going around in circles

[Bobalicious]

I have partitioned my hard drive into two partitions. hda1 is the first and has win 2000

installed on it. hda5 is the second (I have a second hard drive and a cd as well as a

dvd) and it is formated for Linux, Ext2 format. I have installed a copy of Slax from a

live cd as per the Slax instructions. That was the easiest part, boot up the live cd and

copy all the folders.

I attempted to install Lilo and was successful. Slax worked correctly but I needed to

"tweak" Lilo so as to skip the command line and go directly to the gui.

Unfortunately, I was unable to configure for dual boot for both win 2000 and Slax. I

read MANY notes, articles, blogs, forum entries, etc, all were unfortunately, not

entirely what I needed in getting a dual boot correctly configured.

After much going no where fast, I decided, after reading an article, perhaps "Super Grub

Disk" would simplify things. It actually did help. Because I have no connection to the

internet for research using Linux, I needed windows. SGD has a function that restores

the MBR and allows you to boot windows.

Terrific, I now have access to the internet because my computer boots win 2000.

Continuing onward in my attempts to get a dual boot system running correctly, more

online research.

I attempted to use Grub (SGD) to correctly change the MBR and get back to a Linux boot.

Not happening.

I then sighed greatly and decided to re-install Lilo. I am currently getting an error

that loosely states "You cannot install to a whole drive, you must install to a

partition.

I checked my drive partition with Partition Magic. Everything "seems" to be as it

should.

Windows is operating as it normally does and all drives are usable, not including the

Linux drive as it is not in a windows recognisable format. (you new that)

Booting with the live cd of Slax allows me to see all the drives and attempt to install

Lilo as per numerous instructions.

I started at 9:00am it is now 8:30 pm and I haven't had lunch.

If everyone had the amount of difficulty in installing Linux as I am having, most people

would throw their computer out on the expressway. Actually, let me correct that. The

Linux install went without a hitch, the boot loader install is causing me much grief.

I am thinking I need to repair my MBR so that Lilo will then know it is installing to a

partition.

Why do I want to have a dual boot system?
I know where my windows apps are and how to use them without having to read manuals. I

would have to find the Linux apps to replace them and become familiar with them which I

will do but I don't want to have to do that with all the apps all at once.

I am still trying to wrap my head around the file system of Linux. Where is the list of

drives? Oh yea, /mnt/hda5/etc...

What do I need help with? I don't even know where to start.

[Cabhan]

Is there any particular reason that you chose Slax? As I understand it, Slax is ordinarily a LiveCD distro, and isn't generally installed.

Another reason that I ask is that if your installation is having you manually install a bootloader, it may not be right for a brand new user. I would suggest trying out another distro, such as Ubuntu, which handles all of this for you.

If you really want to use Slax, a link to the instructions you followed to install Slax to the HD would be helpful (I can't find them on the website).

[MikeTbob]

I agree with Cabhan entirely....you really should try a different flavor of Linux that is more geared to new users and then later when you feel more oriented with Linux you can move onto the more difficult distros. Check out the Distro quiz, it'll help you choose a distro that suits your needs, it's pretty good too. Whichever route you take, good luck and remember to have fun.

[Bobalicious]

I chose Slax because it is similar to windows in it's layout and menus. Also because it is small and easy to add apps to. It does come with Lilo on the live cd and the installation is merely a copy and paste. It was SUPPOSED to be an easy install.

The installation instructions are; Copy from the live disk the boot and Slax folders. Which is the entire cd.

The Lilo instructions are to run Liloinst.sh from the command prompt. OK, it's a little more detailed than that, but I did succeed, once. The Grub disk is as clear as mud in it's information.

As to links, I find information, then I save the web pages so I can more easily view the information offline.
I have dialup at the blinding rate of 22kbps. Maybe 23kbps.

[Bemk]

I think KDE looks quite similar to Windows and feels quite a lot more like it as well. Ubuntu is one of the easier Linux distributions, so I think one of the better options for you is KUbuntu. You could at least try it.

[Cabhan]

In general, default appearance is not a great reason to choose a distro. Linux graphical environments are incredibly skinnable and themeable, so they can be changed very easily.

The two main environments that we use are called Gnome and KDE, though there are several others besides. Gnome is a bit different from the Windows layout, but KDE is virtually identical, so any distro that uses KDE by default should be simple enough for you (though Gnome is fairly easy to figure out). If you really want KDE, you could try Kubuntu, which is Ubuntu with KDE (normal Ubuntu uses Gnome by default).

As for applications, I believe that the "ease" of adding apps to Slax refers to adding new applications to the LiveCD, so that you can have a custom LiveCD. For installing applications to an installed Linux distribution, this is trivially simple in most modern distros: I would argue that Slackware (the distro that Slax is based on) is actually one of the further behind distros. Again, Ubuntu makes installing applications very simple: you search for the application's name and click install.

Because Slax is primarily a LiveCD distro, I'm not sure that it is right for your purposes, hence the push for Ubuntu, which tends to be more beginner-friendly, and makes it very simple to install to the hard drive.

[scathefire]

Dual booting is so 20th century. Unless there is a specific piece of hardware you need access to, I'd virtualize and forget the whole notion of dual booting.

[jmadero]

lol if he's running Win2k on it I'm assuming it's a lower end machine and probably wouldn't do virtual so great. "So 20th century" is probably a misnomer, as it really depends on your specs and preferences. I did Virtual for awhile but realized two things:

1. Running an OS like a piece of software wasn't my thing (in terms of Linux inside of Windows), I didn't learn nearly as much and I found myself using Windows the majority of the time (of course this was years back)

2. When I recently (last couple years) got Netflix I needed Windows again for instant view (and I also started doing some work in access), so I tried several VM's and I found that

a. For access, worked great, faster than dual booting
b. convenient for me because I like using Linux for everything else
c. DID NOT work well with netflix...especially virtual box, very slow, dropped internet, etc...

So, I dual boot Windows 7 that came with my machine, I use it...hmm probably once a month or less (although now I have SPSS class that I use Windows for), and, I'm overall happy with the dual booting, no wasted space as I just use the NTFS partition as the primary place to store things (Documents, etc...) and then have shortcuts in Linux, been running this way for quite awhile

[Bemk]

Dual booting is so 20th century. Unless there is a specific piece of hardware you need access to, I'd virtualize and forget the whole notion of dual booting.

Dualbooting on my netbook, because I need to write Windows applications once in a while, but for the rest I use Ubuntu, and it works great. The only reason I've booted Windows lately was to update and enable IPv6 (experimenting with a tunnel). VM's are to heavy on the system. I do use it to experiment with other distro's but I notice that the full user experience is not entirely there, most of the times.

[scathefire]

DID NOT work well with netflix...especially virtual box, very slow, dropped internet, etc...

Well played sir.