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| | | | FAQ Revisions | Editors: yock  , No_Strings , Zuhaib , adsldude , FastEddie
Last modified on 2009-09-21 13:55:51
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2 Linux·What is Linux?
·What are the different distributions of Linux?
·Is there a comparison between the different distributions?
·Which distribution should I use?
·Where can I download Linux?
·System states and their meaning
·How do I compile the Linux Kernel?
·What are RPMs?
·Who uses RPMs?
·Where can I find RPMs?
·What is the difference between RPMs and SRPMs?
·What is LILO?
·How do I install LILO?
·How do I configure LILO?
·How can I uninstall Lilo?
·Why does LILO freeze when booting my system?
·Can I change the Splash Screen That Grub Uses?
·What is ext3?
·What are the advantages of ext3?
·How do I install ext3 support?
·How do I convert my current ext2 fs to ext3?
·How do I mount drives on Linux?
·How do I disable Ctrl+Alt+Del in Red Hat Linux?
·How do I make Linux work on my laptop?
·How do I use Linux Fdisk to Prepare for a Linux Install?
·How do I uninstall Linux?
·What is GRUB?
·How to pronounce Linux.
| | | Linux (often pronounced LIH-nuhks with a short "i") is a UNIX-like operating system that was designed to provide personal computer users a free or very low-cost operating system comparable to traditional and usually more expensive UNIX systems. Linux has a reputation as a very efficient and fast-performing system. Linux's kernel (the central part of the operating system) was developed by Linus Torvalds at the University of Helsinki in Finland. To complete the operating system, Torvalds and other team members made use of system components developed by members of the Free Software Foundation for the GNU project.
Linux is a remarkably complete operating system, including a graphical user interface, an X Window System, TCP/IP, the Emacs editor, and other components usually found in a comprehensive UNIX system. Although copyrights are held by various creators of Linux's components, Linux is distributed using the Free Software Foundation's copyleft stipulations that mean any modified version that is redistributed must in turn be freely available.
Unlike Windows and other proprietary systems, Linux is publicly open and extendible by contributors. Because it conforms to the Portable Operating System Interface standard user and programming interfaces, developers can write programs that can be ported to other operating systems. Linux comes in versions for all the major microprocessor platforms including the Intel, PowerPC, Sparc, and Alpha platforms. It's also available on IBM's S/390. Linux is distributed commercially by a number of companies. A magazine, Linux Journal, is published as well as a number of books and pocket references.
Linux is sometimes suggested as a possible publicly-developed alternative to the desktop predominance of Microsoft Windows. Although Linux is popular among users already familiar with UNIX, it remains far behind Windows in numbers of users.
From Linux Online:
Linux is an operating system that was initially created as a hobby by a young student, Linus Torvalds, at the University of Helsinki in Finland. Linus had an interest in Minix, a small UNIX system, and decided to develop a system that exceeded the Minix standards. He began his work in 1991 when he released version 0.02 and worked steadily until 1994 when version 1.0 of the Linux Kernel was released.
This information can be found here.
The Linux kernel is a UNIX-like operating system. It knows how to read and write to disk drives, allocate memory, and do other very basic manipulations of your computer's hardware.
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by howe81 | | | Currently there are a lot of distributions of Linux. The mainstream ones are these:Additional information about the distributions can be found here.
Security Enhanced Linux (SELinux)
This isn't a distribution per say, rather a set of tweaks and patches to improve security at the kernel level, but it is worth investigating.
Information can be found at http://www.nsa.gov/selinux/
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by howe81 edited by bmn
last modified: 2004-11-13 03:02:45 | | | A full comparison between the different distributions can be found at www.distrowatch.com which presents pure facts.
The Linux Distribution game however, is an editorial which aspires to be a gentle introduction to the world of Linux distributions.
All thanks to Ladislav Bodnar.
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by howe81
last modified: 2002-04-04 04:58:40 | | | Those who ask it are often beginners looking for a place to start, and it can most certainly be intimidating. A common misconception is that of large sweeping differences between Linux distributions, and while some aspects of the OS can vary, very little Linux functionality is actually distribution-specific.
The best thing to do is usually to just see what is popular, that often means they're doing something right. DistroWatch maintains statistics on which distributions generate the most visitor traffic.
DistroWatch Hit Counter
If it is recommendations you seek, take them from this list.
You might also consider trying what's known as a "LiveCD," which is essentially a Linux installation on a bootable CD. To use one simply download a pre-built CD image, burn it onto a CD, put the CD in your CD-ROM drive and reboot your computer. It's a good way to give Linux a test run without committing part of your hard disk to it.
If you're interested, a list of these LiveCDs can be found here: FrozenTech.com
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by howe81 edited by yock
last modified: 2008-01-24 14:55:55 | | | Linuxiso.org is a place to start. They have a majority of Linux distribution ISOs (ISOs are CD Images) where you could download and burn or put onto CD.
iso.linuxquestions.org also maintains a list of ISO mirrors and bitorrents.
Also, you could download from each distributions web site, such as Red Hat could be found at »www.redhat.com and Debian could be found at »www.debian.org/.
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by howe81 edited by bmn
last modified: 2004-08-24 11:03:04 | | | A Linux system may run in one of seven possible states numbered from 0 to 6, as well as the single-user state that the letters s or S represent. Here is a description of all these states:
•State 0 is the halt state. When you switch a system to state 0, it will shutdown immediately.
•State 1, known as the administrative state, allows access only to a super-user. Using this state, a system administrator can perform various maintenance operations and installations without interference from other users.
•State 2 is the partial multiple user state. It allows multiple users to login but it disables remote file sharing.
•State 3 is the multiple user state. It allows multiple users to login and enables remote file sharing. This is the default state for the command line interface.
•State 4 is unused.
•State 5 is the default state for graphical logins that use display managers such as gdm and xdm. If you choose to use graphical logins during the installation process, this will be your default state instead of state 3, which would be the default otherwise.
•State 6 shuts down the system and reboots (note that state 0 shuts down the system without performing an automatic reboot afterwards).
•State s or S is the single-user state. It restricts the number of logged in users to one.
Detecting and Setting the System's State
To detect the state in which your system is currently running, use the runlevel command (the term 'runlevel' is a synonym for 'state'). For example:
#runlevel
N 3
On startup, Linux enters the default state. The system's default state is stored in a file called /etc/inittab. You may override it by changing the value of the init default entry. To change the current
system state, use the init command. For example, to switch to a single-user mode, type the following command:
#init s
Likewise, to shut the system down immediately, use the following command:
#init 0
Note, however, that, in general, you should use the 'shutdown' command. It allows you to include a warning message that is sent to all the users that are currently logged in or specify a delay.
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by nil | | | First download the new kernel from Kernel.org or from their ftp site.
Usually I download to /usr/src/ so I could work from there. Now untar the newly downloaded kernel source by typing:tar -zxvf linux-2.4.6.tar.gz Replace linux.2.4.6.tar.gz with the version of the kernel you just downloaded. Change into the directory created, usually linux. At this time, it is always good to read the README file first. Next step is to make sure that there are no stale .o files and dependencies lying around so run:Once that is done, make sure you check the ./Documentation/Changes and have the minimal requirements before you begin compiling the kernel.
Once you have meet all the minimal requirements start the configuration by typing either one of these:•make config - This is the typical configuration and requires the bash shell to work•make menuconfig - This is a text based with color menus, radiolists & dialogs•make xconfig - This is the graphical configuration tool for X Windows•make oldconfig - default all questions based on the contents of your existing ./.config file. All this is detailed in the README file so be sure to read it.
Now that you have configured the options to build your new kernel, be sure to set up all the dependencies correctly by typing:The second section cleans up the source tree from any previous compilations.
The next step is to start compiling and building the new kernel. To do this, issue the following command:This part can take some time depending on your computer. During this time, you could read some more of the documentation in the Documentation directory.
If you specified the use of modules during the configuration, then you will need to issue the next line, if you did not specify the use of modules then you can safely skip this step:make modules && make modules_install This will compile and build all the modules that you specified during the configuration and copy them to the /lib/modules directory so you could load them when necessary. Now to install the new kernel all you have to do is copy it from ./arch/i386/boot/ to /boot/. You would also have to copy the new System.map as well. To do this type:cp arch/i386/boot/bzImage /boot
cp System.map /boot Now you will need to update the module dependencies tree, a small file that tells the kernel which modules depends on which to work. To do this type:All that is left is to update LILO or GRUB to tell it to boot the new kernel.
For those with SCSI hard disks, you will need to create initial ramdisk images for preloading modules. To do this, type:mkinitrd /boot/initrd-2.4.6.img 2.4.6 Replace initrd-2.4.6.img with the name you would like to use for your initrd image and replace 2.4.6 with the kernel version you are using. Remember to include a line in LILO or GRUB to boot the image. With LILO add:initrd=/boot/initrd-2.4.6.img Remember to replace initrd-2.4.6.img with the filename of your own initial ramdisk image. As I have not used GRUB before, I do not know how to do this so you will have to read the GRUB documentation.
Full documentation can be found here.
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by howe81
last modified: 2003-04-14 01:43:50 | | | RPM stands for Red Hat Package Manager. These files are similar to those self-extracting zip files in Windows.
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by howe81 | | | Although it stands for Red Hat Package Manager, it's not just Red Hat that uses them. Mandrake along with other Linux distributions use them as well.
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by howe81 | | | Best place to find RPMs is at SpeakEasy.Rpmfind.Net. Feel free to submit more sites and I will continue to update this entry to include them.
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by howe81 | | | RPMs contain the compiled binaries, whereas SRPMs contain the source code ready to be compiled.
RPMs can also be created or built from SRPMs using the follow line:Credit goes to these people: radmish , FiberOpPraise , linuxdawg , dmgibbs & bellers .
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by howe81
last modified: 2002-06-12 11:06:57 | | | LILO stands for Linux Loader. LILO is Linux's boot loader which is used to boot up Linux. It can also be used to dual-boot or multi-boot different operating systems.
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by howe81 | | | To install LILO, run lilo as root. You can either install it to the master boot record (lilo /dev/hda) or the root partition of your Linux installation (lilo /dev/hda1 or lilo /dev/hda2).
Additiona information can be found in the LILO mini-HOWTO.
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by howe81 | | | To configure LILO, simply edit the /etc/lilo.conf then make additional changes and run lilo as root to update your system.
A typical /etc/lilo.conf file should look similar to this:
boot = /dev/hda # or your root partition
delay = 10 # delay, in tenth of a second (so you can interact)
vga = 0 # optional. Use "vga=1" to get 80x50
#linear # try "linear" in case of geometry problems.
image = /boot/vmlinux # your zImage file
root = /dev/hda1 # your root partition
label = Linux # or any fancy name
read-only # mount root read-only
other = /dev/hda4 # your dos partition, if any
table = /dev/hda # the current partition table
label = dos # or any non-fancy name
More information on LILO can be found here.
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by howe81 | | | When Lilo overwrites a boot sector, it saves a backup copy in /boot/boot.xxyy, where xxyy are the major and minor numbers of the device, in hex. You can see the major and minor numbers of your disk or partition by running "ls -l /dev//device''. For example, the first sector of /dev/hda (major 3, minor 0) will be saved in /boot/boot.0300, installing Lilo on /dev/fd0 creates /boot/boot.0200 and installing on /dev/sdb3 (major 8, minor 19) creates /boot/boot.0813. Note that Lilo won't create the file if there is already one so you don't need to care about the backup copy whenever you reinstall Lilo (for example, after recompiling your kernel). The backup copies found in /boot/ are always the snapshot of the situation before installing any Lilo.
If you ever need to uninstall Lilo (for example, in the unfortunate case you need to uninstall Linux), you just need to restore the original boot sector. If Lilo is installed in /dev/hda, just do "dd if=/boot/boot.0300 of=/dev/hda bs=446 count=1'' (I personally just do "cat /boot/boot.0300 > /dev/hda'', but this is not safe, as this will restore the original partition table as well, which you might have modified in the meanwhile). This command is much easier to run than trying "fdisk /mbr'' from a DOS shell: it allows you to cleanly remove Linux from a disk without ever booting anything but Linux. After removing Lilo remember to run Linux' fdisk to destroy any Linux partition (DOS' fdisk is unable to remove non-dos partitions).
If you installed Lilo on your root partition (e.g.,/dev/hda2), nothing special needs to be done to uninstall Lilo. Just run Linux' fdisk to remove Linux partitions from the partition table. You must also mark the DOS partition as bootable.
LILO mini-HOWTO
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by howe81 | | | If LILO fails at some point, the letters printed so far can be used to identify the problem.- (nothing)
- No part of LILO has been loaded. LILO either isn't installed or the partition on which its boot sector is located isn't active.
- L
- The first stage boot loader has been loaded and started, but it can't load the second stage boot loader. The two-digit error codes indicate the type of problem. (See also section "Disk error codes".) This condition usually indicates a media failure or a geometry mismatch (e.g. bad disk parameters). /boot/boot.b could not be loaded. The cause could be a disk error of any kind.
- LI
- The first stage boot loader was able to load the second stage boot loader, but has failed to execute it. This can either be caused by a geometry mismatch or by moving /boot/boot.b without running the map installer. /boot/boot.b has been moved w/out reinstalling LILO or a disk error has occured.
- LIL
- The second stage boot loader has been started, but it can't load the descriptor table from the map file. This is typically caused by a media failure or by a geometry mismatch. LILO can't allocate needed data from the map file probably because of a disk error.
- LIL?
- The second stage boot loader has been loaded at an incorrect address. This is typically caused by a subtle geometry mismatch or by moving /boot/boot.b without running the map installer. /boot/boot.b has been moved w/out reinstalling LILO or a disk error has occured.
- LIL-
- The descriptor table is corrupt. This can either be caused by a geometry mismatch or by moving /boot/map without running the map installer. Invalid map file data or /boot/boot.b has been moved w/out reinstalling LILO or a disk error has occured.
- LILO
- All parts of LILO have been successfully loaded.
If the BIOS signals an error when LILO is trying to load a boot image, the respective error code is displayed. These codes range from 0x00 through 0xbb. See the LILO User Guide for an explanation of these.
These error codes can be found here. Consider reading the LILO, Linux Crash Rescue HOWTO thanks to ronmon
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by howe81
last modified: 2002-06-12 11:07:40 | | | You sure can. Here are the steps to take:
1. You can take whatever image you want and make it into a boot image. The image can be no bigger than 640 by 480 and 15 colors. It must be saved in xpm format.
2. Once you have the picture that you want gzip it. The filename should be whateveryouwant.xpm.gz
3. Copy/Move the file to /boot/grub
4. Edit grubs config file. It might be grub.conf or menu.lst depending on your distro.
splashimage=(hd0,0)/boot/grub/whateveryounamedit.xpm.gz
Thats it. Reboot to see your purty new grub image!
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by elboricua edited by howe81
last modified: 2002-05-26 20:22:47 | | | ext3 is a Journalizing file system for Linux. It was written by Dr Stephen C. Tweedie for 2.2 kernels.
The filesystem was ported to 2.4 kernels by Peter Braam, Andreas Dilger and Andrew Morton , with much valuable assistance from Stephen Tweedie.
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by howe81 | | | As stated by Michael K. Johnson, why do you want to migrate from ext2 to ext3? Four main reasons: availability, data integrity, speed, and easy transition.
Availability
After an unclean system shutdown (unexpected power failure, system crash), each ext2 file system cannot be mounted until its consistency has been checked by the e2fsck program. The amount of time that the e2fsck program takes is determined primarily by the size of the file system, and for today's relatively large (many tens of gigabytes) file systems, this takes a long time. Also, the more files you have on the file system, the longer the consistency check takes. File systems that are several hundreds of gigabytes in size may take an hour or more to check. This severely limits availability. By contrast, ext3 does not require a file system check, even after an unclean system shutdown, except for certain rare hardware failure cases (e.g. hard drive failures). This is because the data is written to disk in such a way that the file system is always consistent. The time to recover an ext3 file system after an unclean system shutdown does not depend on the size of the file system or the number of files; rather, it depends on the size of the "journal" used to maintain consistency. The default journal size takes about a second to recover (depending on the speed of the hardware).
Data Integrity
Using the ext3 file system can provide stronger guarantees about data integrity in case of an unclean system shutdown. You choose the type and level of protection that your data receives. You can choose to keep the file system consistent, but allow for damage to data on the file system in the case of unclean system shutdown; this can give a modest speed up under some but not all circumstances. Alternatively, you can choose to ensure that the data is consistent with the state of the file system; this means that you will never see garbage data in recently-written files after a crash. The safe choice, keeping the data consistent with the state of the file system, is the default.
Speed
Despite writing some data more than once, ext3 is often faster (higher throughput) than ext2 because ext3's journaling optimizes hard drive head motion. You can choose from three journaling modes to optimize speed, optionally choosing to trade off some data integrity. •One mode, data=writeback, limits the data integrity guarantees, allowing old data to show up in files after a crash, for a potential increase in speed under some circumstances. (This mode, which is the default journaling mode for most journaling file systems, essentially provides the more limited data integrity guarantees of the ext2 file system and merely avoids the long file system check at boot time.)
•The second mode, data=ordered (the default mode), guarantees that the data is consistent with the file system; recently-written files will never show up with garbage contents after a crash.
•The last mode, data=journal, requires a larger journal for reasonable speed in most cases and therefore takes longer to recover in case of unclean shutdown, but is sometimes faster for certain database operations. The default mode is recommended for general-purpose computing needs. To change the mode, add the data=something option to the mount options for that file system in the /etc/fstab file, as documented in the mount man page (man mount).
Easy Transition
It is easy to change from ext2 to ext3 and gain the benefits of a robust journaling file system, without reformatting. That's right, there is no need to do a long, tedious, and error-prone backup-reformat-restore operation in order to experience the advantages of ext3. There are two ways to perform the transition: •The Red Hat Linux installation program offers to transition your file systems when you upgrade your system. All you have to do is select one checkbox per file system.
•The tune2fs program can add a journal to an existing ext2 file system. If the file system is already mounted while it is being transitioned, the journal will be visible as the file .journal in the root directory of the file system. If the file system is not mounted, the journal will be hidden and will not appear in the file system. Just run tune2fs -j /dev/hda1 (or whatever device holds the file system you are transitioning) and change ext2 to ext3 on the matching lines in /etc/fstab. If you are transitioning your root file system, you will have to use an initrd to boot. Run the mkinitrd program as described in the manual and make sure that your LILO or GRUB configuration loads the initrd. (If you fail to make that change, the system will still boot, but the root file system will be mounted as ext2 instead of ext3 — you can tell this by looking at the output of the command cat /proc/mounts.) More information on tune2fs can be found in the tune2fs man page (man tune2fs).
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by howe81 | | | To install ext3 support, download the patch for 2.4 kernels from Andrew Morton's ext3 for 2.4 site.
NOTE: There are quite a few patches available and it is recommended to download the correct patch against the correct kernel version. Also, have your kernel source ready to be compiled with ext3 support.
Now copy the patch over into the untarred kernel source directory, in this case it's usually /usr/src/linux/, and apply the patch as stated:gunzip < ext3-2.4-x.x.x-x.gz | patch -p1 Your kernel is now patched and ext3 support an option you will need to enable when creating the config file. You can either use make config or make oldconfig (if you have an old config file you wish to use) and specific 'Y' to ext3 support.
Install and reboot into the new kernel to make sure that your kernel boots up without errors. Once this is done, you may now convert your ext2 partitions to ext3.
Additional information can be found here - Using the ext3 filesystem in 2.4 kernels by Andrew Morton.
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by howe81 | | | Once your kernel is compiled for ext3 support, you can convert your current ext2 partition to ext3 by following these simple steps:tune2fs -j /dev/(hdx or sdx) This will add journaling to your current partition and thus converting it to ext3. After this is done, you will need to modify your /etc/fstab to mount it as ext3 in future. I recommend you edit this and change the ext2 to auto.
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by howe81 | | | To mount drives such as CD-ROMs, floppy disks etc. on Linux use:mount -t filesystem /dev/device-name /mount-point An example of this would be:mount -t iso9660 /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom For more information, type man mount.
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by howe81 | | | This answer comes straight from »www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/linu···ess.html
Disabling Shutdown Via Ctrl-Alt-Del
By default, /etc/inittab specifies that your system is set to shutdown and reboot the system in response to a [Ctrl]-[Alt]-[Del] key combination used at the console. If you'd like to completely disable this ability, you will need to comment out the following line in /etc/inittab:
ca::ctrlaltdel:/sbin/shutdown -t3 -r now
Alternatively, you may just want to allow certain non-root users the right to shutdown the system from the console using [Ctrl]-[Alt]-[Del]. You can restrict this privilege to certain users, by taking the following steps:
Add a -a option to the /etc/inittab line shown above, so that it reads:
ca::ctrlaltdel:/sbin/shutdown -a -t3 -r now
The -a flag tells shutdown to look for the /etc/shutdown.allow file, which you'll create in the next step.
Create a file named shutdown.allow in /etc. The shutdown.allow file should list the usernames of any users who are allowed to shutdown the system using [Ctrl]-[Alt]-[Del]. The format of the /etc/shutdown.allow file is a list of usernames, one per line, like the following:
stephen
jack
sophie
According to this example shutdown.allow file, stephen, jack, and sophie are allowed to shutdown the system from the console using [Ctrl]-[Alt]-[Del]. When that key combination is used, the shutdown -a in /etc/inittab checks to see if any of the users in /etc/shutdown.allow (or root) are logged in on a virtual console. If one of them is, the shutdown of the system will continue; if not, an error message will be written to the system console instead.
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by elboricua edited by howe81
last modified: 2002-05-15 23:01:48 | | | Linux on Laptops is an invaluable resource for those considering using Linux on a laptop. It contains thousands of mini-HOWTO style documents for specific brands of laptops, with the lessons learned by those who have gotten it all to work.
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by thompson42 edited by howe81 | | | Using Fdisk to Prepare for a Linux Install
This will just go into the basics of setting up your partitions. If you want in depth info on fdisk man fdisk J Before using FDISK you need to identify which drive it is that you are going to partition. Here is a short listing that should help you out.
hda = first drive attached to ide 1
hdb = second drive attached to ide 1
hdc = first drive attached to ide 2
hdd = first drive attached to ide 2
And if you have a Promise or other PCI IDE controller those are
hde = first drive attached to ide 1 on the card
hdf = second driver attached to ide 1 on the card
hdg = first drive attached to ide 1 on the card.
The same scheme goes for SCSI hard drives. The only difference is that the drives name will start with an S
sda = first hard drive attached to the scsi interface
Now that you know which drive you are going to partition type
fdisk /dev/hda
You will now be in the fdisk interface.
Type p and press enter.
This will print out the current partition scheme. It is a GOOD idea to write this info down. It can help you out later if something screwy happens.
Now these instructions are going to assume that you want to wipe out the entire drive and prepare it for linux.
Type d and press enter.
You will now be asked for the partition number that you want to delete. You should have the number of partitions from the print function we did one step ago. Enter the partition number and press enter. Repeat until there are no longer any partitions
1. Now that the old partition table is gone we need to create a new one.
Type n and press enter.
This tells fdisk that you are going to create a new partition. It will now ask you to select Primary or Extended partition type. The first partition that we are going to create is for the /boot directory so we make it Primary. Next fdisk will ask you for a partition number 1-4. Since this is the first partition press 1 and press enter.
Now Fdisk is going to ask you for the cylinders to use. Just press enter once to accept the default first cylinder. Now it will ask you for the ending cylinder. You do not have to know how many cylinders are in a MB. Just type in the size that you want in MB. Lets say for example that I want the partition to be 25 MB. I would type +25M and that would create a 25 MB partition.
Now since this first partition is going to be for /boot we only need to make it 25 MB max. Some people will tell you to make it bigger. It all depends on your tastes. I personally keep mine at 25 MB.
2. Now we need to create a swap partition. Again this is a personal preference. I usually just use 2x ram up to 512 MB.
Next step is to type n and press enter. Select the partition type and number. Primary and partition number 2. Fdisk again is going to ask you for the cylinders to use. Just press enter once to accept the default first cylinder. At the second prompt enter the size in megabytes. +512M
3. If you are going to be creating a workstation all you really need is one more partition. Have this partition just take up the rest of the hard drive. Next step is to type n and press enter. Select the partition type and number. Primary and partition number 3. Fdisk again is going to ask you for the cylinders to use. Just press enter once to accept the default first cylinder. At the second prompt just press enter if you want to use the rest of the free space on the drive.
4.Now we need to set which partition is Active. The active partition will always be /boot. In our previous steps we set hda to be the /boot partition. So
type a and press enter
Fdisk will now ask you which partition you want to make active. Enter 1 to select partition number 1.
5.Now we need to change the partition type of the swap partition.
Press t and press enter. This will ask you which partition you want to change. Press 2. It will now ask you for the partition type. Type in 82 and press enter. This changes the partition type to swap.
6.Type p again to see the new partition table. You should see an a next to partition number one and partition number 2 should say linux swap.
7.If you are happy with the partition scheme press w. W tells fdisk to write the new partition table and exit fdisk. If you are not happy with the scheme and want to start over type q and press enter. Q tell fdisk to exit and not save any changes.
Next step after fdisking is to format these newly created partitions. That is for another FAQ :)
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by elboricua edited by howe81
last modified: 2002-08-15 06:11:10 | | | Although we do not recommend it, uninstalling Linux may be a necessary thing to do for some reason or another. Whether it be your wife and kids not letting you sleep inside the house until their computer is working normally again, or that you are just frustrated with it and don't have the time to fix it.
Anyways the quickest and easiest way to uninstall Linux is to simply delete the linux partitions and clear the master boot record using fdisk. To do this you need to boot a Windows CD or a boot floppy that includes fdisk. Once you do that, at the command prompt type "fdisk" and from there you can go through the prompts to delete your linux partition(s). Then you can quit and save changes. Finally at the command line type "fdisk /mbr" to get rid of LILO or GRUB. You can now go and install Windows if you haven't already.
WARNING: fdisk is a powerful program and its changes are generally not reversible. Use it at your own risk.
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by Techie2000 edited by bmn
last modified: 2003-11-14 23:25:58 | | | GRUB stands for GRand Unified Bootloader. It is a multiboot loader that can deal with many types of hardware and knows how to load a wide variety of UNIX-based operating systems as well as Windows.
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by SpitefulCrow edited by howe81
last modified: 2004-11-13 21:05:11 | | | The first syllable 'Lin' is pronounce like bin, while 'ux' is pronounced like the ux in tuxedo. Thus it is 'lehnucks', ’linnuks’.
You can hear, or watch Linus Torvalds pronounce it himself at any of the following links:
»video.google.com/videoplay?docid···&q=Linux
»/r0/download/1···inux.wav
You can read debate about it at:
»Don't *Ever* Argue Again About The Pronunciation Of Linux
»Can you say Linux?
»dmiessler.com/archives/246
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by Maxo edited by yock
last modified: 2006-12-07 10:25:17 |
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