assign drive numbers in the bios. On the older single-IDE bus systems, it was very simple; the master was 80h, and if the slave existed, it was 81h. I would expect a dual IDE machine to just assign them 80h,81h,82h,83h regardless of whether they exist or not, but it's quite possible something else happens. Now, if the bios talks about A,C., etc., it's lying, and the reason is, when DOS assigns drive letters, it goes by *partition*, not by *drive*. If your "first" drive has 2 DOS partitions, they'll each be assigned a letter, say, C and D. If the 2nd drive has no DOS partitions, it will be skipped. If the 3rd drive has 1 partition, it might then assigned E. If you take a drive out of the system, the drive letters assigned to the remaining drives will move down one. On very old systems (the original PC and XT), there could be up to 4 floppy drives, so you could (in theory) have A,B,C,D all pointing to floppies. Most later systems only support 1 or 2 drives, but to facilitate copying floppies, DOS always reserves A and B for floppies, even though only one drive may physically be present (if you talk to B, DOS (older versions at least) would prompt you to swap diskettes.) In environments with networks, it is also possible to have additional drive letters) beyond those assigned to disk partitions, that point to network filesystems,, and some versions of dos support commands that can map and unmap "logical" drive letters. So far as the win98 MBR goes. My guess is there's nothing very magical about it. As long as you preserve the partitioning information from the win98 MBR, you should be all set. There is, however, a very easy way to deal with this. If you can find an old copy of DOS, boot up with that, load debug, and use debug to read the MBR off the hard drive. You can then dump and disassemble the MBR to see what it's doing, and equally usefully, you can *save* the win98 mbr to a diskette file. You can also load a diskette file created this way and save it back on the hard disk as the win98 MBR. The partition table starts at offset 1beH in the MBR (if it follows the standard), and consists of 8 bytes and 2 longs: ".byte flag,head,sec,cyl,type,ehead,esect, ecyl; .long start, len" After the 4 entries in the table, there will be a trailing short at offset 1feH, aa55H. Keep in mind the shorts and longs will be in little-endian byte order. It's certainly perfectly possible to pull your windows drive out, install linux, then put the windows drive back. Which drive shows up as bios 80H,81H, etc., is almost certainly going to be dependent entirely on hardware cabling and settings. From what you've said, I gather your bios gives you some ability to change drive assignments independently of cable assignment. If this is done effectively "in hardware", then switching between linux & windows should be easy. If it's done in the bios, then the switch won't be visible to linux (which doesn't use the bios to talk to the hardware) and may or may not be visible to windows98. If it's visible to windows98, then yes, you could use the bios to switch between operating systems. Besides switching the drive assignments, you may also need to switch the "drive number and any other disk geometry settings that might be stored in CMOS. On a real computer, these are stored on the disk; unfortunately, pc compatibles don't do it this way. Whenever you're doing *anything* of this nature, you should anticipate the probability that something could go wrong. Even if you don't accidently goof-up and type the wrong thing in, if you're messing with cables, you could easily plug the wrong thing in or short something out such that you get the drives hooked up differently than you expected, or actually destroy a drive. If there's anything on any of the drives that you value, you should back it up offline before doing anything else. If you don't have the means to back it up, you might either want to invest in whatever it takes to do a backup, or find a way to measure the worth of what you have vs. where you'd like to be, and the risk that you might not get there.
In defense of Linux, I have to say I've installed it many times on Win95 systems and never had any trouble getting LILO to boot either operating system. I'm not quite sure what's going wrong in your setup, but a lot of it's unfortunately probably due to the fact that Microsoft operating systems are hostile towards anything in the MBR that they didn't put there. Still, when I've installed Win95 first, then Linux, I've been able to easily boot either of the two operating systems just by typing their assigned names in LILO. Remember, if you munge your Win98 MBR and can't get it to boot, you can always boot off a floppy and do FDISK /MBR.
You can, too, have a slave without a master. I've done it.
DOS hands out drive letters in order C,D,E,F,... as follows:
First DOS partition on first hard drive
First DOS partition on second drive *if present*
First DOS partition on third hard drive *if present*
First DOS prtition on fourth hard drive *if present*
Any remaining DOS partitions on first drive
Any remaining DOS partitions on second drive
etc.
Windoze NT does something similar. Putting in a second hard drive screws
everything up because the NTFS partition that it was used to calling D: is
now E: and half the stuff can't find its working directories. But you*can*
use Disk Administrator to change the drive letters. I have adopted the
practice on the communications machine of immediately setting the NT partition
as drive Z, and will move the practice to the main brain when I re-do it. That
way I'll be able to pop drives in and out as much as I like without the drive
letter assignments screwing everything up.
Re #195: Some IDE controllers/motherboards will tolerate having a slave drive with no master. I've seen others that would refuse to recognize a drive set up this way. I also have at least one motherboard that refuses to start up and acts totally dead if you plug in an IDE cable incorrectly.
Well I finally got it to work! In fact I'm typing this now over telnet from Linux Netscape at a rousing 2400 baud. I xcan boot into Linux from a floppy or win from power up. i r I enede up trying the pull the IDE cables and it did the trick. Now I need to see if drivers exist for my Yamaha OPL-Sax sound card. I also neecd to get a faster external modem to fdo this for real. :-_0) Thanks to everyone for their time and effort!
You also need to change your backspace key setting. :>
You are right it didn't look that bad in the Linux terminal I was in. Well at least I feel like I'm climbing the mountain now as opposed to sliding down. If I do a Linux applications item should I put it here or in Jellyware? Right now I'm looking for an x-windows apllication that will format text with as much control and formating capability as Pagemaker. Is LateX for page layout?
Yes, LaTeX is a page-layout program. (If I remember correctly, it is a macro package for TeX.) The few times I used TeX, I used Microsoft Word to create the marked-up text files.
I'd guess most people who use LaTeX or TeX use vi or emacs to create their source text. If you want a real bare-knuckles approach, you could try writing postscript directly. Since postscript is, among other things, a stripped down version of a general purpose programming language, there's no reason why you can't make it do anything you want, within reason.
re #201 Ouch, easy for a guru like you to say. I know a little javascript and html, raw postscript sounds like a steep learning curve. I will try LaTex to see if it's what I'm looking for which is a page layout application with a lot of text control that is WYSWYG. I think there is a postscript editor for x-windows called something like ghostscript. I haven't looked at it though.
I remember seeing a series of columns (I think it was in _Electronics Now_) about Postscript. The demonstration programs would do things like generate graphs; you could literally send the program to your printer, along with some data, and the processor in the *printer* would calculate and draw the graph. Interesting stuff.
There seem to be some rudimentry page layout programs out there, but nothing quite as all inclusive as Pagemaker. :-( The good news is there seem to be excellent html editors and the GIMP is a very good graphics editor. It was satisfying to mount my windows hds and bring up images in GIMP. I still need to see if there is a scanner driver for my Artec Viewstation scanner & a sound driver for my OPL-Sax sound card. It looks like I'll be able to do about 80% of my work on Linux, when I want to, which is not bad for freeware OS. :-) Not to mention ofcourse learn serious sys admin, and other networking skills.
Well I got the sound card to work. The only way I have heard the get the scanner to work is to use windows 3.1 drivers under wine, which frankly I didn't quite understand. Do you then run an image editing program under wine that supports TWAIN? If so, no go, all my image editors crash under wine..
From a LaTeX source file you can (1) output PDF using pdflatex (2) output PostScript using latex and dvips (3) output HTML using latex2html. Cool, isn't it?
"filters" (aka "Translators" and "xlators")
On the MBR problems... Useful tip: *NEVER* install Windows 9X on a PC with Linux already on it. Even if you have DOS running already, Windows will re-arrange the partition table according to its' preferences, and Linux often breaks badly at this time. (If Linux is on a different physical drive, you can disconnect the drive, install Windows, then use the boot disk solution below after reconnecting the drive.) If you need a dual-boot system, install Windows first, then Linux. *MAKE THE BOOT DISKS*, better yet, two or three. If Windows replaces the MBR again, which it does at random times for no obvious reason, boot with the boot disk, log in as root, run lilo, this will regenerate the LILO MBR and put back your configuration exactly as it was, including booting Windows by default, if that is what you selected in lilo.conf. Note that for this purpose, unless you do something like swap your standard keyboard for a USB model, you don't need to worry if you've upgraded your kernel on the hard drive, the lilo program will still be able to do its job under the old kernel used for the boot disk. If you've added special support for things to newer kernels, you want to reboot after fixing lilo for the newer kernel to run.
And if you really just want your Win9x mbr back, try putting in a Win9x boot floppy, booting (hopefully) to the command prompt, and using 'fdisk /mbr'.
Actually, I've never had a problem with a windows re-install screwing up the partition table. It will over-write the MBR, though, so you'd better have a Linux boot floppy ready.
It shouldn't matter which MBR program you use, but rather which partition is active. All the MBR does is read the boot record from the active partition, and transfer to it.
Note that this Windows 9x messing up a Unix system problem is not limited to Linux, but also affects FreeBSD and other systems. Which is to say, this is Microsloth's fault...
It depends on how you install the system, really. It's Microsoft's
fault for considering "upgrade" and "new install" seperate functions and
putting profitability before utility, but it's entirely possible to reinstall
Windows and not touch the MBR.
I just keep around a floppy with an install program for my favorite boot manager (os-bs, which I got in the habit of using back in my FreeBSD days, for some reason I really don't like using LILO) and re-apply it after any changes (particularly MS re-installs..)
LILO's not really a very good boot loader. I don't know why Linux doesn't default to FreeBSD's scheme, which is to put the boot loader on the FreeBSD partition, and use a little program called EasyBoot to pick whether the DOS or Windows partition is active. The biggest advantage of this is that since FreeBSD's boot loader doesn't have to squeeze into the MBR, it can do a lot more. For example, it understands the filesystem, so you're allowed to boot any kernel file, not just pre-selected ones. Granted, you can install LILO on the Linux partition and get basically the same scheme, but you don't gain any functionality by doing so.
Sounds like a sensible scheme..
Certainly sounds more reasonable that that other scam - er,
scheme: the one with a bootstrap program *AND* an entire kernel
run from the dos partition.. (I can't recall the name right now).
Although, I certainly prefer even lilo over what win95 and win98
are stuck with..
In fact, we could live with lilo if we could write a real short
program to the dos-parition that was ALWAYS capable of resetting
lilo after M$ has - as usual - munged the MBR.
You're thinking of LOADLIN. I've never tried it, but apparently it's handy in a few difficult situations.
yah, loadlin..
Loadlin works pretty well under unusual filesystems. I've run a very
small UMSDOS-FS (unix-over-MS-DOS) 120-meg Linux kernel on a system that was
far too small to repartition and install on, which booted into DOS and then
loaded linux from the command prompt.
A 120 meg kernel??? Yiao! Loadlin works well enough, but it's a kludge. I think the last place I ised it was on the Packard Bell, as for some reason LILO choked on that machine. For my part, I've reinstalled NT many times and not once has it touched the MBR.
I'm sure that "kernel" was not what he meant..
Kernel distribution, yep.
If you run a windows program to make windows the active partition, it may well rewrite the MBR.
Windows will re-write the MBR under any number of circumstances, some of them so obscure as to be filed under "it just wanted to". Hence my advice on keeping a boot disk on multi-boot Linux systems.
no way is that a kernel. even with all features turned on, the linux kerlnel prolly doesn't pass the 1M line.
I've seen kernels that were > 1.2 meg uncompressed. Compressed kernels come in around 350K to 700K.
There may well be questions from me in the next few weeks. I'm going to try installing Linux this very evening.
We are Linux of Borg. Ressistance is an indication you missed the point. welcome aboard ;)
...but first I'm gonna need a less antique CD-ROM drive. :(
Oh, come on.. Why? Mine is an antiquiated 2x with a proprietary
driver card!
So far, of every Distro I splurged on from Linux-Central, et al:
Redhat is the ONLY one that recognizes my drive - AND INSTALLS..
(SuSE "saw" it, but couldn't work with it for some freaky reason).
I'm a lamer, and I'm trying to install Caldera. I've got DOS drivers, and Win95 recognizes it. But I've been vacillating over buying a CD-RW for months now anyway.
However, I'm currently poking around the Caldera website to see if they already have an answer. Hmmm, they have the drive listed, with a source and object module listed. Now I just need to find out how to use that as a boot option on install...
Chicken and egg problem. I need to rebuild the install kernel with cdu31a (driver for my old Sony CD), but there doesn't seem to be any DOS tools to do it with. Apparently Linux autoprobing of this drive was disabled a few kernel revisions ago. Hmm.
Aren't you running linux now?
If you are running *nix, and can't see the cdrom to get the files
to REBUILD *nix, I've had to resort to downloading it - treating
the web itself as a big, slow-ass-hell cdrom ;-)
But can I rebuild a kernel from Windows? I've got the cdu31a.c and .o files, I just haven't found how to apply them to the install floppy.
You aren't GOING to find a way.. The diskette is either a
compressed linux image, or a version of minix with some tools.
What you are saying is that you don't have it installed at all,
and for some obtuse reason the install won't "see" your cdrom.
Such cd's make lovely coasters.. I have about nine myself.
If, otoh, yer trying to RUN LINUX from a cd, you're flat outta'
luck.
No, it sounds like the problem is none of the installation boot disks support his CD-ROM, and of course he can't make his own without a working Linux installation. The best course is to go buy an IDE CD-ROM. My last one cost me about $35. If that's absolutely out of the question, your best bet will be copying the CD-ROM files to a DOS partition, and using that to install from -- assuming you have the space, and your distribution allows that (most do.)
A new CD-ROM will be cheaper than more disk. ;) At the moment I'm stuck deciding whether I should just buy something a bit newer than ol' faithful P133.
I have a K5-133 that serves my purposes quite well. Of course, most of its components are somewhat newer than the motherboard. (I can rarely afford to replace a whole computer, so I tend to upgrade piecemeal. I find that to usually be less disruptive for my purposes anyway.)
D'oh! There was a nice 540 MB disk lying around at work, but it must have gone into a PC already.
We just got a brand new and empty server at work, so I brought in the Caldera CDs and installed Linux on the new machine. Very slick, and YES, the keyboard shortcuts in X work!!!! I'm probably going to just go and buy a new CD drive for my home machine rather than try to force it.
which keyboard shortcuts would those be?
Basically, you don't need a mouse at all if keyboard shortcuts are properly done. I was very happy to see that the KDE desktop that Caldera has seems to cover everything, even being able to pop open the min/max/size/move menu on each window. It's one reason I hadn't gotten into Linux before, the need to be grabbing a mouse more often than I like.
<raises eyebrow> Wouldn't that be more of a problem with Windows? says the guy who's barely used either....
Windows actually has pretty decent support for keyboard operation..
re#241: You could just borrow an IDE drive from someone long enough to get the install done, then fix for the old CD drive. (A fan of making anything that still works do so, that's me.)
I went and bought a huge new drive because it looked like I'd want it (and drives being cheap enough these days). I'm not sure how to prod the Lizard installer into reading from a hard disk. Anyway, I sent the CD question into Caldera, and I'm not in a huge rush. Hey, if I was borrowing drive, why not just borrow an appropriate CD drive?
I believe that's what he meant.. Borrow an IDE CD-ROM drive.. They've started making them since the glory days of that old Sony you're using.. ;-)
I'm still agonizing over whether to fork out the money for a CD-RW for $200. I'm sure not going to pay $50 for a new CD reader.
you should be able to get a DVD-ROM drive (drive only, no MPEG decoder card) for not much more than that $50. but if you're paying $50 for a new CD-ROM these days you're paying too much (by a factor of two, almost..)
Dunno. $50 seemed to be the starting price in the stores I visited yesterday. Nice drives, I guess, with ability to deal with all manner of CD-RW and such at purportedly high speeds. I'm starting to lean towards getting the damn CD-RW drive. I'll need some kind of backup with better capacity than Zip disks, and RW media is now down to $3-4.
The advice on the net is not to use a CDRW drive for reading CDs, as it wears out quicker that way, and CD readers can be had cheap - at least in principle. Occasionally Best Buy has a sale/rebate offer wherein the CDROM can be had for $20 - occasionally $10 - after rebate. Or else try going to computer shows.
Advice on the net is often not worth much more than you pay for it.. How quick is "quicker" [sic], anyway? Anyway, Scott's already got a CDROM drive that he can continue using -- once he installs Linux from a more modern CD-reading device (such as the CD-RW) and builds a new kernel..
Ha! Caldera tech support came through. The ultramodern "Lizard" install couldn't handle it, but the older "Lisa" install could be prodded into recognizing my vintage CD-ROM drive. I ended up missing out on some of the nicer parts of graphical install and autoconfig, but I'm pretty sure I can get what I need done without too much hassle.
Re#248: Yep, bad wording on my part, I meant borrow an IDE CD-ROM drive.
By the time you wear out a CD-RW drive reading CDs with it, it'll probably be obsolete anyway. I don't see why they'd wear out quicker than CD-ROM drives, and I have some of those that are ten years old that still work. A "real" CD-ROM drive will probably have faster throughput, though. CD-ROM drives out to 32x can be had for under $50, and most writers seem to be 12x or less. On the other hand, the only difference I've ever noticed between 8x and 32x, really, is that the 32x drives are much noisier.
Yah, the "fast" drives sound like a lost turbine, looking for
an aircraft to eat.
You have several choices: