UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hello, and good day


I'm somewhat confused with the workings of the Linux operating system, more specifically RedHat 7.1.

The story began a few weeks ago when I downloaded SuSe 7.2, but failed at installation, then Caldera 2.4, then 3.1. Finally I landed upon RedHat 7.1--a fabulous choice.

I've run into a few dilemmas, with this OS. I've exhausted my other resources and I've not been able to understand their instructions.

My problems are as follows: Firstly, my configuration PIII 700Mhz, two 20GB hard drives, (one with Linux and windows ME, the other basically storage)

Now the problem: I can't get to Windows ME!, the boot process begins and loads RedHat 7.1, the screen asks whether I would like to boot to DOS, or Linux. The Linux boot is fine, but DOS just does not work, it just hangs and does nothing. The screen displays 'loading DOS' and that's it.

Second problem, I connect to the internet using ADSL (Bell Sympatico High Speed Edition) on my windows machines I use a PPPOE program called Access Manager, I think there is a PPPOE program bundled with RedHat. I believe I have set it up correctly, for the fact that I was able to get on the net and browse until I rebooted? I don't understand now I'm not able to!

Oh, and while I'm here, how do I install a program. I've been looking for those damn .exe files, but obviously they're nowhere to be found, and I don't know how to install a program.

Thankyou all in advance,




JD


Oh, yes, I have attempted searches for this information, but answers that I find I can't comprehend, so be gentle

on installing a program:

in linux, if the file ends in .rpm, you can do this:

--
rpm -i filename.rpm
--

i for install.




on the booting problem:

if you can't fix this and you need to get some files from your windows partition, you can do that from linux. you need to find out where your windows partition is in the /dev directory. it might be hda2. well, the first hard drive is hda# and the second is hdb# the third hdc# and so on, # being partition number, or something along those lines. keep in mind i'm not sure about how your hard disk partitions are named. you need to look in /dev yourself and guess/check.

--
mkdir /windows
mount /dev/hda2 /windows
cd /windows
--

uh yea. if anyone reads this and anything i said is wrong, please correct me.

okay,
-nydel

Most likely, if you installed Linux second, your windows should be located on /dev/hda1. Secondly, did you partition your drive before installing Linux? I've installed Mandrake without first partitioning through windows or DOS and it attempted to partition the drive during the Mandrake setup. It failed miserably and I had to reinstall windows. As stated above, you can mount the windows partition from Linux and retrieve your files.

And a note on installing... since you appear to be a newbie, I doubt this will make a lot of sense to you unless you've done any kind of programming... BUT, you can download source files, complile them, and create the executables yourself if you don't have the RPMs. And since you downloaded the RH package, I'm guessing it didn't come with all the RPMs that a distro pack comes with. But hey, if this doesn't help, or you don't understand, please post back.

I've tried your suggestions, and i cant seem to find anything about windows in the /dev directory. I did however, find many different hda's but when i clicked on them nothing happened. When i typed /dev/hda1 into Konqueror, a window poped up asking what i would like to open the file with?

I did make a partioin before I installed linux. I made it with Partion Magin 4.0, I set it so it would make it a linux partition.

But one thing that is EXTREMLY scary, is that prior to intallation, I used PQDI to make a drive image and burned it onto CD's. This was my bakcup in case all else failed. BUT the boot disks dont work! It asks me to insert a valid system disk! i dont even know what that means.

And if all i need is a few files from windows, could I not then get them from my windows restore CD's?

Could anyone give me some imput on my situation, please.

Thanks for any help,



JD

reinstall windows. maybe that would do something.

as for getting your windows files from linux, you need to do this:

open a terminal. it sounds like you're using kde so you should be able to get one somewhere on the k-menu or on the taskbar.

when you get a terminal do this:

<b>su</b>

it will prompt you for the root password, so type it in. then do

<b>mkdir /windows</b>
<b>mount /dev/hda1 /windows</b>
<b>cd /windows</b>
<b>ls</b>

this should list all of your windows files. if it doesn't, installation of linux might have messed up you windows partition, or something like that.

you can take one of two approaches now. first, you can copy the entire contents of your windows partition to /usr/win like this:

<b>cp /windows /usr/win</b>

or you can just copy whichever files you want

<b>mkdir /usr/win</b> (do this only once)
<b>cp /windows/<i>path&filename</i> /usr/windows</b> (do this for each folder/file)

have a lot of fun...



okay,
-nydel

It should be :
<b>mount -t vfat /dev/hda1 /windows</b>

Otherwise it will fail to mount windows partition.

Make a Linux bootdisk ( dd if=/newest-kernel of=/dev/fd0 )

Get a dos boot floppy with fdisk on it, and boot from it and type "fdisk /mbr". If windows works fine after a reboot, boot linux using the bootdisk and edit /etc/lilo.conf ( make sure boot=/dev/hda in lilo.conf). Run /sbin/lilo. It should display "added Linux and windows" message if everything ok.