Questions about Linux?

[icuucme]

Sounds like you downloaded the sources and not the "binary" packages. What distro are you using? There may be prepackaged installers for your distribution.

Distro? as in Suse 9.2? thas what i have

[JA2]

Ok. Checking online, it seems SuSE is unfortunately the odd one out with RPM versions for both those apps. Using the RPM versions for other distros such as RedHat, Fedora and Mandrake is possible, but is more a hit & miss option, as each distro uses different filesystem locations for storing the extracted files (hence the separate distro versions).

The tarball (file ending with .tar / .tgz / .tbz) sounds like your best bet. After you've extracted the file, there should be some installation notes in the source folder - usually a README or INSTALL file. Before you compile, be sure you have the "C/C++ Development" packages already installed thru YaST.

[jerry]

Since you're just beginning with Linux, you don't have to ponder the intricacies of filesystem allocation, so add two partitions - a 2GB "Linux swap" at the end of your free space in the extended partition, and single "Linux Ext3" partition for data in the remaing space. 12GB (10GB for data + 2GB for swap) is a reasonable starting capacity for most Linux installs.
Once you've understood the concepts of Unix filesystems and the various types & their purpose, you can repartition accordingly.

Well my installation of Linux (Ubuntu 5.04) was unsuccesful . I had partitoned the hdd like JA2 mentioned. So when I was intsalling the OS, it asked me where to install it I selected Linux swap and it refused to load unto it, kept bring up an error message (cant remeber what it was, i think it mentioned something about boot ). But here is what i saw in the partitons linux swap and ext 3.

Linux swap
use as: swap
bootable flagoff
size: 2.1gb

Ext3
use as: do not use this partition
bootable flagoff
size: 10gb

when I look at the menu for the use as field I get the following choices:
ext3 journaling file system
Ext2 file system
reiserfs journaling file system
jfts journaling file system
xfs journaling file system
fat16 file system
fat32 file system
swap area
physical volume for LVM
physical volume for RAID
do not use the partition

So i selected exit installation so I could come here and post my probs. But when i restarted, XP could not boot, it could not find a boot record. So i had to load over back XP. I just found out I wasn't to load linux on the swap but on the other one .

When I get my next hard drive I will install linux on it, dont want it to mess up this hdd again.

[JA2]

...So i selected exit installation so I could come here and post my probs. But when i restarted, XP could not boot, it could not find a boot record. So i had to load over back XP. I just found out I wasn't to load linux on the swap but on the other one .

When I get my next hard drive I will install linux on it, dont want it to mess up this hdd again.

Sorry for your bad first experience, but you probably could have saved yourself quite a bit of time by just refreshing your MBR (Master Boot Record) using FDISK from a clean-boot to DOS from a bootable Win98 CD or diskette.

At some point during the Linux install process, the Linux boot loader (usually "Grub", or "LILO" on older distros & Slackware) gets copied to the MBR. Near the end of the installation, Linux normally does a scan of the drive for other OSes and that's where Windows would be added as a boot option. When you aborted the install, you probably ended up with a half-baked boot loader config. XP was still there, but you just couldn't boot it.

Doing an FDISK /MBR from a clean-boot to a DOS command-prompt fixes that by overwriting the Linux boot code in the MBR and replacing it with code for a normal DOS/Windows boot. This command is also required when converting a Linux/Windows dual-boot system back to Windows-only.

[JA2]

For the benefit of the forum, here's my initial response to Jerry on his partitioning problems, with a few edits.

First thing is you can't boot off the swap partition. Swap is the Linux equivalent of the memory paging file in Windows (PAGEFILE.SYS). The partition can be different sizes, but is usually set to 2GB and is dedicated to memory paging/swapping.

Linux would be installed on the Ext3 partition, which is the equivalent of your NTFS in Windows. If you have the time to redo your partitions in PM8, I recommend setting up both the Ext3 & Swap as logical partitions in an extended, and not as primary partitions, which it sounds like you did. It's a lot less confusing than having to know about which primary partitions must set as bootable and which ones don't.

Basically, only Windows is fussy about being on a primary partition which must be flagged as bootable. This is something carried over from the days of DOS. As long as the boot loader can find Linux on your system, it can be installed on almost any partition on any of your hard drives and across multiple drives as well (e.g. - root on 1st HD, /usr or /home on 2nd drive, /var and swap on another, etc.)

[jerry]

Thanx for the response. I'll do that the next time i decide to install linux. Is suse 9.3 pro available now for download in the form of a CD/DVD ISO?

[JA2]

Thanx for the response. I'll do that the next time i decide to install linux. Is suse 9.3 pro available now for download in the form of a CD/DVD ISO?

Unfortunately they charge for the Pro version and only make the Live discs available for download (in DVD right now, and the CD version to come shortly). But I'm sure that one or more TJ members out there may be able to make a donation to the "Jerry Needs SuSE" fund.

[jamrock]

Thanx for the response. I'll do that the next time i decide to install linux. Is suse 9.3 pro available now for download in the form of a CD/DVD ISO?

Unfortunately they charge for the Pro version and only make the Live discs available for download (in DVD right now, and the CD version to come shortly).

Basically these open souce companies have some products that are free and some products which you have to pay for.

At the end of the day, Novell is a company that needs to make a profit for its shareholders.