Some newbie linux questions, plz take pity on me ;)

[Telkman]

Hi,

I'm new to linux, and i fancy giving it a go as an alternative to windows.

I'm going to start with redhat for an easy entry to linux, and maybe move up to debian if i like it

I'm going to have two hdds, one with ME, one with red-hat. not dual booted, but i was wondering if ME will be able to read files from the linux filesystem.

say for example, i download a pdf datasheet to the linux hdd, and i boot up into windows, and want to open it, will it be able to read it from the linux filesystem ok?

or would i have to install the redhat onto fat filesystem? would this have any drawbacks?

[OOPS!]

Hi, Telkman,

Welcome to giving Linux a go!

To answer your question, no, WinMe will not read anything but a fat partion. But Linux can read and write to fat. In fact Linux can read and write to about 30 different file systems.

You can install Linux on a fat partion, but it won't be easy or happy about it. It is best to install it to a native fs. Such as ext2 or 3, or Reisers.

And dual booting is easy. RH will set it up for you automagically. Either with Lilo or Grub for a boot loader, your choice. Grub I think is the default now for RH. So think about it. Boot floopies are a pain in my opinion.

Hope this clears things for you a little.

OOPS!

[Telkman]

thanks OOPS

i guess i'll try and keep the second hdd purely for the linux and keep any document ssaved or anything on the fat32 drive with ME.

what linux file system would u reccomend?

i don't understand teh principles of dual booting tbh, i read the pcmech article but got fairly lost. i havea lowpec system, 160 ram. 800 athlon.

would something like grub stop during post, and let me select between windows and and linux?

what i really want is something where as is posts, i hold down a key to get to a menu to select the OS for now, as i know i'll still mostly be using windows.


my plan was to have one all the time, not dual boot or anything, and just switch the cable around if i need one or the other. after all this is just an experiment.

ta for the reply

Telkman.

got work tommorow won't get back to pc from now till 9pm bst, so if anyone fancies posting useful links, i'd be grateful

[TMAN]

you can simply download to the linux HD BUT you will have to move it to the FAT32 partition from linux if you want to read it in windows.

[MaXimum SMOKE]

EXT3 seems to be the 'accepted' file sys for most newer RH distros. Quick take on dual booting using 2 hard disks... Linux offers to install a boot manager to the master boot record of the first physical hard disk. (Probably your Me drive) You boot up, and it takes control and offers you a menu choice of which OS you want to run for this session. If you fail to make a selection in the alotted time, It boots the default os. Unless you change it, the default would be linux. (Lilo, or Grub, operate in a similar manner.) You can move files back and forth between the drives, while running Linux. You may need administrative (root) access to write to the Windows drive.

[Telkman]

EXT was the only one i'd ever heard of, so EXT3 seems the likely choice.

can u have most boot managers configured to not display unless u hold down a key, similar to when holding down DEL to get into bios settings?

[MaXimum SMOKE]

Personally, I am not aware of a way to 'hide' the boot selector. You can change the amount of time it is displayed before booting the default. The default for lilo is a graphic screen, but I believe you can change it to text....

[Telkman]

ok. i'll experiment and see

[jglen490]

Glad to see another Linux user !! Windoze cannot natively see a Linux filesystem partition. Linux can read Windoze filesystem partitions (FAT16, FAT32, NTFS) and can write to the FAT systems, but not reliably write to NTFS.

In most dual boot cases, users will setup a FAT32 partition to be used as a common data file storage location where there are data files (docs, music, video, etc) that are used in common.

Linux has its own set of filesystems (ext2, ext3, ReiserFS, XFS, and others) on which it works really well, so it needs to be in its own set of partitions (there will be at least two -- swap, everything else). The ext3, ResierFS, XFS, and others are journaling filesystems which allows for better recovery -- especially under sudden power loss conditions.

The Grub boot loader, and I think also Lilo, have a way to "hide" the initial selection menu. But that defeats the purpose of having a menu in the first place , and besides it's easy to get around that and have the menu pop up anyway.

Many first time users have this deep-seated fear of installing a boot loader to the MBR of the primary hard drive. They fear that it could somehow destroy their Windoze space. Couldn't be farther from the truth. The fact is that there is ALWAYS some code in the MBR that runs code (usually in a partition boot sector) that loads and starts an OS. Grub, and Lilo, can install a small amount of code into the MBR -- if you ask them to -- that will assist the BIOS and bootstrap loader to find the rest of the Grub, or Lilo, code that present a menu for you to select which OS to actually boot. Grub, and Lilo, are both very polite and will do what you ask and won't do what you don't ask.

Have fun with your new-found friend the Penguin!!

[Telkman]

Thanks jglen.

very helpful

i'm happy to stick the boot loader on the ME drive

wanted to hide the boot loader as i occasionally have other ppl on here, and i'd rather not have em in linux, and only in ME

I'll let ya know how i get on. Got my hdd from eBay today, tso i have sumwhere to install it, just need to wait for my red-hat from eBay to arrive.

[jglen490]

Very good point. You might go to the Grub manual and click on the Security link. You should be able to password protect a menu to avoid having unwanted users going to your Linux space. But then again, Linux has its own good security , so it may not be needed.

[Telkman]

ta jglen

[OOPS!]

Telkman,

They can't access your Linux partions unless they can log in to a desktop. So, unless you leave Linux running a desk top, all they can do is sit and look at the log in screen without a password. So don't worry about it.

If you want to let let them see what Linux is about, create a guest user and just restrict what they can get to. Remember, in *nix systems unless something is expressly permited, you can't do it. Far more secure than any version of Windows.

OOPS!

[Telkman]

Its just not wanting other users to be aware its installed on the system in the first place, but i'm sure it will work out fine

i have a seperate drive for the linux, will that have to have mulitple partitions ofr the operating system?

[MaXimum SMOKE]

Technically speaking the only partitions you would really need to define are :
/ {the root partition} and the SWAP { as a type swap) partition .
The OS will cut up the / as it sees fit for the rest of the install. The rest of the partitions are for clarity or convenience. So like if you were multi user and you want to make sure that someone else doesn't abuse like the 'home' partition, you can define it as a logical partition. This would guarantee that it doesn't say grow to take over the whole drive. Or in my case, I could define a gig as /Storage That way If I decide to switch from RH to say Mandrake or something, I can do a custom install to make sure that the new install doesn't format /Storage, and wipe out all my stored files as it would with / . If you see what I mean.

[Telkman]

yeh seems to make sense. as long as the installer can d it for me i'll be fine

[raiderfan]

Someone was telling me that Red hat (dont know about other distributions) when installing does not install something like the header files? So you can not get the graphical interface and when trying to install programs you get a lot of errors. Is this making any sense, because I installed Red hat 7.1, and actually kde worked but I tried extracting a program called enlightenment and got a bunch of errors saying that directories are not present. Does this have to do with the headers.

[raiderfan]

Sorry, meant to put this in a new thread.

[Telkman]

Had a go at installing linux. got bout 50% thru, messed up, crippled the hdd. i spent ages trying to fix it, in the end i put 2k on it.

the main problem is my only cd-drive is usb 2.0, so i had to get an old 8x ide drive to install it, which died half-way thru.

is there any way to install linux from a usb cd? perhaps a system disk with drivers?