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-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Friday 06 December 2002 8:18 am, keith lawford wrote: (to the webmaster at dclug: )
Dear Sir
Nice but not necessary, 'Neil' will do. 'Oi, LUG' will work too.
I am interested in buying a copy of Mandrake 9 and also possibly Knoppixx, what do I do and who do I send the cheque to. Yours sincerly Keith Lawford
OK, DCLUG is a support group for Linux users, new and old. We don't endorse or supply any particular distribution of Linux - there have already been very inflamed arguments over each one over the years and the simple solution is: each to his own. There's a consensus (just about) that Mandrake is probably the easiest for new users to get to grips with, without crippling the resulting system.
I am thinking of changing from Suse 8 to Mandrake (, however in the past I
There's no watertight reason to do that, you won't find an enormous difference in the two, except in the configuration tools provided. Once configured, you'd be hard pushed to tell the difference. Mandrake is easier to configure though, I think. (But that's just me, I haven't used SuSE much.)
have tried Mandrake, I think it was 8 but I lost the ability to boot into my Windows partition. Mandrake would load but Windows would not. I presume this was to do with the bootloader.
Correct. http://www.dclug.org.uk/linux_doc/tips.html In most cases it would be called LILO but in common with all things Linux, there's always a choice and some members are very favourable about Grub, an alternative bootloader to Lilo. It is just a case of configuring Lilo to offer Windows as an option on a menu offered at boot time. Take care in the installation stage and Mandrake should do this for you. If not, let Linux load - login as the root user and the settings for the Lilo bootloader are in /etc/lilo.conf - you must run lilo from the command line after making changes. (Try gedit or kedit as text editors - easier for ex-Windows users to get to grips with than emacs or vi - leave those to a later date, you'll need emacs or vi at some point but probably not quite yet..) Type man lilo.conf to get help on configuring Lilo (unless you are able to connect to the internet, perhaps via broadband or via another computer, in which case, use the google link below.) Remember to logout of the root account once you've done with configuration and login as a 'normal' user. (Mandrake and SuSE both strongly recommend creation of a normal user account during installation, it really is the single best bit of Linux advice you may ever receive. No installation should ever be without at least one normal user apart from root and you should login as the normal user everytime unless you specifically require root for a task.)
Could anyone advise me before I make the move about how this problem could be overcome? Booting from floppy?
That's always an option (for Windows as well as Linux) but all the bootloaders are capable of offering both options (although some versions of Windows are NOT happy - if you are running Windows 2k or XPPro with certain filesystem options set, you could have problems. Email the list if you are using either of these flavours of Windows - this would be just as likely to affect SuSE as Mandrake, so it doesn't sound like a problem on your system.)
Also with Suse * KDE I have a nice Windows icon which is very useful, will I still get this under Mandrake? If I do manage to change to Mandrake I
If you don't you can easily create it, right click in the desktop, select Create new link to location and either enter or browse to /mnt/windows which is where nearly all distributions (distros) will put your Windows partition. Note that Windows is never as helpful in this manner, all Linux partitions are stubbornly ignored by Windows. It's not that Windows can't, Microsoft refuse to allow it.
will have a personal edition of Suse 8 if anyone is interested in it. I have a copy of Suse 7.2 professional if anyone would like it. I live in Exeter and they can have it if they can pick it up
I am interested in buying a copy of Mandrake 9 and also possibly Knoppixx, what do I do and who do I send the cheque to.
http://www.linux-mandrake.com/en/ You can purchase online (credit card) and receive the boxed set in the post. If you have broadband and a CD-writer, you can even download the entire distro (3 CD's) completely and absolutely forever free of all charges. For a new user, it may be advisable to pay for a boxed distro simply to get hold of the excellent Mandrake printed manuals. (PCWorld now stocks Mandrake as well as SuSE but they do tend to lag behind the latest release - I haven't seen Mandrake9 in PCWorld yet, only 8.2) Remember: you don't ever have to pay for anything in Linux, everything is available for you to freely download, copy and install on as many systems as possible for no fee. Once you have a distro (any distro), it can be installed on one system or 21,000 systems - there are no licence restrictions. The payments for boxed sets mainly go towards printing and packing costs. Once you are happy that you can follow the installation instructions, you can save yourself the download and just pay for the CD-R's themselves. http://www.linux-emporium.co.uk Here you pay just £5 or so for a CD AND you can opt for a CD of the latest security upgrades and fixes. Again, once you receive the CD's, it makes no odds how many times you install them. (Note that all Linux distributions come in various flavours for PC, Mac, Alpha, SPARC and other hardware architectures, make sure you select PC or something like i386, i586, i686.) For all things Linux, use the specific Google search for Linux topics: http://www.google.com/linux Very good place to start with any kind of Linux query - there's not much that hasn't already been asked. You've already taken the best step by joining a Linux User Group (LUG) but another idea is to also get a few Linux magazines - I subscribe to Linux Format (available in CD and DVD version) and if you can get hold of the Christmas edition, (LXF35), Mandrake9 is on the DVD completely free of charge without the hassle of the download. Knoppix has been covered in previous editions of LXF and doesn't need to be paid for. (I'm not even sure it can be purchased, I think it is just downloaded or installed from a free cover CD.) I don't think it comes with any printed manuals but there is full information on the main website for Knoppix: http://freshmeat.net/projects/knoppix/ - -- Neil Williams ============= http://www.codehelp.co.uk neil@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx linux@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx neil@xxxxxxxxxxxx -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.0.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: For info see http://www.gnupg.org iD8DBQE98O63iAEJSii8s+MRAj0uAJ9riIynJYZcoryOwfpibjNOctbrlQCgpoiC z8D3Ra8/amJpTwy0cJL7bQI= =648/ -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG Mail majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxx with "unsubscribe list" in the message body to unsubscribe.