Quote:
Originally Posted by
mark54g
Perhaps Linux is not for you. If you don't want to learn something new, why are you using something you are unfamiliar with? Linux and UNIX are not "Windows but free" they are different tools with different paradigms for doing things. *** Again, if you choose to learn about this, you will have a more pleasant experience using the operating system than if you just choose to butt heads with it and complain about it.
Who said I didn't want to learn something new? What I was complaining about was not the OS but the fact that internet resources about *nix assume a level of sophistication few newbies have. I don't have any complaints about the OS's paradigm but about the instructions I'm finding on the net. Your message is the first one I've seen that explains what sda means, for example. Another example - a four paragraph description of PROMPT_COMMAND that says virtually nothing about it at all.
As a technical writer, I perhaps judge too harshly, especially in terms of people who were kind enough to share their own experiences, and I recognize that. But certainly I'm allowed to blow off steam when I see the same question posted in many places and no real answers.
All I ask is understanding that some of us - especially at first - need to be told, "Approach the light. If it is red, stop before the stop bar. If it is green, proceed through. If it turns yellow while you can still stop safely, then stop. If it turns yellow but you've already crossed the stop bar, or you cannot stop safely, proceed through with caution and watch in your mirror in case the policeman disagrees with your decision. Do not in any case make contact with anything other than the road...."
We were all new once. At work, I am the person who must constantly respond to, "Help, my computer did something," in response to which I try to help my users help themselves. I'm not afraid to learn, or to teach, but, like everyone, I get frustrated too, especially when stuff happens contrary to documentation (like my version of bash seeing no difference between PS1=\W and PS1=\w).
The good news is that I'm now 150 pages further along in Linux for Dummies and - hopefully - getting a little less stoopid all the time.
Thank to everyone for the explanations - they were quite helpful and I am happily booting CentOS using Window's boot.ini to present the OS choices.
---------- Post updated at 05:26 PM ---------- Previous update was at 05:21 PM ----------
Quote:
Originally Posted by
otheus
It's actually 440, but 512 won't hurt in this case. You copy those bytes from the boot disk that you careated through the CentOS process, right?
Do I have to boot via the CentOS Live CD in order to copy those bytes? Or can I just run dd from a bash prompt while using the system itself?