Entering the World

[lpc300]

Hi all,

Just entered the wonderful world of Linux, yesterday. I have actually owned a few Linux distributions for a while, but until I recently purchased an external modem so I could hook into the internet, I hadn't installed them. Got the modem last week, installed Mandrake 8.1, yesterday. It is very cool. I dual boot with Win2K. Couple of issues. I can't 'see' my NT partition from Linux, or my Linux partition from NT. Is this because, when I partitioned (from Partition Magic 6.0), I created a logical partition for Mandrake rather than a primary partition? I want to access files from each and can't. Should I convert the partition? Would it be easier to wipe my drive and reinstall? I've ghosted my Win2K partition, so this would be simple. If I do reinstall, what would be the best configuration with Win2K and Mandrake-Linux (and I won't forget the swap partition)?

Thanks in advance.

BTW,I was impressed that nearly everything worked when I installed the OS. Sound card, video card, external modem, both printers (HP 4L and Epson 777). Even my I/O Magic TV card was recognized, configured and worked perfectly. Only thing I'm having some difficulty with is my CanoScan N650 Scanner (USB). I even was able to sync up my Handspring Visor!

[DrZaius]

Hi lpc300,

I'm not 100% sure on this, but I don't think Windows can read Linux file systems (it's listed as NON-DOS), and Linux can't read NTFS.

[lpc300]

Hi Doc,

Thanks for the quick reply. I thought Windows couldn't 'see' Linux. I remember having Linux on my system about a year ago (when I was running Win98SE) and Linux could 'see' that (FAT32, duh!). Wasn't sure if it could 'see' NTFS. Guess not. Don't want to convert to FAT32. Will have to figure out a work around.

[OOPS!]

Hi,

After doing some reading while tring to help someone else here. I found that NTFS support for Linux is experimental and is read-only yet. You can recompile your kernel for it, but it's an "at your own risk" kind of thing for now.

I kind of assume that the next kernel series (2.6.x) will work on that, what with XP using the NTFS. One of the great things about Linux is that you can always up-grade your kernel for free to take advantage of new features as they are developed.

OOPS!

[lionel_hutz]

You should already have read only support for ntfs in the kernel with mdk 8.1, all I did was make a directory in /mnt called ntfs/
and then did

mount -t ntfs /dev/hda1 /mnt/ntfs

now you have to be sure to change /hda1 to wherever your ntfs partiton is residing but then should be good to go (READ only though)

when your done just do umount /mnt/ntfs

you can even add this to your /etc/fstab to mount automagically on boot.

you probably already know all that but really, when i ran mdk 8.0 (i run suse now) i used to read my ntfs files all the time with no kernel compiling.

good luck

hutz