User:Theresa knott/sand box

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Undelete/Life_in_Eastside

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Pantomime

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http://www.sinderella2.co.uk/jimdavidson/

http://arts.qmuc.ac.uk/ijost/Volume1_no2/B_Bell.htm

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Linux woes

Well I finally decided to get around to trying Linux. I decided to go for the “safest option” and run a live distribution from a cd (Morphix). I ignored the warning on the disc that read “read the instructions inside the magazine first” because I no longer had the magazine. So I just put it in the drive and rebooted. Everything went ok, I had a bit of a look around, decided there would be a very steep learning curve, and I really should look at a few books (there was no documentation on the cd at all!). Then I pressed the button on the DVD drive and nothing happened! Panic set in, as I realise that a bootable cd meant I couldn’t just switch off and on again. I has visions of prising it open with a screwdriver ( the computer is 4 days old I really didn’t want to smash it up) then I came to my senses and thought of changing the boot order in the bios. That worked so I did boot up Windows and get the disc out, but surely there must be a way of opening it from within Linux? Also when I tried to connect to the internet, it didn't dial up (I get broadband in two weeks yeah!) how do i tell it about dial up networking? theresa knott 19:01, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I'm not 100% sure, but I don't think you can eject a live distribution while the OS is in use - you have to shut it down and the last thing it does is eject the CD. However, if you insist on using one, Knoppix is about the most friendly Linux distribution I have ever seen (live or on-disk). →Raul654 19:11, Jul 29, 2004 (UTC)

Indeed, the root filesystem is mounted off the CD, so the eject button is (quite rightly) disabled. I'd echo Raul's fondness for Knoppix. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 22:51, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I don't know about Morphix but Mandrake Linux (the distro I use) has a whole control center (very nice) that should recognize your dial-up modem. Problem is, it doesn't recognize my D-link DWL-520! (nor does any other distro I tried) :(. A good distro is Debian because it makes installing packages a lot easier, and it's what lindows is based on. Good luck. Ilyanep (Talk) 19:19, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)

First off, if you have a built in 'winmodem', generally it is not worth trying to get Linux to recognise it. All hardware modems should give you a better shot at it. How old is the CD you're using? Using the most recent one will give you a much better crack at getting it going, as Raul says, Knoppix is the best at this. As for getting the disk out, when it's running, you can't, because it is a LiveCD, running from the disk. Shut it down using the icon that, I think, on Gnome, is a foot, but honestly could be anything depending on the theme. It's analagous to the start button on windows. There should be a 'log out' or 'shut down' option. Go for it, and the disk should eject. If it doesn't, turn the computer off at the power switch, and find the little paperclip hole on the front of your cd drive that hardware ejects the cd. HTH Mark Richards 20:31, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)

If you want specific help about how to configue it to dial up, let us know what computer, and what version of Linux. Mark Richards 23:04, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for your halp everyone. Now that I come to think of it, it makes perfect sense not to allow removal of the disc when the operating system is on that disc. But it does not eject when the computer shuts down :-( Anyway I found a quick way to get the disc out, by rebooting, pressing F1, watching the light of the DVD drive an opening it when it flashes. It then boots to Windows just fine. As for dialup, i think I may as well just wait a couple of weeks to I go over to braodband and try to get that to work instead.

A way to get disks out in an emergency (if the power is off and you need to get a disk out) is to get a paperclip, straigten it out and push it firmly into the small hole below the tray. This is the emergency release mechanism, after pressing it you can gently slide the tray out and recover your disk. Just a little FYI if you ever need to get a disk out and can't :) Darksun 18:59, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I intend to run a dual boot system - what's the best way to do this let Linux shrink my Windows partition, or use something like Partition Magic? I have version 5 ( current version is 8) free on a magazine disc. Has anyone used that with XP - it says it's compatable with Windows 2000 but XP hadn't come out yet when version 5 was new. I'd rather not pay for the latest version if I can get away with an older one. theresa knott 00:29, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Unless you're strapped for cash, I'd avoid dual-boot like the plague. Partition management (of every flavour) can be a bit dicey, and windows frequently doesn't play nice with the boot sectors of other OSes (particularly when you need to reinstall XP, it'll generally write the drive's MBR, meaning your linux partition becomes unbootable, at least until you fix the boot partition after booting from some install media or liveCD). If you can at all afford it, get one of those cheapo removable drive caddy things (you know, it's just a slot on the PC's front, and a regular IDE hard drive goes inside). Then have one drive for booting windows, and another for booting linux. It's marginally less convenient than dual boot, but much safer. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 00:40, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I would like to echo Finlay's advice - dual boot is 10x more headache than it's worth. 'Tried it, *hated* it. Now I have two machines (XP for fun, Fedora Core 2 for work) and life is a lot happier. If you have an older machine lying around, put linux on that one. Just one comment - the "good" Window managers (read - friendly and intuitive) are very processor hungry. →Raul654 04:36, Jul 30, 2004 (UTC)

Dual boot isn't that hard, although I would recommend making an emergency boot disk to repair the boot loader if something happens. The Grub boot loader is fairly robust and works well either from floppy or disk. Repartitioning is a bit dangerous, but if done right, works well. I think getting a second disk would be much easier and cheaper than the "drive caddy things". I sometimes install grub in the last cylinder on the disk, which windows invariably forgets to use anyway. --ssd 04:25, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Yes, dual boot isn't such a big deal. Get a nice tool such as Partition Magic to help you. The concerns about MBRs are valid, but if you can get your preferred OS to rewrite the boot sector you want, if Win overwrites it (a boot floppy would help), you should be fine, really. Dysprosia 14:00, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Partition Magic costs $$$; if you're looking for a no-cost no-frills alternative for resizing partitions, check out BootItNG (http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/bootitng.html) Ambarish | Talk 18:08, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I have used dual boot, and found it, as others said, a pain, but not insurmountable. The solution I came up with was to make a floppy or cd boot disk that boots to a partition on the hard drive. If that disk is in the drive, it boots to linux, if not, it boots to windows. Seriously though, hard discs are not expensive, get another one and don't mess around with partitioning. Mark Richards 15:15, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)

You have convinced me, I shall get another hard drive. theresa knott 19:22, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)

tk, There's some preparatory mental flossing generally needed when dual booting, whatever approach one uses. Decide what sort you are, with the two choices being (at the boundaries) computer enthusiast for whom the system is the thing and the work done with a working system not, or a user for whom the whole bit (hardware, software, connectivity, ...) is just a tool. If there were squirrells inside making it all go, that would be just fine as long as nobody makes you feed them and they don't lose/damage your work. the former sort will be quite accepting of the reboot, reload, reformat, recreate cycle some software compells.

If you're the latter sort (even if only sometimes) then dataloss paranoia is quite appropriate. The problem (as always) is that where and how the data (=all that work you've sweated over, or acquired in other perhaps not repeatable ways) can get lost is very hard to foresee, even for the most knowledgable. Monkeying with your partition tables is quite foreseeable, of course, and the problem (even w/ Partition Magic which has a sterling reputation) is of course pilot error, common in inexperienced. The usual resort is to backups, so if lightning (fire/flood/theft/flocks of offended tits/...) does strike, the data will at least still exist (elsewhere will then be your fervent hope). In an era of 60GB disks and rather smaller data tape cartridge capacities (among those offordable by mortals w/o Gates' resources), this is not so simple as it might be. DVD burners are of course an alternative, but at 7GB or so current max, that's a lot of DVDs (and time and trouble) if your disk(s) is full. Currently the cheapest alternative is probably a second disk, but unless it's portable (and kept elsewhere, though regularly updated with the latest not-to-be-lost stuff) the second copy of your vital info might die the same dismal death as the first (in the next door drive bay).

There are several intro to Linux things available on the 'Net, with the Rute Guide being perhaps the most one_source of the responsible lot. There's also a lot of not so useful stuff. Check with the Linux Documentation Project for generally good stuff, though a bit fragmented, rather as the WP often is. The learning curve isn't as steep as you now think, it's just that you're hitting it pretty much flat on when you're undertaking to dual boot, or install a new operating system yourself, or, indeed, to manage your own computer. The M$ folk iterate and reiterate about ease of use, and even easier of use with the newest/latest (only a bit more $!) release, but neglect to note that 1) it's easy (whatever they think they mean by that) only for those migrating from previous versions with a back story of experience and knowledge, and 2) "you don't have to worry about system administration" is a pile of poop and a flat (and every other sort of shape) lie. Every machine -- unless you're one of those for whom data is disposable and recreatable without cost or trouble -- requires a keeper. Even kids -- who are far more self managing than these machines -- requires minders, pretty continuously. At least machines aren't motivated/driven/compelled/poossessed/drawn to get into trouble on their own hook. It's easily doable (by those with certain capabilities, a sense of caution (unless you're one of those ...), and some patience), but does require effort and perspective and a bit of prepatory mental flossing. ww 18:31, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Yes, dual booting with two hard drives (one for linux and one for windows) is definitely the way to go. The easiest way to accomplish this is:

1. Install windows on the master hard drive. (I'm guessing you've already done this.)
2. Swap the two hard drives. I.e., make the master the slave, and the slave the master. Should be a simple adjustment of jumpers and IDE cables.
3. Install linux on the new master hard drive.
4. Set up the boot loader to enable dual boot. Both lilo and grub can fool the system into thinking that the windows drive is the master and the linux drive is the slave, making windows happy. (Windows insists on its bootloader being present in the "master" drive, or it won't boot.) Many linux distros will detect windows on your original hard drive and set the bootloader up to fool the system automatically. In case your distro doesn't, here's an example (http://www.linuxgazette.com/issue55/tag/8.html) of a lilo.conf set up to virtually swap the master/slave (specifically, the part about map-drive).

The advantage of doing it this way is that the slave hard drive (the one containing windows) is not touched at all by linux. Even if something gets majorly screwed up with the bootloader, your windows installation is safe, and in a worst case scenario you can simply swap the two drives back and boot windows with no problems. It's saved me a couple times. Good luck. :-) --Benc 22:04, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)

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