(I Hate Microsoft), Linux Help!

[jtpenrod]

quote: I don't think I'm a RedHat bigot as such - I've had a good go at the recent Manrake releases (although before that was probably a very early Slackware [kernel 1.?] install) but I find RedHat does everything I need quite nicely... not sure about RPM's though - all my important services are compiled from source, as I think they should be for any distribution.

So far, I've got Mandrake, Red Hat and Slackware. Between 'Drake and Red, there's not a whole lot of difference. Red's installer is prettier to look at, however, 'Drake's is no less capable. The main distinction I've found is in the software managers. Red's software manager is little more than a graphical front end for rpm. If you try an install and run into dependency problems, Red'd software manager exits on error. Which is what would happen anyway if you ran rpm from the command line. Then it's up to you to go hunting for the packages you need to complete the install. 'Drake's software manager will do the hunting for you. If the needed packages are on another CD, it'll tell you which CD you need, and even eject the CD so you can change it and complete the install. It's somewhat more convenient, to be sure. Other than that, there's not much difference.
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[Calum]

MicrosoftSuc, i have also got install disks for win98 and 2000, but my laptop is incompatible with 2000 in all respects, and with 98 in too many respects to make it worthwhile installing.

Re: installing a dual boot system, you *must* install windows before linux, since windows will overwrite your MBR when you install it, making it impossible to boot to anything except windows. Linux must be installed after windows for this reason. Also, when installing linux, you *must* make a boot disk because you will probably never need to reinstall linux, and you will definitely need to reinstall windows. when that day comes, you will need a bootdisk to get into linux, since windows will have overwritten your MBR without permission. As X11 said (i think), the fact that windows overwrites your MBR proves it is a virus.

[voidmain]

Actually you can install them in any order although life is easier if you install Windows first.  If you install it second just make sure that before you install it you make a boot disk for your Linux side (this is not a problem for people who have more than one Linux machine and forget to create the boot disk).  After you create the boot disk, install Windows, then boot from the Linux disk, you just reinstall the Linux boot sector by running "/sbin/lilo" if using LILO.

To make the boot disk before installing Windows, get into Linux and type:

mkbootdisk 2.4.18

Replace "2.4.18" with whatever kernel version you boot from.  You can find this number by typing "uname -a". It should match a directory in /lib/modules.  Do a "man mkbootdisk" for more info.