Linux

My class "UNIX using Linux" started today. The software that came with my text book will not download. I am running XP pro .. When I load the "guide to UNIX using Linux" disk the only thing that comes up is E:/ showing some files that are on the disk and then it stops and does nothing. Can anyone help?

1. Ask your instructor would be the first and best way.
2. Read the instructions - the book should tell you how to load the software.

As a guess, I would think you would have to boot from the cd - not just put it in while in XP. Without the instructions, it would be hard to say what you are suppose to do.

Ask my instructor .. Excellent idea! I already did that. My instructors notes send us to the UNIX discussion forum for help in downloading Linux. Apparently downloading tips are beyond the scope of the UNIX class.

Read the Instructions.. Another Excellent idea! There are no download instructions in the book. I looked at all the pages in the beginning and back of the book. There are none. I am guessing I do not have to read through several chapters to find this information.

Boot from the CD, I have not tried yet. I will do that now and let you know if it worked. Thanks for your help

Ok, booting from the CD did work so thank you for that. I ran into another problem that maybe you can help with. As I was following the steps to download Linux (Fedora), I came to a section about partitioning. The options were to choose "automatic partitioning" or "manual"
Since I do not know anything about partitioning, I selected "automatic"
when I clicked "next" the following options appeared.

1. Remove all linux partitions on the system
2. Remove all the partitions on this system
3. Keep all partitions and use existing free space ... This is the option I chose and the resulting message was that it could not allocate required partitions, partitioning failed. This usually happens when you do not have enough hard drive space.

When I selected choice (2) the message came up and said that partitions being used by other operating systems would be removed ( or a similar message on that order)
I clicked "next" and this page had information about boot chargers or something that I would need to have a password to sign into and be able to use my other operating system (xp) This page contained more information that I understand.
If I continue with this option I think I will be lost and not have any clue what to do or how to access windows.
Any advice? Thanks again

First off, what a lousy instructor for not giving some info on what is on the cd and what to do. Of course, that's just my opinion.

Second, STOP! Before you completely blow away your XP, you really need to know what you are doing.

This sounds like it's going to load a full-blown Linux distribution on your hard drive. If you don't have the space, then you would need to re-partiton the hard drive, taking some space away from XP if you have any extra unused space.

The first thing you should do is SAVE any important files (pictures, word documents, spreadsheets, recipes, whatever...) to some other hard drive or to a cdr. Hopefully, you haven't gone too far in trying to get Linux on your system already. (I can't believe that your instructor would not have mentioned all of this or that the book has nothing about it )

Do you know what Linux is on the cd? May help in giving direction.

I agree with your comment about the instructor. I thought that is where I would get the help.

I know nothing about how to re-partition. Is downloading a full distribution of Linux a bad thing? I am trying to get hold of someone at my college helpdesk for assistence though I am not sure if I will get any. I found some information in the back of the book about accessing UNIX/Linux .. It is not helping a thing. Now that I know I have limited space, I have to fix this problem first by partitioning before I can really do anything else so I have to find out how to partition.

I appreciate that you are trying to help!

Can Linux be used in place of XP?

Again, what Linux is the cd attempting to load? Having that information is vital!

See this collection of threads or use the search function above and search for linux, xp, and partiton (if that link doesn't work).

Uh-oh.
A bad thing...no.

I know folks who do that, but they already know the ins and outs of UNIX/Linux. Not for the faint of heart.