Need help Red Hat Install

[dishawjp]

Hi All,

I decided to finally take the plunge today and purchased a copy of Red Hat 6.2.  Actually, the CD's came with a Linux book I bought yesterday.  So anyway, I took one of my older Windows computers, a P166 with a 2GB hard drive and popped the CD in.  The install was going quite well until I hit the Disk Druid partitioner.  Evidently there are 4 small hidden partitions on this hard drive.  The computer is a Compaq Deskpro 2000 and it looks like these were put there by COmpaq.  Anyway, I couldn't get the Disk Driud utility to allow me to continue with the install.  I suppose that I could use DOS fdisk to eliminate all the hidden partitions. But... this Disk Druid utility wants me to define the partition sized for all the partitions on hda.  That's fine, except I don't know how much space to allocate to partitions like / and /boot and /usr and /home and /var all those.  Should I even need all these partitions or could they just be directories after I get hda formatted to Linux?

Sorry for all these stupid questions, but I've had it with M$ and need to get started with Linux.  I hope to migrate away from all M$ apps in my office by the end of the year if I can, and at home a lot sooner than that.

TIA for any advice.

Jim

[rtgwbmsr]

Solution to your "hidden partition problem":
Go into FDISK (if you have a copy) and delete everything you see.

Disk Druid should show everything as free space, and just allocate 2 partitions. One for "/" in JournalistFS (or something like that) and another (preferably at the end) as swap space.

Good luck, and we are here if you need help!

-Dustin

[dishawjp]

Thanks Justin,

How large should I make each of the partitions?  The hard drive is a 2 GB.

Jim

[TheQuirk]

I would make three partions:

First partion (beginning) 15 mb partion, "/boot".
Second partion: twice the amount of your ram, "/swap"
Third, and last partion: the rest, "/". And I would use ext2 and the file system (or ext3 if 6.2 has that).

As for fdisk, muffin man told you the answer.

[dishawjp]

Thanks All for your help.  I got the drive partitioned and formatted and got Red Hat installed.  Still a few problems though.  The one I'd like to solve first is how to adjust the screen resolution when running Gnome.  When I had Win98 on this thing, I was running 1024x768.  WIth Gnome running it looks like I'm at about 400x600 or so. The Icons on the desktop are about 1 1/2 inches in diameter!

I couldn't find any way to set it using the GUI, and would be willing to reset it in console.  I just need to know which config file to edit and which lines to change.

Thanks again for all your help.

Jim

[voidmain]

Well you are running a quite old version of RedHat so you are likely running X version 3.x. You'll want to use "Xconfigurator" to set up your Xwindows resolutions and depths.  My suggestion in RedHat 6.2 to do this is to go to a virtual terminal and log in as root. To get to a virtual terminal press "CTRL+ALT+F1".  Once at a root shell prompt type "init 3", then type "setup" and you should have an option for "Xconfigurator".  You'll need to know a little about your video card and monitor and you will have options to set up your resolutions there. It will generate a new "/etc/X11/XF86Config" file so you might want to make a backup copy of that file first.  

To test the new setup type "startx". If it doesn't appear to be configured properly rerun Xconfigurator until you get the options set properly for your setup and your liking. If you have to break out of X press "CTRL+ALT+BACKSPACE".  Once you get it right you can "init 5" to start the graphical logon back up.

Another side note, if you set up more than one resolution (1280x768, 1024x768, 800x600, etc) you can switch between resolutions by pressing "CTRL+ALT+KPPLUS" (KPPLUS is the "+" on your number pad).

[RudeCat7]

Good work! I probably couldn't have installed Linux if I had to do the partitions myself the first time.
Are you really 50?

Tell you what, once you see that Linux really works, get yourself a newer Linux friendly Pc and install Suse on it, kay?  

[dishawjp]

Thanks Again!

VoidMain, it was a piece of cake!  Also got my sound card configured while I was in there.  You folks are the best... I really appreciate the help.  If M$ support was half as good as good as the help here, maybe I'd stick with Windows.  On second thought...  naaahhh, I'm happy as hell to be getting away from it

My last difficulty now is with the modem.  I'm using a Zoom external 56k modem and Red Hat doesn't seem to want to see it.  I have it connected and powered up.  Any thoughts?

Thanks again to all who have been helping me with this.  I hope to be able to return the favor some day.

Jim

[dishawjp]

Hey RudeCat,

Yeah, I'm an old fart.  Been playing with computers forever and have used Unix, Sun OS5 and Ultrix, the old DEC flavor of Unix. I've never had to set up a Linux (or Unix) box though.  Setting them up and using them are two different things.

Once I get a bit comfortable with using the Linux GUI and and getting everything configured, I think I'll build a nice Linux box.  Been looking at Mandrake 8.3, but would consider SuSe or anything else.  Anything that isn't M$ anyway

Jim

[TheQuirk]

Could you be a bit more specific on the modem? I searched google for a while and I found that your modem *is* supported.. I tried searching lhd.datapower.com for the driver but it gave me a CGI error.. I'll keep trying to find you an answer.

Or maybe voidmain will see this thread and give you an answer off the top of his head  

[voidmain]

With external modems (and I used to also use Zoom modems) you don't need any special drivers. Now let me search my memory banks... RedHat 6.2.... from my recollection you just create a symbolic link "/dev/modem" to whatever serial port your modem is plugged in to. "/dev/ttyS0" if your modem is plugged in to COM1 or "/dev/ttyS1" if your modem is plugged in to COM2. e.g. "ln -s /dev/ttyS0 /dev/modem" would point "/dev/modem" to COM1.

To get information on how each serial port is configured you can use the "setserial" command. e.g. "setserial -a /dev/ttyS0". Do a "man setserial" for more info but you really shouldn't need to use that command.  I used to use the "minicom" modem program to check out the port and see if I had connection with the modem (could run AT commands like "AT&V1" etc..).  

Then I believe "kppp" to be the best ppp dialer app. I believe in 6.2 it was a little tricky to get set up so you could use the dialer from a user account other than root so you might want to first test it under root.

Now if you have seen enough to make you think that you will like Linux I would strongly suggest you find someone with a high speed connection to create you a set of RedHat 7.3 CDs.  All of this stuff is much more refined and despite what everyone might tell you RedHat 7.3 is still just as good if not better than any other distro out there. But try them all, hell they don't cost you anything.

[ September 03, 2002: Message edited by: VoidMain ]

[dishawjp]

Hi All!

I did it!  Actually, I needed some help from a buddy of mine, but for the first time I'm posting to FuckMicrosoft.com from my Linux box!

I had some trouble configuring the internet options and my ISP was absolutely no help when I told them I was trying to connect with a Linux box.  But I'm in!

Thanks again to everybody who helped me.

After I get a bit more used to Linux and comfortable with it, I expect to build a newer and better box.

Jim