Shot Me, I'm Lost!

Just come across Knoppix by accident and my curiosity takes me here :-)

A little about myself (at least you should know why before you shot me):
during school time - pc does not exist, at least not in my school (i am that old)
I'm a true pc USER - meaning i do not know programming, only use applications .. every thing about pc is self learn thru books, try and error (heartwork) and forums (shot many times cause i asked dumb questions).

My pc .. P3, 933Mhz, 256MRam, using WinME with Opera, Firefox, OO and the likes...

Linux (heard of but never seen before)
Knoppix just heard of it yesterday and boot up once with Knoppix CD and life is never the same again .... I hope ... with your help.

Why, too many things. too many questions ..
Can i ask stupid questions in this forum (I've tried reading a lot of your post and is even more lost)

Q1. will changing settings (e.g. partition, security) while using Knoppix alter any settings in my pc?
Q2. i will read more at the library but there's no book on Knoppix over here? A few good links will be very helpful.
Q3. can i see my pc files while in Knoppix? How?
Q4. any good tips on how to go on from here?

will be back for more if this forum spares my life and give me a life line
:lol:

many thanks in advance.

not many questions that would be considered stupid here as far as I am conserned. we where all beginners at some time.
as long as we see that you make an effort we will help. we wont "do your homework" but we are willing to share our knowledge.

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Q1. will changing settings (e.g. partition, security) while using Knoppix alter any settings in my pc?

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no just for the current session, that is, if you ave not CHOSEN to save configs, home...

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Q2. i will read more at the library but there's no book on Knoppix over here? A few good links will be very helpful.

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knoppix is a variant of Debian gnu linux, Linux books are easily found in libraries, bookshops...

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Q3. can i see my pc files while in Knoppix? How?

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just open them from your filemanager (konqueror). rightklick and choose open with... OO is on the CD so..

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Q4. any good tips on how to go on from here?

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read what you find interesting in these links. .
have you tried the links on top called docs?
http://www.knoppix.net/docs/
other than that you have the howtos, minihowto's and guides you find at TLDP
http://www.tldp.org/
http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/doc...-formats/html/
http://www.tldp.org/LDP/intro-linux/...rg/guides.html

as you see the documentation is there.
it is sadly spread over a HUGE amount of text...
there is ofcource other forums like this in many languages...
just ask and be as detailed as you can, the more we know about problem/task... you want help with the easyer it is for us both, we can be more detailed and you will have a answer easyer to folow.

Add this to your list:
http://www.eleli.de/knoppix/docs/tutorial/english/
:D :D

Mic,

Here's what knoppix does:

The Knoppix iso is downloaded and burnt to a CD

If you can get your PC to boot up from CD, you can use this to load knoppix without touching your windows installation.

Play around a bit, check out all the software. You will be able to see your hard drive(s), CDs etc.

When you are ready to install to the hard drive you can run the knoppix-install script which will give you a Debian install.

For a start THANKS !!!!!!!!

I'll digest all your tips & links and will be back for more :-)

Hi, just came across a piece of interesting document "LINUX NEWBIE ADMINISTRATOR GUIDE " for newbies like me linked below :

http://linux-newbie.sunsite.dk/

Enjoy !!!

Take a look at this thread:

http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4899

about a book recently publisherd for Users of KNOPPIX, no less!

Good Luck,
AJG

Hello AJG,

thanks for the recommedation. Just finished the book borrowed from the local library:

it's a good guide for those who is new to the Desktop Environment, especially the KDE.

Regards
Q

Mic Q,

As for resources, books and stuff, Linux is a combination of "many" distrobutions; RedHat, SuSE, Debian, Mandrake, the list goes on and on, and then, add into these "main" distro's, the fact that anyone can create there own "hybrid" of these distro's, like Knoppix and Kanotix, etc... and the list goes almost endlessly...

I read the "Blue Screen of Death" book, it was a good "starter" book... If you dont mind doing a little "translation" of the commands, or the terminology, just look for ANY "linux" book - I picked up a good Linux System Administrator book, true, it was written from running a RedHat distro, but, a lot of the commands are "standard" in a linux install. It gave me more info on server packages, setup, installing, and background, on what you would be running, and how. Not to mention all the "sniffer" security commands to keep your system as secure as you can...

Just look for a "Linux" book, you may not find a book specific to your distro, unless you are running one of the "MAIN" Linux OS's, you can always "soak up" the good stuff, and translate it to what distro you are running... Like RedHat, I think thats the one, uses RPM for its package installing, whereas, Debian uses the "apt" process - if the book is based on running RedHat, it will talk about using a RPM get / install process to get your packages, but you just change the RPM to DEB, and the package program from "whatever" to "APT"...

Linux is really not that difficult, not as you may think - its just different. Its new, and can be seen as "alien" to anyone. But, you have to start somewhere. You probably had the same "feelings" the first time you ran Windows, I know I did... But, the more you use something, the more you learn how to use it, how to get around, and how to do what you want to do, in it.

I've ran DOS, Win3.x, Win95, and Win98 - my thinking on Linux was seriously, like a TEXT OS, and found, with the help of Knoppix, my thinking was unfounded. After over 15 years of Windows, with no information on Linux, in just under a year, I am starting to "forget" what I knew in Windows, and am starting to think in "Linux" now... You learn what "files" you need to work with, what they contain, and what they change. You learn what commands you use, for what, and why. You learn what programs you use, for what, why, and what they are used for. For me, I learn by "total emersion", so, I ditched my Windows, installed Knoppix, and started learning, I had to, if I wanted to get my system the way I thought it would be in Windows. For me, it worked, and this forum helped emensely ( considering a majority of the "post count" I have has been in questions on "how do I do this?" stuff ).

I now think in Linux, not Windows. I process commands, and programs, in Linux. I do everything in Linux, now. Yeah, it took time, but, I think it was worth it. Linux, to me, has been "empowering" to me, and my system. I have "complete" control over my system, whereas, with Windows, I felt it was more in control than I was, letting me do a few things here, and a few things there, but never giving me "complete" control. If I feel that something is amiss, even down at the OS level, I can scream through the source code on my Kernel, and see if anyone has done anything, if I want, I can. You cant do that with Windows, GOD forbid, mighty Redmond Microsoft, would allow such a serious breach of secure code to be seen by the "public"... ( come to think of it, I dont think I would ever want to look at the source code for any Windows OS, if the OS is that unstable, insecure, etc... the code must reflect it, imho )

Oh well, Mic Q, sorry to hear that Knoppix isnt going to work on your older system, hopefully you find some distro that will work for you, and, I hope, you can get a good Linux running. Linux is the best ( imho ), it has its issues, but at least the majority of them arent in the VIRUS, Security Patch, buggy, pot-holed security area. 97% of the security updates I get from "Debian's security" allerts are in packages that I dont even run, and the ones I do run, mostly, are from being a "server", and having "remote access" to your system, which I dont have them enabled, and a good firewall...

Reminds me of a good "Linux" T-shirt I saw on "thinkgeek.com" - basically taking a "poke" at the Windows World: Have you applied your security patches today?

Linux is different, that is for sure, it has a little "learning curve" to it, but not any more than anything "new" does. Linux is also better than anything else, on one more count. What makes Linux better, than say, Windows, is, that it is built on the knowledge and tallents of many "engenious" people. These people "volunteer" there time, and talents, to the future of Linux. They write the programs, the packages, the kernel, and they test, and they run, Linux. These people can be "contacted", and are within "touch" with the people who run what they create. I think that has its advantages. I also think that Linux has a lot of great people behind it, beside it, and running in front of it, from those who create it, to those who support it. Just try to get in contact with the "guy" who wrote the "dial-up connection" code for Windows, yeah, like that is ever going to happen - in Linux, its in the code, direct, and accountable, and best of all, these "creators" want to hear from people who find problems with something they created. ( Microsoft "really" doesnt want to hear from lil'ol me, they would just shine me over, besides, they would just tell me that it "might" be fixed in the next security update, anyway )

Funny thing is, I wouldn't be surprised that M$ runs something other than Windows on its systems... Do they "honestly" have to apply there own security patches, or fend off all the VIRI attacks like the rest of us? I dont think so... So, why does the "general" public have to, then?

Ok, one last "poke" at M$, from computergear.com ( a T-shirt )
USE THE BEST
Linux for servers
Macintosh for graphics
Palm for mobility
Windows for solitaire

I'm gone,
Ms. Cuddles

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Originally Posted by Cuddles

Ok, one last "poke" at M$, from computergear.com ( a T-shirt )
USE THE BEST
Linux for servers
Macintosh for graphics
Palm for mobility
Windows for solitaire

I'm gone,
Ms. Cuddles

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Wrong!
Once you get used to Kpat you'll never go back to Windows sol.
Windows is only for stuff I can't get to work in linux. Right now that is 1)TurboCad 2) PhotoRecord (really user friendly photo album & printer program for my Canon camera...my wife loves it and 3) Bunches of department store kids games.

Didnt want to start a "flame" war, it was meant as a joke, i.e. funny - if you got any beef, it should be with "www.computergear.com" - for making the T-shirt in the first place...

Dont shoot me, I'm only the "messenger", I didnt write the thing -=- and this was NOT, I repeat, NOT, a personal "poke" at you, you use whatever you want, for whatever you want ( my words ), if thats running Windows, fine and dandy, if its Linux, thats fine too -=- I just thought the T-shirt was cute, no harm intended, to anyone. ( ps you're right KPat is good :!: )

At least I wasnt posting images of Bill Gates getting his throat cut by TUX or something... How bout a "medium", an image with the Redmond Plant, having its sign changed from "Microsoft" to "Linux" ?????

Sheesh, I still have to use Win98, backgrounded through Wine, so I can print up my CD Labels, not sure if OpenOffice Word has a template for those round things ( ? ) - so, I have to use Avery CD Labeler program, which only runs in Windows... Other than that, I am Windows free ( and before I get flamed for saying that... I dont mean any disrespect to ANYONE who is still running Windows as a "real" OS -=- Ok ? Did I make better, now ??? )

Ok, Ok, CrashedAgain, you win... I felt so bad, that you ( accidently ) thought that my original "poke" to Microsoft, and Windows, was "personally" directed at you, or anyone else who runs that OS, so...

I went to computergear.com, and looked for "Windows" specific T-shirts ( that dont have any ), so, dissed by them, I went to thinkgeek.com, and searched there for "Windows" T-shirts ( they also do not have any ), so, I decided to find something that ( hopefully ) no one is going to get pist off about, that either "pokes" fun at Windows, Linux, or whatever ANYONE is running as there OS...

T-shirt, from thinkgeek.com:
Go away or I will replace you with a very small shell script

( and again, since it appears that "anything" I post is going to be taken as a "personal" "vendictive" stab at ANYONE - standard disclaimer -=- the statements made by this author are my own, and do not represent the management, its partners, its affiliates, its legal staff, its current, nor its future inhabitants, any OS of any kind, now, past, or future, and are being made completely on the fact that it is CUTE, and is in no-way to be taken "personally" against; dogs, cats, ferrets, mice, guinea pigs, rabbits, horses, cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, chickens, geese, water fowl ( of any kind ), males, females, anything in-between, any life species ( either known, or unknown, from this, or any other planet, in the vast Universe ), sub-life species, sub-sub-life species, this is to include life-froms down to the atom size, as well as the life-forms greater than our "known" size... In fact, my lawyers have just informed me that, the statements made by this author, are not even being made by this author, I can neither confirm, nor deny, the existance of this message...

Sheesh, what a person goes through for a "little" free speach - you'd think we didnt have a "Bill of Rights", or a "Constitution", or something...

Cuddles, I am not sure about open office but but KDE has kcdlabel and I believe it does the round ones.

Thanks, but, I think I tried that one, it let me create this "elaborate" round CD Label, then found out it wont save it, or if it did save it, it wouldnt allow you to open it, something like that, I tried almost every label package through apt, and either they only did the "jewel" case only, or, didnt allow saving and re-openning the round ones... I used to use MS Office Word, it had a template, until Avery came up with this new format of labels, which, appears that "currently" only there program knows how to format with... Figures, huh ???

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Originally Posted by Cuddles

Ok, Ok, CrashedAgain, you win... I felt so bad, that you ( accidently ) thought that my original "poke" to Microsoft, and Windows, was "personally" directed at you, or anyone else who runs that OS, so...

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Whoa! Hey! Whaddi say to make you think I was insulted upset or anything like that! Far from it! I only meant to say Kpat pats the pants off Sol!
I'm certainly no fan of Bill G & his predatory T-Rex of the software world. I run Win reluctantly only when I absolutely have to for the applications I've mentioned and then only because I can't get them to run in Linux & there are no suitable alternatives. (Another one is income tax; nobody makes tax software for Linux).
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.

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Originally Posted by CrashedAgain

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.

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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.

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 :shock: )

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 :lol:


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.

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Originally Posted by Mic Q

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 :shock: )

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 :lol:


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.

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two advices :

1. upgrade ME to XP(well worth it)
2. run colinux on top of XP.

You have all the benefit of XP AND the benefit of linux. No need to worry about partitioning, unsupported network device etc. and best of all, you can run the at the SAME TIME. Colinux download is small and it has a ready made woody rootfs which you can get in and do a "apt-get upgrade".

No matter what you want to do, trash ME. That is the worst OS I have ever seen in my experience with PC.

BTW, the new debian installer is very small, should you want to try native linux.

garyng, thanks for advise.

upgrade to XP, problem is I don't have XP and don't intend to buy one.

you are talking about http://www.colinux.org/ right?

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Originally Posted by Mic Q

garyng, thanks for advise.

upgrade to XP, problem is I don't have XP and don't intend to buy one.

you are talking about http://www.colinux.org/ right?

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Yes. But if you don't have XP, it is of no use to you.

Give KNOPPIX or similar a try then. Personally, I would stick to vanilla debian.

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?

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Originally Posted by garyng

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Originally Posted by CrashedAgain

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.

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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.

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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...

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Originally Posted by 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?

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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.

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 )

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Originally Posted by Mic Q

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 :shock: )

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 :lol:


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.

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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.

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.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by 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.

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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.

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Originally Posted by Mic Q

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.

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

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Originally Posted by firebyrd10

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Originally Posted by Mic Q

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.

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

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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.

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 ?

ok *shoots*