Anybody out there using it? I decided to go ahead and install it on my second hard drive and give it a whirl. It's setting up as I type this. Just wondering if there were any other Linux users out there and what your experiences have been.

 

I had mandrake 9.0 i think on a laptop & really liked it. At home I run fedora core 1 & really like it too. I try not to be too obnoxious when my wife is battling virii & spyware on her XP machine.

The good points are Linux is very robust, the only time i ever reboot is when the power goes out, no virus or spyware issues. The 'gimp' is awesome for photo chop type stuff. Tons of cool software comes along with the distro for free. Runs fast, even on old hardware, like the OLD celeron box i have it on.

The bad points are certain websites that only work with explorer, and stuff like windows movie files that I can't watch on it. Also, it can be a real chore to get things like sound cards & printers to work right, although my Canon s50 digicam was plug & play.

I just picked up a 60gb drive at compusa for $30 & am going to make my wife PC dual boot.

 

Well, I seem to have created quite a problem for myself after setting Linux up. I have a removable (modular) hard drive for my Inspiron laptop which I installed Linux on. So I figured, no matter what I do, my main drive will be fine.

Well, Linux boots fine, but if I take the drive out, I get a page that shows up with a bunch of "07"'s on it. That's as far as it'll go. I think I fubar'd something in my BIOS. I activated the modular drive to boot and moved it above the internal drive. I'm hoping that if I re-flash my BIOS (again) it'll work fine.

Comments?

 

So it doesn't even give you the chance to enter the BIOS setup? I have no idea how installing Linux on a second drive would possibly mess up the BIOS.

Did you install grub or LILO? You should get an initial screen that lets you choose which OS to select at boot up if you told the mandrake to install one of those.

 

I've dabbled in Mandrake some. I found it really easy to set up and the hardware support was excellent. I mainly used it as a file server and to test code with.
Ever been to Distrowatch? http://distrowatch.com/

 

I used LILO. I do get that screen, and I can choose windows from it. Right now it's finishing up a repair that I ran when I booted the XP cd, which is just basically a reinstallation of windows. I figured the Linux install might have somehow messed up the boot settings on Windows, so I'm pretty sure that after setup is done running, it'll work fine.

But what do I do if I take the Linux drive out? That's when I keep getting the "07"'s on the screen. Does that have to do with LILO? I can't use my floppy drive while the Linux drive is in, so that's a problem.

 

If LILO has foo the master boot record then go into safe mode / DOS and repair it. I think its' call fixbootr or something like that.

I run Mandrake 10.0. I am going to recompile the kernel to 10.1 wich is linux kernel 2.6.x.x

I discovered Microsoft XP SP2 closed the passive win sockets creating a foo situation with ethereal and temporarly defeated my nmap program. ethereal sees duplicate ack's because microsoft chose a non-standard way to setup it's ip stack.

This has forced me back to Linux. I chose Mandrake because of support and ease of use. Redhat is good too but, I don't like the Redhat network. I orginally stared using SuSe but, those folks were bought by Novell. BSD is a bit more challening to me and thus I went to Mandrake. Cause I don't want to tweak or hack code just run KDE and some *special applications. 733t!

 

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/h...ns_fixboot.asp

According to that, I just go into DOS and type in "fixboot c:". Does it do this by creating a new partition? If so, I don't like that idea. If not, then I'm all for it.

What I don't understand is, why did Linux create the boot record on my C: drive when I installed it on my D: drive? Or did it create the record on both?

 

Ho-k... after a little more searching, I found this...

http://www.iamnotageek.com/a/53-p1.php

Sounds like that'd be the easiest way to go.

However, would I still be able to boot to Linux?

 

That sounds like it'll restore the default MBR, which I'm pretty sure will remove the link to LILO & make the PC boot straight to XP. I was going to suggest using a linux boot disk, like I used to do, but I think you said that you can have the floppy drive or the 2nd HD in, so that wouldn't work. I've never looked into it, but maybe you can make a Linux boot CD instead of using LILO?

 

I'm going to leave LILO where it is for now, and change the boot order to make Windows first so it'll boot to it automatically if I don't make a selection.

Guess I just can't use my floppy drive for now. It's kind of a good thing, because it gives me an excuse to get that USB pen drive I've been wanting... http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...155-406&depa=1 ... just trying to decide if I want the 512mb or 1gig.

 

That is nice! Now why can't I get a gig of ram for $80? Or a 1gb compact flash for my camera for that matter...

 

I have machine at home running Mandrake and the machine beside it is running Red Hat. I have enjoyed my experiences with both, but they are just a curiosity for me. Recently I built some Morphix CD's and have been playing with booting from them. That way I get to dabble with Linux, without having to make the commitment to dual booting

 

Get the one gig. The extra space is worth the money. On the one gig unit I wear around my neck on a daily basis, I have the following;

1. The entire Tacoma factory service manual three volume set
2. A ton of install/service manuals for virtually everything on the truck
3. A zillion conversion charts and calculators
4. Misc. assorted Toyota related docs
5. A directory of photos of my daughter
6. A directory of favorite photos/videos of the truck
7. 80 Mb or so of administrator/hacker tools that can be used for building/restoring/tuning computers
8. My resume
9. An installation tool for eTrust anti-virus
10. The OBDII software I use
11. My PGP keys

That leaves me with a bit less than 500 Mb of space I use to "shuttle" files from computer to computer.

Bigger really is better.

 

I'm going with the 1gig. I read a few reviews, and really like the idea of being able to fit a full ISO file on it. Can't do that with the 512 (usually).

 

Cool. You will like it. BUT... don't ever forget that the medium is imperfect. ALWAYS have backups of anything you put on there. I have had a few of these things and at one point or another, they have ALL locked up and lost data. Usually they lose their partition record, so you are forced to use some special tools to rebuild the drive and format the new partition, resulting in the loss of EVERYTHING on the drive. You might want to chase those tools down and have them handy in advance, because eventually you are going to need them.

 

Etrust antivirus rocks

 

Tell Corey that! I talked it up when he was riding shotgun for me on the Fall Colors run and even got a copy for him, but I don't think he installed it At least if he did, he didn't mention it. He seemed to like what he was running, despite my best efforts to "convert" him.

 

I'll try it!!

 

heheheheh Ride a run or two as my spotter and I will get you a copy. Otherwise you will have to get it on your own