Partitioning Help

[spinningheel4242]

Ok, I need some help installing RH8 on my computer.  I have a 38 gig hd with the first 28 gigs windoze, 4.5 gigs unassigned, and 5.5 gigs fat32 backup.  I want to install RH8 but I keep getting a message (when I am in the format/partitioning screen)
*/root not found*

I have have tried a variety of things but nothing seems to work.  I used partition magic 8 to create the space from my fat32 drive.  I tried to create a Ext3 partition but RH8 didn't like that either.

Spin

[voidmain]

Does the FAT32 partition currently have data on it? If so, can you at least temporarily move the data to your Windows partition?

The reason I ask about the FAT partition is because I would delete it until after RedHat is installed. So you have one large Windows partition and the rest free space. Then when you install Linux don't use up all the space for your Linux partitions, leave however much you want for the FAT32 parition. Or move the FAT32 partition so it immediately follows your Windows partition leaving free space at the end of the drive.

It shouldn't matter as RH should be able to install between the paritions. But then the message you are getting doesn't make any sense to me. How far did you get into the install? Did you make the partitions as I said in my previous note? That is, the 256-512MB swap partition, the 50MB /boot partition and the 5GB / parition?

[ November 03, 2002: Message edited by: void main ]

[spinningheel4242]

Ok, I think I got it to work.  I have 28 gigs fat32 that has windoze 98.  I also have 4.5 gigs free space which I allocated to logical, ext3.  I also created a swap partition.  The other 5.5 gig partition that I have (called backup) does have data on it.  

Anyways, I was installing RH8 and got to the partition screen again.  This time, though, it erased the data on the linux partitions and created its own.  No errors.  It seemed to install but I have boot magic installed and upon reboot, couldn't get into Linux.  I have tried everything with bootmagic so I think I will now try using my Linux boot disk.  If not, I will uninstall boot magic and reinstall or update RH8 to include grub.

Off to the races I go...

Spin

[voidmain]

You *must* install either GRUB or LILO in order to boot Linux (even if you are using boot magic as your main boot loader) as I said in my post in the other forum you started. Please read them. Again, why do you want to use Boot Magic? It will work, but you at least have to install LILO on the Linux partition boot record.

You don't have to reinstall just to install the boot loader like you do in brain dead Windows. You can just use your boot disk to boot the system and then do a GRUB or LILO install.

[spinningheel4242]

Ok, I stayed up late last night and reinstalled Linux with grub.  I guess I should have waited to see the responses...lol

I also got rid of Boot Magic...what a piece of crap.  As it stands now, Redhat8 is installed and works great.  Well, with the exception of my sound not working (i have a turtle beach montego with isn't listed as supported hardware on redhats site).  so now my search is for a remedy to my silent computer...any suggests would be appreciated.

Oh ya, another linux distro (lycoris) was able to get my soundcard to work...is there a way to use that linux disk to get the drivers etc for redhat and if yes, how??

Thanks

Spin

[voidmain]

Do you have the Turtle Beach Montego Bay or the Montego Bay II? From everything I've read, this is a bastard card and Aureal is the company that made the chipset (Aureal AU8820 or AU8830 chipset depending on if you have Montego I or II). They are no longer in business. Creative picked up the company/technology and they aren't releasing any information about the cards/chips. More info on the *old* Linux drivers from Aureal: http://aureal.sourceforge.net/

Having said that, I believe what Lycoris uses for sound drivers are "OSS" drivers that can be found here: http://www.opensound.com/. I did see a note on the Montego card. You can download a trial but I believe this driver is not open source and it is not free. You can download trial that will time out after a while. I downloaded the driver and there is a little program to run to install it.

If it were my machine I would get a cheap sound card that I know is compatible with both Windows and Linux natively.

"alsa" is another sound driver system that is not used by RedHat 8.0 but I don't believe there is support for the Montego in that either.The alsa web site does have it on their list but it shows it's status as unknown.

Also, the first thing I would do if I were you is to download this RPM (apt) from http://www.freshrpms.net/ and install it, then install the graphical software tool called "synaptic". It is possible to install the alsa kernel and software with this software installation package, but even if you don't install alsa it is good for installing some of the other multimedia apps such as "MPlayer" and "Xine" (and to keep your system updated). After you install the "apt" rpm you can install the "synaptic" graphical tool by opening a shell window and typing:

$ su -
Enter root's password
# apt-get install synaptic
# synaptic

Summary: Again I would suggest that you do not get hung up on this unsupported and closed sound card from a company that is no longer in business. I would strongly suggest thinking about getting a new card (doen't have to be an expensive one). If you have a card in mind, post it here and we can help you look over compatibility and support for the card before you purchase it.

[ November 03, 2002: Message edited by: void main ]

[slave]

Thanks void main, I installed apt and synaptic is great!  It solves all of those RPM dependency problems.  Now, why doesn't Red Hat Linux come with something like this by default???

[voidmain]

Because then it wouldn't be so much fun.  

[spinningheel4242]

Ya, thanks for the replys.  I have a turtle beach montego II which works great for windoze but not for Redhat 8.  I haven't tried your suggestions yet but I think I might look for a old soundcard to throw in there.  

Good news on the conversion front.  I got my wife using Mozilla to seach the web when using windoze...she still won't stand for Redhat....too different for her.  But at least that is a start.

One question, are there any wonderful email apps to replace Outlook Express while my wife is still using windoze?  The one reason she likes it is because Outlook can check hotmail as will as Pop mail....

Anyways, thanks

Spin