Linux partitioning - ready for install.

Make sure when you're partitioning in the installer that you choose the custom disk partitioning option. Then you can choose the correct partition to install it. Then you'll see a graphical tool that shows your current disk. Click the correct one, then click edit. You'll have a dialog box with and set the mount point as /. Choose ReiserFS as the file system and ok. If you have any other partitions that you want to mount (as per mega's advise earlier) then do so.

After that you should be fine.

Users: Mandriva installer asks you to create a root password no matter what, then also during the installation you have the option to create a normal user with options such as Full name, username, display icon etc. The passwords do not have to be different, although its good practice to make them, its up to you if you want it easier to remember.

 

Thanks , guys.

Great help once again! I'll try again soon and take even greater care to see that I get things right. It's all experience and I enjoy it.

fftopic: I was quiet impressed with the way TI reinstalled my whole system via its bootable Rescue CD. I have often wondered how good these disk-imaging programs are when it comes to the crunch, but this one, at least, came up trumps.

Dave.

 

UPDATE:

I’m shortly going to retry (maybe next week) to reinstall Mandriva and hope I have better luck this time. On my first attempt, I must confess to being uncertain as what to enter into the dialog boxes relating to the “Network and Internet Configuration” section of the following:

Mandriva Linux tips for free in the Mandriva setup process. Basically, all I want to do is setup my broadband connection relating to this section and nothing else.

I know my IP address and the ISP address of my ISP provider, but not sure where they go in the relevent dialog boxes, as Server1, Server2, etc, is mentioned.

The dialog box that asks me which Internet connection I have is rather obvious to me, as I have ADSL, so no problem there. Basically, some input required for the “Network and Internet Configuration” section is perplexing me. Any help/advice would be appreciated.

Cheers,

Dave.

 

PS.

Once I’ve selected my partitions in the Mandriva setup for / (root drive, system files), Swap Files (virtual memory) & partition for /home, do I have to mount them on what I think, in my case, will be: hdb 1, hdb 2 & hdb 3 respectively? Hope this makes sense to you.

 

David, there is no need to enter your IP address. Unless you know otherwise, you should be using DHCP (a service which automatically assigns you an IP address). So simply select 'DHCP' and let the computer do the work for you.

Yes, 'hdb' refers to your second hard drive. So you should have:

hda1
Windows Partition
Mounted at /media/hda1

hdb1
Root Partition
Mounted at /

hdb2
Swap Space
Mounted on hdb2

hdb3
Home folder
Mounted on /home

hdb4 (If you choose to have a Windows partition on this drive)
Windows partition (I recommend you format in FAT32)
Mounted on /media/hdb4

EDIT: Make all of your partitions on hdb 'primary' rather then 'logical'

 

Thanks, Megamaced.

That makes things very clear and is a great help. I'll let you know how things go over the next few days!

Dave.

 

Update:

Okay, I had free time this evening, so I decided to try to reinstall Mandriva 2006. Following all the very good advice - I did everything to the letter as per instructions in conjunction with the not inconsiderable reading-up that I have done on how to install this distro.

Well, the setup went well and Linux was installed. I rebooted after the install and the boot loader menu came up – fine!

I selected ‘Linux’ and the screen with ‘that’ penguin loaded – fine! Then the screen reverted to a black DOS type screen with the following text:
………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Mandriva Linux Release 2006.0 (official) for i586 kernel 2.6.12-12 mkd on a i686 / tty1

194 login:






Mandriva Linux (bottom left corner of screen)

…………………………………………………………………………………………………

Well, I entered my login name – was then asked for my password - entered that and was told it was incorrect! Tried and tried again and again - just like the last time – no joy!

Still, the boot loader menu (on start-up of my PC) now lets me boot into XP, where it did not before, so I guess that’s a step in the right direction. Any comments?

Cheers,

Dave.

 

That should definately not be happening. Seems theres a problem with the installation, as X would have started and gave a graphical login screen. Even more strange is that your password is unaccepted.

Try loading "failsafe" instead of linux and the lilo prompt, this should drop you into a shell as root. then type

Code:

passwd <your_normal_username>

That will let you change your password. Then reboot with the "reboot" command and go back into the normal linux boot. Try logging in with your new password, if successful, try doing "startx" to initialise X with KDE.

 

Thanks, Addis.

I was able to change the password via 'failsafe' and then rebooted with the "reboot" command and got back into the normal linux boot.

I tried logging in with the new password, but was not successful, as it was rejected as 'incorrect', so it's back to square one, I'm afraid!

I'm starting to think I've been sent a duff DVD installation disk - something is seriously wrong here.

I might try to download the distro and burn it to DVD/CD, or indeed, try another distro altogether.

Cheers,

Dave.

 

Try logging in as root

Username: root
And enter your root password

 

UPATE:

Well, I think I might have figured out where I have been going wrong (after I resolved my username & password issues) trying to get Mandriva up & running. Ironically, It was by downloading a live CD of Slax 5!

I’ll keep this simple, but basically, Mandriva was asking me to enter my username followed by a password –when I did this, I got a prompt that made no sense to me, so I repeated the abovementioned steps again – but back to square one!

Using the live CD of Slax 5 & reading some of its help files, I discovered that at that prompt, I had to enter ‘startx’ to get into the graphical environment – I assume this must be the same for Mandriva? This may seem obvious, but to the uninitiated, the aforementioned prompt just confused things for me.

But let’s stick with Slax for now. There are many questions that I would like to ask, but some absolute basics would be great, as I have found it difficult to get anything working at all.

1. Optical devices do not work
2. Can’t & don’t know how to configure an Internet connection, and if I did, how would I save these settings as the CD, is of course, live?
3. How would I save anything for that matter?

Apologies if this all sounds rather simplistic as what I’m asking is, I’m sure, very basic. However, if you don’t know how to go about these fundamentals in the first place you’re completely stumped. Any help would be appreciated.

Cheers,

Dave.

 

David, you seem to be having quite a rocky time with Linux. It will get better I promise.

Let's make some fundamental changes to what you are doing right now.

1. Download Ubuntu by clicking here
2. Burn the ISO image to a blank CD and reboot your computer
3. Click here to read this easy guide on installing Ubuntu
4. After it's installed, click here for additional information

I am sure you will get on better with Ubuntu. It's a great user friendly distribution

 

Thanks, Megamaced.

Yes, I agree, a fresh approach is required. I'll give Ubuntu a try (I'm going to work my way through all the distros, you know ! I must confess - I never thought it would be this difficult to get started.

Dave.

 

It never usually is, frankly I've only had problems installing linux when it was a hardware fault like RAM, most of the time everything's fine. Don't let this put you off!

 

Yippee!

I'm up and running with Ubuntu - no problem installing this distro!

My first steps will be to try and configure an Internet connection on the sytem, as I can't get Ubuntu's 'Evolution' mail program to work. I'll have to look in Windows tomorrow and see what the settings are under 'Outlook Express.'

I'll have a good read-up on the help guides that Megamaced kindly linked me to and take it from there. I'm a Linux user at last!:spin2:

 

Glad a distro worked out for you, Ubuntu can take some configuration to get it the way you want, but other than that its a solid distro. Get your software repositories configured so that it can download packages from the internet and you're good to go.

Your internet connection should just be a normal ethernet connection, set as something like eth0. This will use DHCP if you're using a router/modem and the ip addresses and DNS should be configured for you.

 

Thanks, Addis.

I'll hopefully enjoy getting things sorted. It's all experience and I do find it interesting, even when things go pear-shaped - providing I can eventually correct them!

Cheers,

Dave.

 

Just trying to think logically about the Internet connection for Ubuntu’s ‘Evolution’ (mail program) & Mozilla Firefox ‘s web browser.

When I installed my SpeedTouch 330 broadband modem in XP, I of course, had to use its installation drivers CD to set it up to work with Outlook Express and IE.

Would I need to do this again on Ubuntu so that it can automatically configure the required connections for me?

I’ve tried setting up the connections manually, but whatever I enter relating to IP addresses, etc, does not work and I get connection error messages.

Cheers,

Dave.

 

David, you need to install the drivers for this modem. This is going to be a little tricky, so take your time over these instructions!

Normally you would have to compile the drivers (this is not something you want to do on your first day using Linux - beleive me ). So follow this short guide I have created and you should pull through

HINT: To copy and paste, simply highlight the text you want to copy, and paste with a middle click (in the case of a two button mouse, simply click both buttons at the same time).

1) Make sure your modem is plugged into the USB port

2) Download the driver by clicking here

3) Click 'Applications', point to 'Accessories' and click 'Terminal'.

4) Now copy and paste what you see in the box below:

Code:

sudo dpkg -i speedtouch-firmware_0.3012k.deb

5) You will be asked for your password.

6) Now you may unplug and replug the modem to complete driver installation.

7) Go back to the terminal and copy and paste exactly what you see in the box below:

Code:

sudo cp /usr/share/doc/ppp/examples/peers-pppoa /etc/ppp/peers/adsl

8) Now type the following into the terminal:

Code:

sudo nano /etc/ppp/peers/adsl

This command will open up a text file. Include the username given to you by your ISP and the VP and VC identifiers 0.38 (they may differ for other ISPs).
To close the text file, simply press CTRL+X, then type Y and press enter

EDIT: YOUR VPI NUMBER IS 0 AND YOUR VCI NUMBER IS 38

9) Once you have done that, type the following into the terminal:

Code:

sudo nano /etc/ppp/pap-secrets

This command also brings up a text file.

Type your username and password provided by your ISP by adding a line in the format "USERNAME" "*" "PASSWORD".
To close the text file, simply press CTRL+X, then type Y and press enter

10) Type the final command into the terminal...

Code:

sudo nano /etc/ppp/chap-secrets

Type your username and password provided by your ISP by adding a line in the format "USERNAME" "*" "PASSWORD".
To close the text file, simply press CTRL+X, then type Y and press enter

11) Reboot your computer

12) Open up a terminal (I know, I know ) and type:

Code:

pon adsl

If everything went OK, you should have internet access.

 

Wow! that's some baptism for a newbie. Thanks a lot for taking the trouble to help out. I'll give that a go as soon as possible. What a learning curve this will be!

Dave.