First time Linux user installing Mandrake 9.0

[Familyman]

I thought I would try a Linux OS. I got Mandrake 9.0 and PartitionMagic 8.0. Is there anything I should know before I install them?

I’m planning on using PartitionMagic to partition my HD so I won’t lose anything I have in Win98. I don’t know anything about partitioning and I don’t want to mess this up. Does anyone have a good reference where I can learn the basics?

BootMagic and DataKeeper came with PartitionMagic. I would like to use them both. Will BootMagic work with Mandrake 9.0? I think Mandrake has something that lets you select which OS to boot. Do I have to disable that somehow if I want to use BootMagic?

Any recommendations or tips would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

[Force Flow]

If you can, I would suggest getting Mandrake 9.1 www.linuxiso.org If you can't son't worry about it. I'm not sure how much of a difference there is. It was suggested to me that I get 9.1

First, with partition magic, create a partition to put linux on. No need to format it, as mandrake will do that. Make sure you remember the approximate size.

Next, when you get to the partitioning part of the installation, choose custom. When you enter the partitioning app, delete the blue partitition that matches the approximate size you just created. Then click "create" and make a 200MB or so "linux swap" partition. Us the rest of the space to create a "linux native" partition. Then click next/continue (or whatever it is)

It will format and start installing mandrake. Other than the partitioning, the installation is pretty much straight forward.

btw, Mandrake has it's own boot manager, so you don't need to use boot magic. I usually set "windows" to be my default boot option and give it 30sec timeout.

[OOPS!]

Hi,

If you have an empty partion or two, then you probably don't need to worry about using third party partion software. The only real reason to use it would be to move data to open up a partion for Mandy. Me, I just move what ever data I want to keep, and let Mandy do the rest. But your milage may vary. Personally, I recommend about 5-6 gigs for Mandy. Once you have a partion selected to install on, Mandy has a fine GUI disk partioning tool to use during installation. You can either specify how you want it, or let Mandy do it automagically.

Generally you can partion Linux simply, with nothing more than 2 partions, ./ and swap. But it generally considered better to partion with ./, /swap,/var/, /usr, and /home. Neater house keeping you know. And safer.

All Linux distros come with a bootloader. You can either use LiLo, or GRUB. LiLo is the "older" one, but still works just fine. I use LiLo because it's what I started with. But Mandy will let you choose to use either. Pick one, and it will be OK. I've never felt the need to use Bootmagic myself. But you should have documentation with Bootmagic on how to use it.

Before you do your install back up all important stuff, as an insurance policy, and KNOW your hardware e.g.- vid card, soundcard, modem (softmodems are still a pain), monitor settings, ethernet cards, etc. Mandy is very good at picking up hardware, but just in case, Linux still isn't quite as plug and play as Windows.

Oh, and welcome to the wonderful world of Linux!

HTH,
OOPS!

[kilgoretrout]

I would stay away from Boot Magic; there's no need to use it and trying to do so will give rise to a lot of needless complexities. The partitioning tools in Mandrake are excellent but may be a little daunting if your unfamiliar with partitioning. For a newbie I would recommend that you create your linux partition with Partition Magic(PM). When you create the partion it will ask if you are going to put an OS on it. Answer "yes" and it will offer to make a swap partition for you. Do so and make the swap partition size twice your RAM but no larger than 600MB; you won't need any more than that if you have more than 300MB of RAM. When you do the install, choose "Reccomended" rather than "Expert" and then choose the "install on Existing Partition" option. Mandrake will find the linux and swap partitions you made with PM, reformat and install there. The lilo bootloader will be installed by default.
Using Boot Magic will only insert another step in the boot process. Basically, if you use Boot Magic, when you select linux, BM wil call lilo which will then fire up and you have to select linux a second time in lilo. This is because, linux needs either lilo or grub to boot; Boot Magic can't do it without calling one of these programs. Also you would have to do an expert install in order to properly configure either lilo or grub to work with Boot Magic

[Familyman]

Thanks for the help.

It was easier than I thought it would be. I used the 'add new OS' option of PartitionMagic and then installed Mandrake. I'm using it now.

I selected the local host password option. How do I deselect it? I don't want to enter my password every time I boot up.

This is very interesting. Lots of new and different stuff. I'm sure it will take me a while to get the feel of things.

Thanks again for the help.

[OOPS!]

Hi,

See, it wasn't hard at all. You can choose to boot to your user desktop by going into the Mandrake Controll Center and selecting the boot icon and there is an option to boot directly to a user desktop.

You did create a user account? Logging in as root is bad karma and eventually you will do something bad to your system. It is recommended for security to boot to the login screen. That way only someone who knows the pass word can access the system. Even better is to boot into run level 3, (CLI) and then login and type startx.

OOPS!

[Familyman]

It was easier than I thought. In fact it was so easy that I thought something was wrong. I kept thinking there had to be more to it.

I'm surprised at how much software there is here. This is great.

Fantastic! Booting directly to a user desktop now.

Yes. I did create a user account.

Even better is to boot into run level 3, (CLI) and then login and type startx.

Level 3?

Thanks for the help.

[aym]

CLI = Command Line Interface - that black screen where you type commands, something like DOS
Currently, when you boot into Linux, the desktop environment automatically loads, this is called run level 5.
In run level 3, Linux boots into the command line, then you can start the desktop environment by typing the command: startx
This run level can be changed in a file called inittab
I think this is a bit too advanced for you right now, play around with Linux, and you'll learn it by time.

[LimeGreenPatato]

Hi, i just tried to instal mandrake 9.1 today and of course i got a problem right off the bat.

I hit enter to install linux it starts detecting all my devices, it gets to detecting usb devices and it stops. The error i get is "Could not uncompress second stage ramdisk" Could be a hardware failure or a linux kernel failure.

So i umpluged my crap burner, and mouse and speakers, everything i could and still install. And it still gave me the same msg.

Any ideas how to get past this?

[OOPS!]

Hi LGP,

It sounds like bad install discs. If you downloaded the iso's I'd re-download them and then run the md5 sums to make sure they where good.

HTH,
OOPS!