Shot Me, I'm Lost!

[Mic Q]

Ummh... seems like your upgrade ME to XP sets me thinking ....

if i am going to get a XP , how can I upgrade, how is the process like?

[Cuddles]

And like you, I run "old Windows", in my case winME, argueably the second worst windows version ever released. The worst was Win 3.x series, I absolutely hated that one.

I would say ME is much worse than 3.x. But I won't still say that XP is the best overall desktop OS for PC(x86), not from a technical point of view but usability.

To add to this, I have seen XP, it "looks" more "polished" and "pretty" than, what I use, Win98, but, as I have found out, these "qualities" are nothing for making a OS more stable, or secure. Take into account that a lot of the new viri and worms are attacking these "new" OS's, and have no effect on the older ones, like Win95 and Win98.

I have to agree with both of you on Win3.x - that was a joke, sheesh, it wasnt "really" an OS, actually - if you "run" it from a DOS prompt, it cant be a OS... The nice thing with Win3.x, was, I had a nice zip and unzip batch file that compressed the whole Win3.x tree structure, into one nice, small, file... and since Win3.x was "pre-registry" era, you could just copy the program, and its libs, setup a shortcut to the program, and it worked - not so any more - you have to use the install program, or, you have to do like I do, read the install script, and "manually" poke all the registry entries in, e.g. setup.inf

Sorry Mic Q, I am kind of walking away from your topic, I've never run XP, nor ME, or even Win2K, so I cant speak from experiance on this, but, I would guess, hopefully, you have a backup hard drive, and copy some of your "personal" files over to it, programs and such, are going to need to be re-installed, after the install, hopefully you still have the install disks... My best thoughts...

[garyng]

Ummh... seems like your upgrade ME to XP sets me thinking ....

if i am going to get a XP , how can I upgrade, how is the process like?

To MS credit, I have tried a lot of upgrades of Windows(3.1 to 95 to 98 to NT/W2K to XP) and they never failed on me.

People may advice you to do backup, I have never done that. However, I do usually install a fresh copy instead of upgrade because I like to take the chance of "upgrade" to clean up things as I don't usually clean up my installed copy of OS.

[Cuddles]

Good advice Garyng, I can tell you the most problems people were having when I was working as a Phone Support Tech for the Win98 ( during its release )...

Disable as much of your "auto-start" programs as you can, since we were working with people who were ( most likely ) upgrading from Win95 to Win98, that meant looking in your Startup folder, get as many of those things disabled and not running - they can only get in the way during an upgrade - you can always put them back after the upgrade completes...

Disable any "registry" auto-start things as you can, again, this was from people coming from Win95 going to Win98 - we had them export and delete entries that were in the registry, under the "Run" section, it has two of these "sections" in the registry...

Lastly, since a lot of people were coming, possibly, from an upgraded Win95 from a upgraded Win3.x - we had them check the old "legacy" way of auto-starting programs, the Win.ini and the System.ini -=- look for the LOAD= and the RUN= lines in the files... and comment them out - unless it was something that made there system run, at the OS level...

Not sure if this is "still" a problem in those newer OS's, but they got in the way, major time, during those "old" Win upgrades...

I agree with Garyng on the "upgrade" being clean as well, I have always used the time to do a "clean" install - in many ways, it is the ONLY way to get rid of those "rogue" libs that lay around until YOU delete them... Again, this was a problem in the "older" Windows, and not sure if M$ cleaned there act up on this, but, during an install of any program, the install shield keeps track of everything that is getting installed for that program, in hopes, that if it is uninstalled, it knows what to delete... This does not include the libs though, and in most cases, not even the registry entries... My Win98 install, still, has registry entries and some libs that have "stayed" behind well after I have uninstalled the programs that installed them. I think the reasoning was that if you ever installed it again, the stuff would already be there, or, for those "pesky" auto-locked "shareware" or "freeware" programs, it kept something behind that told the program, even after uninstalling and reinstalling, that you have already had your "grace period" and can no longer run the program unless you pay for it, kind of thing.

It also doesnt hurt to start fresh, and not "carry over" stuff from the previous - you can always reinstall those programs, in many cases, you almost have to, with the registry. I also agree on the basis that when I upgraded from Win3.x to Win95, and then to Win98, the upgrade was flawless, even though I didnt "carry" anything over from the previous OS. ( but, I did have a backup of my "personal" files, and just copied them into my DOC folder, my DATA folder, and lastly, my SOURCE CODE VB folder. I just used CD-RW's for the backup copies )

[CrashedAgain]

Hey, don't shot each other ..... shot me (with your advise) :P

Wanted to be a little more adventurous and thinking of installing Linux into my exisitng PC, one that has lots of family photos, files and stuffs like that.

Any recommendation which to use, since I know none of them. Only thing is Mandrake seems to come up most in the books that I've browsed and is a comfortable enough 3CD download. (Debian is 7CD )

Red Hat is also common (thru books again) but the net says that is only support enterprise versions.

Comments anyone? Else i will try my luck with Mandrake.
Or maybe you can share what you are using


BTW, can i do a repartition of my currnet HD (winME) and split it (40G) into a 35G and 5G (for linux). Will this erase my HD?


Appreciate ADVISE.

Dividing your HD: I don't think you can partition your HD without losing everything. The reason is that ME writes something to the last sector on the HD so ME will be trashed for sure if you partition. Maybe PartitionMagic can do it but I tried with QTParted without success. So burn your data to a CD backup & prepare to reinstall everything.
You should make 4 partitions: one for Windows operating system, one for linux operating system, one for linux swap and the remainder for data. Data should always be on a separate partition from operating systems so that you don't lose it if you have a total crash; one of windows weaknesses is that they don't do this. Format the data drive vfat then both Win & Linux can use it. If you want to change/upgrade either operating system later you can do it without trashing your data. Win ME needs 1-2 Gig depending on how many apps you have, minimum for Knoppix is 2.5 so if you allow 3 to 3.5 for each you should be OK. 3-500 Meg for swap should be enough except if you decide to try remastering Knoppix you will need enough so that swap plus memory totals 1 Gig.
Debian comes in 7 disks but you don't need them all, the entire operating system is on the first 2 or 3, the rest is just applications which you can install as needed directly from on line. Debian HAD a reputation for being difficult to install but they have a new installer which is supposed to be much easier. Still , I think you can expect to do a lot of setup which Knoppix and Knoppix derivatives like Kanotix have already done for you. That said, there is more setup getting Knoppix the way I want it than there was with Mandrake but once past the initial setup Knoppix is easier to keep upgraded.
You will find Mandrake is an easy install, generally everything works like it's supposed to right off but it can be very difficult to upgrade. It is a bit more limited in available applications because you are supposed to use mandrake rpm's for the specific version you have ie, only mdk 9.2 rpm's for mandrake 9.2 etc. Problem is that nobody makes mdk-rpms for older versions and the 'latest' version will be obsoleted very soon. Mandrake 9.2 (which I had) was current for only about 4 months. I have been told that generic rpm's will usually work but what confidence do you have with 'usually'?
Red Hat has Fedora (I think now Fedora 2) as well as Enterprise but I don't know how well it is supported. But then, do you need 'support' which usually means ask the maker to fix bugs etc. For installing applications, Red Hat and Fedora uses 'generic' rpm's which are the most common application format available but it has nothing near as good as Debian's apt-get for installing & maintaining packages.
My suggestion is to partition your HD as above, install Knoppix since you already have, it
is about the easiest way to get a fully functional Debian system and it has superb support through this forum. If you are like me, you will end up trying others later on, you could include another 3.5 Gig partition for experimenting when you do the initial partitioning. If you do go experimenting, be sure to try Slackware (but not as a beginner system). It doesn't have as big a following as Red Hat, Mandrake, SuSE or Debian but Slackware users are very devoted to it. It was the first 'distro' and is still as close to a generic linux system as you can get.

[Mic Q]

hi CrashedAgain,

1. from your advise, seems like i had no choice but to lost all data for the re-partitioning right?

if that's the case, i may not be able to do it right away Sad
now i can to hunt for Ram AND harddisk.

2. this means that I cannot loan any linux as yet, no even a PMI of Knoppix, right?


3. What about a persistent home? The "Persistent Home How To" text did not mention any need for new partition. Can I just set the persistent home onto an existing Win ME partition?

4. What is the actual difference between doing a "Persistent Home" compared to a PMI.

[CrashedAgain]

hi CrashedAgain,

1. from your advise, seems like i had no choice but to lost all data for the re-partitioning right?

if that's the case, i may not be able to do it right away Sad
now i can to hunt for Ram AND harddisk.

2. this means that I cannot loan any linux as yet, no even a PMI of Knoppix, right?


3. What about a persistent home? The "Persistent Home How To" text did not mention any need for new partition. Can I just set the persistent home onto an existing Win ME partition?

4. What is the actual difference between doing a "Persistent Home" compared to a PMI.

A "Poor Mans Install" copies the Knoppix disk to the HD so that it runs from the HD instead of from the CD, otherwise it runs exactly as it does from the CD. The entire system is still in one big compressed file system which it uncompresses bit by bit as it need its, etc. and you cannot upgrade or change anything except that you can add applications using klik.
A persistent home creates a 'home' file on the HD so that when Knoppix runs it uses this 'home' instead of the default 'home' on the CD. Since your personal setups (colors, desktops, etc) are in your 'home' directory, they can now be saved instead of having to redo all your setups with each boot. Klik uses the persistent home as a place to install programs. Persistent home is usually a file but can be a whole directory and yes, you can put it on a vfat (winME) partition. It will be a file called Knoppix.img.
You could put on a PMI and/or a persistent home right away but be aware you will lose them when you partition.

[firebyrd10]

hi CrashedAgain,

1. from your advise, seems like i had no choice but to lost all data for the re-partitioning right?
compared to a PMI.

No, qtparted can safly repartition the HD to make more space, thats what I did with my XP install.

[CrashedAgain]

hi CrashedAgain,

1. from your advise, seems like i had no choice but to lost all data for the re-partitioning right?
compared to a PMI.

No, qtparted can safly repartition the HD to make more space, thats what I did with my XP install.

I also thought it was supposed to be able to but I had problems with it. Problems may have been caused by something else because what I was trying to do was resize existing partitions by reducing an existing vfat primary partiton & increase an existing ext3 secondary/logical partition. (Details here if anyone is interested: http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=13566)

So, Advice to Mic Q: Give it a try but back up your data first.

[Mic Q]

Thanks, one common (stupid?) question that all newbie asked (even though all experts will tell you something like .... chocolate or vanilla etc.etc.)

I am trying to choose between Mandrake and SUSE and would definitely want to try a GOOD start.

I am going to try it together with my nephew meaning several pc will be involved. I really hope to get the best start for these guys ..

apprecaite you comments and what are you using ?