UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hey everybody. Its been awhile since I last posted but in short I am now in posession of RedHat Linux 7.0 which I got from a book called the RedHat 7 Bible. As this is not an official distribution I cannot get product support from RedHat so I decided to try here.

I have three computers. I installed linux on my oldest computer without error. As for the two newer ones, I have had some difficulty. One my newest computer I have installed linux but I cannot configure the X Window System. This is because my Nvidia GeForce 2 MX video card is not supported by the drivers on the install cd, so I have to install the drivers myself if I want to use a desktop environment. This requires determining whether I have a uniprocessor kernel or an smp kernel. How do I tell? And another thing, how can I download the drivers and install them if I don't have an X Window Server configured? On the same machine I also have a FAT32 partition running Windows. Could I download the drivers in Windows, and then put them on a cd (I have a CD-RW) or a floppy and then mount that into the linux filesystem to install?

My second problem is with instalation. On my third computer, the video card was recognized and so I decided to install through the GUI. I run into a problem just after I select the type of install (Workstation | Server | Custom). After selecting Workstation an error comes up saying that the installation program found no devices on which to mount a filesystem. This is rediciulous. I have an IDE ATAPI hard drive with 6 gigs of unallocated free space and a separate FAT32 partition which is currently running Windows. I have even gone so far as to create the Linux ext2 and swap partitions before I install, but nothing I have tried has worked. What can I do?

If you have actually read through all this then I thank you. Any help will be greatly appreciated.

-TheGoof

You should still be able to use the basic svga x server to start your x session. You will not get all the performance out of your card, like opengl, but it will still work.
You can download the drivers a few ways. If you know how to use lynx then you can browse straight to the site and download them through lynx. You can also ftp through your shell to the nvidia ftp server, which is ftp1.detonator.nvidia.com.
Figuring out which kernel you are using is kind of a no brainer =) How many processors do you have in your machine? If you answered 1 then you would want the "UNI", uni meaning 1, processor driver. If you have more then 1 processor you would want the SMP, Symmetric Multi-Processor. So I think you can answer that one yourself =)

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What kind of IDE controller are you using. I think that RH7 uses the 2.2 kernel. It doesn't have support for alot of ata100 controllers right out of the box. There is a way to get it to be recognized by going into rescue mode, before actuall installation, and configuring your controller. I am sure you can find this information on the RH site easily, or even the mandrake site.

h3rb

Thanks for the help. About the hard drive thing and configuring the controller in rescue mode...

I was unable to find any information about it on the redhat site. If you have any specific places to search please tell me. I am desperately trying to break away from windows, but it is harder than I thought. Anyway, thanks again for the help.

-Andrew