All Things Microsoft > Microsoft Software
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Calum:
System administrators? Server Technicians?
I am not too hot on what you can do as a Unix technician compared to a M$ technician, but surely the big business is, or will be in, Unix rather than Windows? Unless they plan to open a little shop offering stopgap repairs to home PC owners, then they should be rushing towards Linux with open arms, singing hallelujah! (IMHO)
crustymc:
just wanted to say that I use windows 98 and I have mad problems w/it. Dell tech support tells me that I am doing everything right and its not me and to reinstall windows yet again. How many reinstalls and reformats can my poor hd take?
I have chosen this forum to post my misery because I have found friendly and easy to understand answers to newbie questions.
I am also VERY motivated to dumping windows altogether and this seems like a good place to start learning how to do this.
iancom:
Technically, if it's sound your HD should be able to take all the reformatting you can throw at it. Which is very lucky for Windows users who have to do it every few months. One of the best time-saving things I ever did at work was design a completely automated 'just stick the floppy in and leave it' install off the network that you could come back to an hour later and the whole PC and all software was completely finished installing. Most PC's there are reinstalled every six months or so...
Windows 98 is pretty poor in many respects. Of 95/98/ME (and in the absence of W2K) I actually prefer to use 95 in a business environment. 98 is much better for games though. Don't even go near Win ME.
Glad to hear you're keen to have a go at a non-MS platform! You're already a good way towards freeing yourself...
It won't be easy, but stick at it and you'll have a system that works without crashing or constant reinstallation and you'll learn a hell of a lot about what really goes on in your PC.
I would recommend starting off with Mandrake 8.1. Just check that it'll support your modem first. Some Winmodems are still not fully supported in Linux, and there's nothing more frustrating than having an otherwise fully functional system that just won't connect to the Internet - the source of pretty much all software and knowledge for Linux!
Go with a dual-boot system while you're getting comfortable with Linux. You'll probably want to go back to it for some of your games or to remind yourself how worthwhile it is for you to spend a little time getting to know Linux!
You're going to reinstall Windows anyway, so install that before Linux, but let's make sure the disk partitioning is right first.
You can use the Windows 98 CD to boot to a command prompt (I think it's one of the options on one of the first couple of screens of the installation routine).
Use fdisk to create a 2GB primary partition for Windows 98.
Install Windows 98 as normal...
Once that's done, you can start on Linux. Boot with the Mandrake 8.1 disk and follow all the instructions according to your needs. Have a dig around on the Internet for more info on installing it.
You'll want to give Linux a 2GB partition, plus a swap partition of twice your physical RAM.
Mandrake should automatically configure its bootloader to allow you the choice of choosing Windows or Linux on each bootup (it will configure Linux as the default OS but you could change that if you really wanted to). Beware that reinstalling Windows 98 after Linux usually screws up this bootloader (probably done deliberately by MS...).
The rest of your hard disk you can partition and format as FAT32 in Windows 98 and use it to store all of your data that you want to be available to both OS's... Linux can quite happily use FAT32 filesystems.
Let us know how you get on and if you need any help!
crustymc:
Thanks IanC. fdisk huh?
Alright sounds good.
Good to know I only need 2 gigs, I was gonna give winblows 98 10 gigs.
Getting a copy of Mandrake from a friend tomorrow as he has a way faster connection than I do. Speaking of, why is my 56k connection testing at 27k on cnet? Is it because my isp is MSN? Or is it winblows? Or some deadly combo?
I you don't hear from me for a couple of days it's because I screwed this all up and can't get online!
Damn I'm nervous! ;)
badkarma:
56k is the theoretical maximum speed, network perfomance and latency make sure a modem will never reach this with normal internet use
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