New Linux User

Discussion in 'Computer Science & Culture' started by Athelwulf, May 31, 2006.

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  1. przyk squishy Valued Senior Member

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    That's normal. If you do a "minimal" or "server" install, I think you only need the first CD (at least this was the case for RH9). There's a lot of software in Fedora Core, and you don't need all of it to get a working system. There are some things (like server daemons) that most home users don't need. Also, if you did a "desktop" install instead of "workstation" there are a bunch of software development tools that might not have been installed on your system. You can optionally install additional packages (eg. if you're a KDE fan) from the install CD's if you want.
     
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  3. Elmer W. Registered Member

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    is there any one using the debian distros?
     
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  5. Athelwulf Rest in peace Kurt... Registered Senior Member

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    Przyk, got any advice? I'm having a lot of trouble figuring out how to configure a dial-up connection to the Internet in Fedora. The "Modem Lights" thingy doesn't do anything, and I don't know how to make it work. I've looked in all the menus I could think of, and no luck. I kinda doubt that my modem would be supported anyway, but there should at least be a dialog for configuration.
     
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  7. Athelwulf Rest in peace Kurt... Registered Senior Member

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    Okay, I think I should lay out my final plans for my dual-boot system for people to review and comment on if anything should be added, changed, or pointed out.

    I bought a copy of Linux Journal and read this article (you need an account at that site to see it). It basically explains how to set up a dual-boot system with a third partition for application data which both OSs can use.

    Here's the partition scheme I've worked out for my harddrive:

    Total harddrive capacity: 76.2GB
    Windows XP NTFS primary partition: 20GB
    Mandriva 2006 primary partition: 10GB
    Linux swap partition: 1GB
    FAT32 partition: 45.2GB

    I believe someone mentioned that an additional Linux partition for /home was a good idea, for the reason that doing a fresh install of either Mandriva or another distro won't wipe out my settings and documents. I have a feeling that would be useful for stuff that Windows can't do anything with and that I'd have to keep within Mandriva, if that sort of thing applies. Does that need to be worked into this scheme somehow, or will this current plan do?

    Also, concerning my swap: I hope to double my memory soon, meaning I'd have 512MB. Using the RAM-times-two rule of thumb, I have a suitable swap partition. But would it cause me trouble later on in the off chance that I ever need to upgrade to a gigabyte of RAM? Is it bad to have a swap partition that's the same size as your RAM?
     
  8. leopold Valued Senior Member

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  9. Athelwulf Rest in peace Kurt... Registered Senior Member

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    Hey, that looks like a very useful link. Thanks.
     
  10. przyk squishy Valued Senior Member

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    You're probably missing a driver. At the moment I've got the same problem, and won't have the time or resources to do much about it for another 2 weeks or so. At the moment, all I do with linux is a bit of amateur programming (Linux is a great platform to learn some programming on). That, and I installed some computer algebra systems that could come in handy for my math and physics courses.

    Also, if Fedora Core has anything resembling a hardware browser, I haven't found it yet. There should be a network config dialog somewhere (probably system -> administration). you can see if it lets you configure your modem and internet there, but if your modem is unsupported it won't help much.

    Sorry I can't help you much. I still don't know Linux that well.
     
  11. przyk squishy Valued Senior Member

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    That's a lot of space you've reserved for your FAT32 partition. FAT's good for sharing between the OS's, but other than that I don't recommend you use it too much. It lacks basic features like access permissions that both EXT and NTFS support. If you want to compare, my partitioning looks like this:

    102 MB ext2, Fedora Core, mounted on /boot
    5 GB FAT32, with Windows 98 installed.
    40 GB NTFS, with Windows 2000 installed.
    50 GB ext3, Fedora Core, mounted on /
    20 GB ext3, Fedora Core, mounted on /home
    5 GB ext3, Fedora Core, mounted on /var
    2 GB Linux swap.

    I find I don't really need to share much between the two OS's - since most of the space on both OS's is large, platform dependent apps, eg. games.
    It's up to you. I think having a separate home partition is a good idea for the reason you mentioned, but you'd have to find space for it, create the partition, transfer all your files there, and mount it on /home.
    It won't cause any problems; it just makes sense to have more swap than RAM.
     
  12. Xerxes asdfghjkl Valued Senior Member

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    Alot of space on fat32? Pfffff that's nothing, I've got a 260GB fat32 partition.
     
  13. Athelwulf Rest in peace Kurt... Registered Senior Member

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    I could certainly trim it down. I don't have a lot of shit to put there anyway.

    I'd like to know the reasoning behind this scheme. Specifically, why have /boot on the first partition, and /var on its own?
     
  14. przyk squishy Valued Senior Member

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    I put /boot on its own at the beginning of the drive because some BIOSes have trouble booting after cylinder 1024 on the harddisk. My PCs quite new (2 years old or so) so I doubt I'd have had problems if I hadn't. I was just playing safe.

    /var contains most of the server stuff, like mail if your computer is acting as a mail server or posts if its a news server. When I arranged the partition scheme a couple of years ago, I wanted to allow for the possibility that I might open up some network services. Putting /var on a separate partition gives some protection against denial-of-service attacks; someone mailbombing a server set up this way can fill up /var, but not the rest of the system.
     
  15. Athelwulf Rest in peace Kurt... Registered Senior Member

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    Thanks for the explaination przyk.

    I have a reworked scheme. It's basically one third to each OS with the remaining third used for my cross-platform application data:

    Windows XP NTFS partition: 25GB
    Mandriva 2006 partition: 10GB (/home)
    Mandriva 2006 partition: 15GB (/)
    Linux swap partition: 1GB
    FAT32 partition: 25.2GB (/share)
     
  16. Avatar smoking revolver Valued Senior Member

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    Switch /home and / space places. You won't need 15gb for root.
     
  17. leopold Valued Senior Member

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    and what, pray tell, do you use it for?
     
  18. Xerxes asdfghjkl Valued Senior Member

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    piracy, you wouldn't believe how much one can download in a month.
     
  19. przyk squishy Valued Senior Member

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    Which OS(es) do you use? Do you use FAT32 exclusively?
     
  20. Athelwulf Rest in peace Kurt... Registered Senior Member

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    Got my reworked dual-boot system up and running, and it's working quite well.

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
  21. przyk squishy Valued Senior Member

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    So what's your general impression of Linux so far?
     
  22. Athelwulf Rest in peace Kurt... Registered Senior Member

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    Well, I don't know how to answer, really. I haven't used Linux much so far because I can't use the Internet through it yet. As far as the terminal, it feels like I theoretically have so much power over the OS, which is kinda kool; at the same time, however, I feel ignorant because I know little about command-line interfaces. Other than that, I got no answers.

    I can get back to you on that question later.
     
  23. dexter ROOT Registered Senior Member

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    OpenBSD is fun if your looking for a challenge, FreeBSD is fun if your looking for something different, and slackware linux is fun if your looking for trouble.
     
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