Moving over to linux- advice please

[Sridhar_Rao]

So, there is a difference in downloading the installation ISO and "buying" a DVD. will downloading ISO be sufficient?

Note to NucleusKore, the link he gave for PDF of his article *www.mediafire.com/?vuvfmgfm02j is riddled with a trojan virus. Avast detected SWF: downloader [trj] from that site, I had to disconnect from that site. I ask NucleusKore to post his PDF file elsewhere and edit the link accordingly.

 

[NucleusKore]

The iso you have listed, boot.iso is a network install iso
Go to
*software.opensuse.org/
And download the dvd so as shown here
*img386.imageshack.us/img386/379/susecm4.th.png
If it's too big you can use the GNOME live cd iso, don't opt for the KDE4 iso, it sux.

 

[Sridhar_Rao]

Thanks NucleusKore for pointing out the mistake I was about to commit. By the way, did you happen to take note of the trojan virus in the site you have hosted the PDF file? Can you send me the PDF file via email?

 

[NucleusKore]

Trojan?? Where?? How do you say??

 

[Ecko]

+1 to Suse
ubuntu still needs 1 click installer

 

[Sridhar_Rao]

Note to NucleusKore, the link he gave for PDF of his article *www.mediafire.com/?vuvfmgfm02j is riddled with a trojan virus. Avast detected SWF: downloader [trj] from that site, I had to disconnect from that site. I ask NucleusKore to post his PDF file elsewhere and edit the link accordingly.

 

[Vishal Patil]

As far as distro is concerned, better go with Ubuntu since you are starting from scratch.
Better to use Ubuntu 7.10 instead of 8.04, because many people have reported many bugs in Ubuntu 8.04. Even I have 1 problem after resuming from standyby mode, the screen starts flickering and I have to restart my PC. There was no problem with 7.10.

If you are using a widesreen LCD, better update the kernel for Ubuntu 7.10 from 2.6.23 to 2.6.24 or higher else if you dont want to upgarde the kernal go for Ubuntu 8.04 and be ready for facing bugs.

No probs if you are not using a widescreen monitor.

 

[thewisecrab]

Note to NucleusKore, the link he gave for PDF of his article *www.mediafire.com/?vuvfmgfm02j is riddled with a trojan virus. Avast detected SWF: downloader [trj] from that site, I had to disconnect from that site. I ask NucleusKore to post his PDF file elsewhere and edit the link accordingly.

Thats wierd
Any way, here the thread posted by NucluesKore regarding the same:
*www.thinkdigit.com/forum/showthread.php?t=96132

 

[Sridhar_Rao]

Thanks,

I mentioned that the site (not the PDF file) has a trojan in one of its flash (SWF) files (probably disguised as ad), hence it is not safe to visit the site. Hence I recommended to host the same file elsewhere.

Well, I have already downloaded Ubuntu8, (700 MB) and hopefully installation should be fine. My concern is during previous (unsuccessful) installation the partitions have been altered and messed up. How do I proceed from here. I have already mentioned in one of my previous posts in this thread that I am not interested in dual boot system.

Can Ubuntu and Suse be installed on separate partitions and a choice to boot into either of them possible at start up. It might be a stupid idea, but I am asking out of simple curiosity (nothing else).

Thanks for the tremendous suppport from guys in this forum.

 

[Faun]

yes you can intall ubuntu and SUSE and boot them both.

I have Ubuntu + Arch Linux + XP in triple boot.
Ubuntu and XP are on one HDD
ArchLinux on another HDD

Mediafire website is not suspicious, its a good service. So probably you AV is giving false postitve.

 

[Sridhar_Rao]

thanks, can you kindly address the partition issue that I raised in my previous post?
I wish to recover entire area of 40 GB HDD and divide into two partitions, one for suse and the other for ubuntu. How do I go about it, now that previous installation had messed up the partition?

 

[Rahim]

Sridhar use GParted Live CD to create/edit/resize partitons.
Create 2 partitions (ext3) for Ubuntu and openSUSE and one 512 MB Swap partition. Both the linux distros will use the same swap partition.
Dont worry about the dual-boot with Ubuntu & openSUSE. Both with pick each other and enter the entries in Grub Menu.

EDIT: I think Ubuntu Live CD comes with GParted. Might check it out.

 

[Faun]

First delete the partitions you have already made then repartition them as per your liking.
Use Gparted in Ubuntu Live CD.

Btw why do you want to use whole 40GB HDD for OS? Even 15GB is enough for each of them.

 

[Sridhar_Rao]

I had a brief look at gparted on net and I swear I couldn't understand one bit, may be because it is linux. Frankly, I don't have much idea about partitioning except that I tried my hands on it once successfully while installing windows. I deleted the newly created partitions in windows disk management just as I was asked.

My first attempt at downloading failed as MD5checksum did not match.

Is the Ubuntu installation from *ftp.ecc.u-tokyo.ac.jp/UBUNTU-CDS/hardy/ubuntu-8.04.1-desktop-i386.iso that I wish to download a live CD? I am confused, is the gparted being talked about here a part of this installation or is there a separate live CD to be downloaded? Should I go ahead with its download?

Please note that the installation of linux on desktop is purely for expiremental purpose, my laptop runs on XP.

So, should I make three partitions one each for ubuntu and suse and one swap partition. I don't know what a swap partition is If I am given step by step instruction may be I will be able to do it.

 

[Rahim]

As it says "desktop-i386.iso", desktop cd=live cd.!! Why not use torrent to download Ubuntu?
Swap partition is like a temporary location where less used appz are shifted so that more RAM is allocated to current appz.. It is called pagefile in Windows.
GPartd is so easy, man.

 

[Sridhar_Rao]

I quote the following from ubuntu documentation, "If you do not intend to keep your copy of Windows installed on the computer, and you have made a backup of all of your important files, choose the Erase entire disk option from the Prepare disk space screen and then press Forward. The installer will automatically partition your hard disk in a suitable manner."

Say I use this option to remove all traces of windows and install ubuntu alone, WILL I be able to install SUSE11 later on the same system again? If yes, what will I have to do when Suse installer prompts me?

 

[ThinkFree]

Yes, you can. You just need to select custom partitioning option in OpenSuse installer.

 

[Rahim]

^Choose custom partition and create one ext3 for suse. Since you seem to wipe out your entire hard drive, then why not use GParted Live CD and create 3 partitions as i said earlier. Then just choose "Manual" partitioning in Ubuntu installer and choose the partitions and install. Same with openSuse. Simple.

 

[Sridhar_Rao]

Thanks, but since I am a total beginner using Gparted does not appear simple to me. I refer to this image *gparted.sourceforge.net/screens/gparted_1_big.jpg and I can make nothing about /dev/hda1 /dev/hda3 etc.

A step by step guide with explanation would be very handy here.

I quote, "Choose custom partition and create one ext3 for suse", I believe this instruction is while installation of ubuntu and not during subsequent suse installation, have I correctly understood this?

 

[NucleusKore]

Linux follows a different nomenclature for hard disks and partitions.
The first hard disk (master) is named /dev/hda for IDE drives, and /dev/sda for SCSI and SATA drives.
More often than not, as we have only one hard disk on our home PCs, this is the only one you'll have to deal with. If you have a second hard disk, it will be named as /dev/hdb

The entire linux filesystem is under one directory root (/) which includes subdirectories. The software installed and the hardware are grouped in these subdirectories. In linux everything is a file. You will get used-to this concept, with time.

So /dev is the directory under which drives are located (CD/DVD, floppy, hard disk).

Coming back to the nomenclature, the first partition on your hard disk is designated as /dev/hda1 (In Windows we would call it the C drive.), the second as /dev/sda2 (In Windows we would call it the D drive.), so on and so forth. Now everything is fine as long as you make all these partitions as primary partitions.

But hey!!!!!!! Wait a minute!!!!! Did you know, that you can have only FOUR primary partitions on a hard drive??? How do I partition my 160GB + hard drive??? I want more partitions!!!!! Yes you can have more partitions if you use logical partiitons instead of primary partitions. The first logical partition you make ALWAYS starts with the number 5 (so you can still accomodate 3 primary, get it ). The primary partition used to house the logical partitions is called an extended partition.

I think with this background you are now able to understand GParted.

For further reading I refer you to *tldp.org/HOWTO/html_single/Partition/
and *tldp.org documentation in general.