PC Pals Forum
Technical Help & Discussion => Apple, Linux & Open Source Software: Help, News & Discussion => Topic started by: Flanjeuk on August 14, 2005, 07:41
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hello,
ok so...
I have XP on a 120GB HDD and I have a spare 80GB HDD that i want to install SUSE onto and dual boot them both, basically how do I? step by step so I don't kill my computer. (and no, I don't want to try a live version, I want a full installation please :)
Thanks'
John.
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firstly have you used linux before? / installed an OS before?
Firstly make sure that you have backed up everything on your windows disk, but I bet you have already done that.
Secondly turn off the computer and restart it with the SUSE disc one (which version of SUSE do you have?) in the drive, you have to make sure that you have set the BIOS to boot from CD.
Once this is done Grubb should load and ask you about installing, make sure when you are installing you choose your 80GB HDD and that you dont remove any windows (smb) hard disk partitions. Once you have defined the 80GB as the hard disk you want to use (depending on the version of SUSE) it will setup the partitions for use with linux automatically.
It will now ask you to setup the tools you want to install, if you are unfamiliar with Linux I'd suggest you go with the defaults (maybe selecting KDE and have this as your default interface). Follow the onscreen steps making sure that Grubb is setup to give you an option of booting windows or Linux (it should be default but worth checking).
Hope this is of use.
You might also want to take a look at: SUSE INSTALLATION PAGE (http://www.novell.com/products/linuxprofessional/installation.html)
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thanks for the quick response :)
I have never used linux in my life. (I'm still currently downloading 9.3 Prof)
(can't wait for my blueyonder free upgrade to 10Mb!!)
I've installed XP a million times, because something always goes wrong eventually ;)
about backing up, I never really bother because I dont have very much on it thats not got a disk (eg, its mostly games)
Thanks again.
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good luck, hopefully this and the link will do the trick.
I'm sure you will like linux and SUSE is probably the closest you can get to windows, if you use KDE that is.
As for reinstalling XP your damn right there, though saying that in 4 years (or so) of use I have only had to reinstall XP 3 times! not bad really. saying that though, I've never had to reinstall linux (unless changing distribution).
As for backing up, well just be careful make sure you have thought of everything. The number of times I have forgotten to backup my bookmarks and then lost them all...
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ok, so i installed it but something isn't right
it boots up fine but when the desktop comes up its like really really low resolution and you can hardly read anything, and half of the picture is missing off the screen. I can see blurred icons and the SUSE logo in the top right corner. the mouse works but i can't see a pointer, i can just guess where it is a click.
any ideas?
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ok, graphics card - what do you have? you may have found a hardware incompatiblity. Linux just doesnt have the huge database that windows does as standard. You will have to install the exact configuration. Find out what you have got and I'll see if I can find out if there are any known problems.
It might be worth reinstalling it and making sure that you had the exact configuration of the graphics card. Out of interest does it boot straight to the graphical?
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I have a "Leadtek WinFast A6200TD 128MB AGP"
I chose the NVIDIA Display drivers on the update page at the end of the installation.
Im not sure what you mean when you say does it boot straight to graphical,
if you mean into the GUI rather than a screen of writing, then yes it does. but i still have the option to go to that other DOS type screen but it means nothing to me.
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will you can go into the "dos" screen. Its just a command line interface. At least then you know if the installation works, try something like xedit at the command line and see if you get a basic command line text editor up. To close it i think it is control-x and then control-c.. but to halt the taksk use control-z.
you can leave the command line by typing kde or gnome...see if this gives you the GUI. If not or you get the same error then its bound to be the graphics card.
By specifiying the Nvidia ones you might well have chosen the wrong ones. This is crucial, its not like windows which will just give you a crap screen res. Though I guess it uses the nvidia chipset...and probably should have work.
If the above method doesnt work, I'd suggest you reisntall it. Should be the same procedure as before but asking you to remove the linux partitions and don't use the update.nvidia chipsets are normally very good with linux machines.
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didn't work, tried reinstalling without choosing any graphics drivers, and it did the same again. i think i'll just try a different Linux, I hear Mandrake is another very good version, do you know where i could download it?
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dont use mandrake. i used to use it and its not one for the newbie.
You need to choose the graphics driver, did u choose one and then not to download the update. thats the situation I'd go with.
Other alternatives I'd recommend: Ubuntu, Fedora.
Fedora is the free version (essentially) of RedHat which is excellent. Just type in google and you should get it.
It might be worth you trying the live version of ubuntu - check if all the devices work before installing it, if you go that way.
I'd suggest the two most "windows-user" friendly ones would be Suse, Fedora and then probably Linspire, which you will find more info in the other Linux boards.
U don't have nothing to lose really, its always good to get the experience with installing these operating systems.
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theres two Fedora's I can download, one says 'SRPMS' in the title and one does not, which one should I download and what does it mean?
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you dont want the rpms so dont download the SRPMS. you just need:
[ ] FC4-i386-disc1.iso 06-Jun-2005 22:54 635M
[ ] FC4-i386-disc2.iso 06-Jun-2005 22:55 638M
[ ] FC4-i386-disc3.iso 06-Jun-2005 22:56 638M
[ ] FC4-i386-disc4.iso 06-Jun-2005 22:57 630M
[ ] FC4-i386-rescuecd.iso 06-Jun-2005 22:52 84M
the later is useful. I installed this the other day. It is similar to the SUSE installation, the only real difference is the disk partitioning but again just make sure you dont delete any windows ones and let it do it thing. I'd suggest you remove any linux partitions again.
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one more thing, i formatted my 80GB drive, so i could install the new OS, and it messed up the GRUB boot thingy, so i reinstalled SuSE (didnt work again btw) so i could get back into windows.
how do i do it properly?
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this could get a little messy as you have to wipe the mbr - dont do it!
When you install fedora, or another linux os it will rewrite the master boot record. if you took out the 80gb disc it would probably just boot to windows.
You can also edit the way grubb works from the commandline of linux but I'd suggest that you proceed with the installation of the other linux distribution.
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i installed Fedora Core, but when I had to restart it did the same thing as before, i get "GRUB failed to load, ERROR 22"
I had to half install SuSE again to get GRUB working again, I have no idea how i can fix this - what should i do?
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umm thats rather odd, when you installed fedora did you pay attention to what it said about the bootloader? this is where you might have to change how grubb works, it might not actually use that.
when you installed fedora did you click remove all existing linux partitions?
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I just installed Fedora on my system (I was using SUSE).
I dont have windows on this computer so I'm not sure how that will affect things (it shouldnt though as Grubb will deal with this). When you install it make sure you choose advanced configuration of the MBR. Choose the actual hard disc this is on. Ensure, before this, that you chose to wipe all linux partitions. You might also find that you need to you the LBA2 (i think thats what the abbvrv) option - I forgot this the first time and screwed up the installation.
Hope this is of some use.
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i tried what you suggested and i got the error again, i searched google about error 22, and found that with the XP disc i could make a new MBR, so i did that (i went into the console and typed 'fixmbr' and now GRUB is totally gone) so im going to try and install Fedora again and see if that helped.
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yes i was going to suggest that if the above didnt work. It seems that the SUSE installation messed it up before. I'd suggest you do the above this time or similar with fedora paying close attention to that section anyways.
good luck!
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this is really getting on my nerves now.
the installation went perfectly fine (with LBA32) then i restart like it says and it just loads windows (no bootloader came up at all), ok maybe i can't use LBA32. i just tried again without LBA32 and the same thing. So i have no idea what to do now. at least its not a messed up bootloader i suppose, but still **** sake.
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this mbr issue with windows can be a right bitch!!
At least you now know how to get out the problem now.
When you are setting up Fedora which hard drive is it putting the mbr on to? If it isnt putting it on the right disc it will not affect the windows installation and so just boot into this, without going to grubb first.
When you are configuring fedora make sure it is set to install the mbr on the windows hard drive (probably hda).
you can also configure the boot loader below - id recommend you choose windows as your default os.
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finally, im posting this message in Linux!
to answer your question:
i was putting the MBR onto hda
i had another search through google, and found someone else with the EXACT same problem, and he told me to boot with the Fedora CD, and go into the linux rescue part and type the following:
chroot /mnt/sysimage
grub-install --recheck dev/hda
reboot
upon reboot up came GRUB and here i am!
thanks a lot for all your help sam :)
(and btw, i quite like linux so far, just gotta try and find a better MSN Messenger, don't like that crappy GAIM)
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one other quick thing, i used my whole 80GB HDD for Fedora, how can i shrink down the partition so that i can have a 60GB space for stuff i want to view from both XP and Fedora?
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You need something like partition magic which will resize your partitions without losing data :)
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hmm, Partition Magic won't let me do it, according to Partition Magic the whole hard drive is full. and according to WinXP, its totally empty :?
ill just leave it for now i really can't be bothered at the moment.
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there is a way of doing it in linux...i just downloaded something similar in the fedora updates... look through the hardisk setup in fedora.
glad i could be of some assistance.
I'm sure what you found will be useful.
Personally I like Gaim, but it depends what version you have...check ifyou have the latest.
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btw I just came across a [guide] on how to dual boot fedora - with some rather odd looking screen captures, guess its a good way of doing it when you on the install mode.
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i cant find jack poo in Fedora about Harddisk Setup, only 'Disk Management' which is for the floppy and cd-rom drives, thats no use.
i updated GAIM and its a lot nicer, i see what you mean. still cant use my own display picture though :(
I found that Fedora dual boot guide when you first seggested Fedora and thats what made me decide i would download it.
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oh ok!!
As for fedora I think its disk druid.
Also there is more options in the system settings menu - but this depends what you installed and also which GUI you are using. I'm using GNOME as I prefer this to KDE (I use GNOME on a solaris machine at uni so I'm used to it).
give gaim time...it will get better. It is getting there. It has some good options. I bet if you look in the dev sections of the gaim site you might find an addon or someone working on the code for this.
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i can not find that disk thing anywhere
i dont have that "more options" in the menu, i only used the first 2 installation disks
I use GNOME aswel, seems nice. it was KDE in SuSE as far as i know, mayb its KDE i have the graphics problem with...
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no that was definetly SUSE - KDE doesnt cause that sort of problem it is a very well known problem with SUSE. I shall be away for a few days, I'll look into it when I get back.
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hello again,
I have made a 20GB partition, but I can't see it when i'm in Fedora, i found a lot of info through google, but i cant open "/etc/fstab" it says i'm not allowed, i cant find it looking through explorer thing, and i cant open it through the console. do you know what I'm doing wrong?
(btw i was logged in as root when i tried through the console)
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(btw i was logged in as root when i tried through the console)
damn thats what i was going to suggest.
another thing is to check the file permissions of the directory, you might well find that you dont actually have view rights. i.e. the directory exists but you can view inside it. you can find out the file permissions by typing ls -l . if you dont have the right permissions you, whilst logged in as root, can change the permissions by using chmod.
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I fixed everything, formatted and its all gone i can not be bothered with the hassle, it was good to try it out. but i think Windows is for me!
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fair enough but linux isnt something to jump into without the hard slog. It is completely different to windows and is not simple.
I think you should, if you want, play around with bootable versions till you are comfortable with linux.
Windows is full of problems, it just hides it from the user.