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And in case you must use VIM I have finally re-cracked the closly gaurded secret of how to save the file.
OK, open the file like this:
vim /etc/X11/xorg.conf
At this point you are in command mode, so when you try to type, it stupidly tries to execute what you type as commands. To be able to edit the file, type "i" for "insert." Make your changes, then exit command mode with the escape key.
Now, back in command mode, it is time to save and exit.
Type a colon ":", then x (:x)
That saves the file and exits.
You know, I feel like Mario, running the caverns trying to rescue the princess, and bashing my head into the ceiling at random places hoping that I accidentally find a hidden key.
VIM has a vast, obtrusive, annoying, vervose "help," section, but somehow it escaped the creator that a anyone would be interested in how to save their file. So it remains a closely guarded secret for all but those already in the know, those with nothing better to do than play games until they find a magic mushroom, those who are motivated by desperation to keep trying until their head is bleeding, and those who just get lucky.
Now they I have re-learned how to save and exit, and joe installed, VIM can take a well deserved hike off a short pier.
Crito and Piforever, you surely can't make that decision based on the price.
Linux may be free, both in freedom and in the money you don't have to pay for it, but it most definitly is not cost free.
By the time you get it downloaded and burned to a DVD, then installed, and working, and the correct selection of files made, and everything configured and working, you have spend a lot of time and a lot of effort learning how to do those things. If I counted my time worth just the minimum wage I suspect it cost at least a thousand dollars. And guess what, it was WORTH IT.
And after I have done it enough that I know the ropes well enough to do it at work, my boss may not be paying Microsoft or Red Hat, but he surely is paying something for the time I bill to do it. And it ain't the minimum wage. And he figures it is WORTH IT.
Because we have not had a virus or malware on Linux, ever.
Because I don't have to reboot the server every time I make a change in the network setup.
Because I don't hat blue screens of death for no apparent reason, and can keep a Fedora server up for months at a time.
Because I can install two copies on the Server, and two copies on the BackupServer, without worry about licensing.
And because I can put Fedora on every Windows Workstation in here, as a virtual machine, without worrying about licensing.
Is it simply a matter of costing less than Windows? Then why would anyone pay the price of Red Hat Enterprise Linux? Cause it BETTER. WAY better.
BTW, re vim (more accurately it's predecessor vi).
It's been the default installed editor on most *nix style systems for years/decades.
Always worth knowing the basic cmds, it's always avail, esp if you have to boot a recovery disk...
At home you can do what you like, but at work you often can't install SW of your choice, esp on commercial Unices eg Solaris, HP-UX, AIX etc.
Anyway, congrats on the progress.
Ok,
Here's where I'm at now. I've install Fedora on my 3rd drive. It looked like everything installed fine. It gave me a choice during install to either but grub in the MBR of drive 1 (sda) or boot sector of drive 3 (sdc). So I selected boot sector drive 3 (sdc). If your wondering why I chose this, its because my asus board has its own boot menu in the bios boot so I can select what drive to boot which is a very nice feature, and I wanted to keep linux off my main windows XP drive. This works good with SUSE, but apparently Fedora dosen't like it.
So now when I select drive 3 to boot to, it tries to boot to it but I just get a black screen with the word GRUB and a blinking cursor. So I'm stuck. I had problems with grub when I used SUSE, so I always used LILO boot. Anyway how can I fix this?
Oh, by the way, for grins I also tried Gentoo 2007 before this. It booted up right to the live dvd. I tried it because it loads a standard vesa driver by default. I was all excited thinking alright, cool, a OS by linux that might just work. Well it turns out that there graphical installer has problems, and also the install hangs up on coping certain files. Alot of people are having problems with it.
This is totally going to make me crazy. But I am determined to get linux to work on my PC. I will not let linux get the best of me.
Even when installed to the MBR GRUB needs access to grub.conf or that'll happen. LiLo doesn't have that requirement. On the other hand, every time you make a change to lilo.conf you have to re-write the MBR (which also contains the partition table, so it is a little risky.) GRUB's method makes that unnecessary; just edit the file and you're done.
If the computer has found grub, it surely has its conf. I suspect I am missing something fundamental here. Is that a way of saying the the boot sector doesn't know where the Fedora /boot partition is?
I'm afraid that is over my head.
Is there any way you can edit what the ASUS board is doing?
Every hard drive has a MBR, the end of which contains the partition table (the thing fdisk manipulates.) So by switching the boot drive in the BIOS you also switched which MBR the BIOS passes control to.
Every hard drive has a MBR, the end of which contains the partition table (the thing fdisk manipulates.) So by switching the boot drive in the BIOS you also switched which MBR the BIOS passes control to.
Yep, that is correct, and it worked fine that way when I had SUSE installed. But it still doesn't resolve my problem. Grub is in the boot sector of my 3rd drive, not the MBR of my third drive. But when booting to the third drive what you see is a black screen, then the word GRUB and a blinking cursor. So I assume it found grub, but grub is not working correctly and can't boot to the Fedora partition for what ever reason. Now if GRUB not being located in the MBR is missing it up, I suppose I can redo the installation and let it go to the MBR of SDA my first drive, but I really did not want to due that, and think it will do the same thing. Then I'll have over write my first drive MBR again with XP's MBR to fix it again so I can boot to XP.
Even when installed to the MBR GRUB needs access to grub.conf or that'll happen. LiLo doesn't have that requirement. On the other hand, every time you make a change to lilo.conf you have to re-write the MBR (which also contains the partition table, so it is a little risky.) GRUB's method makes that unnecessary; just edit the file and you're done.
Ok, how do I edit that file. I can't boot to linux. I can't edit the file from within windows. Where is the file located and how can I edit it?
Since you can't get into Linux to edit anything, and Windows can't see it, and I have no idea what the arrangement with your ASUA MOBO is, and no one else is chiming in with an obvious fix, and you seem to be willing to do a reinstall, gee, that might be the best route.
There are a few other things to consider. Dual booting can be done very well without the help of a MOBO. In your grub.conf file you can set up instructions for starting any number of different arrangements. For instance, when you install a new kernel, the old one is left in place, and directions to the new one are ADDED to the grub.conf file. So if the new one causes a problem, you can choose between the two the next time you boot up.
So it would be possible to choose one OS from the list provided by the MOBO, and when it starts, and displays this list of OS's to choose from, to choose Fedora 7.
Also I have faced your frustration, yes even with SuSE, where I could not boot up because I need to edit something to make that possible. At work I have the luxury of being able to pull the problem drive out of on machine and put in in another who's Linux can solve the problem. At home, like at work, I keep two Linux's on each machine, just so I can always fix one Linux with the other.
Also, though its not practical for everyone, I put each OS on its own HD, and set up fstab to mount each in the ohter, so I have the flexibility to pull a drive and keep on trucking.
That's not meant to solve your current problem, just to give you something to think about for the future.
I'm going to check back here and see if you had any success with it.
Ok, I got Fedora installed. Figured out how to use VIM and edited the xorg.conf. It boots into text mode. First problem: How do I get Fedora to boot into the graphic mode and desktop automatically. Right now I have to type startx at the prompt everytime. Second problem: I do not have internet. I can not find anywhere where I can look at my hardware or tell it to auto detect hardware. I did get it to auto detect sound. Third problem: I can't get it to add or remove packages becuase it wants to connect to the internet. How do I tell it to get them from the DVD. I'm thinking maybe I need to install something else because I missed something and have no networking and I can't look at my hardware. I thought I selected KDE to be installed also, but I do not see where to change it to the KDE desktop. Thanks
Update: Well I decided to give Suse another whirl since Im more familiar with it. It dawned on me that during installation of suse you can select a default runlevel, so I set it to 3. This way I could get to the xorg.conf file and edit it. Well it all worked out. I am running suse 10.2 as I am typing this thread.
To make a long story short on the nvidia drivers. After I installed the latest nvidia driver rpm, and changed xorg.conf to "nv" for the driver, it did not work. Got a black screen. Went back to edit the xorg.conf again and change the driver entry to "nvidia" , and guess what it worked. I feel pretty stupid at this point, because I now remember this problem from a while back. So all you people out there running nvidia drivers, if it does not work, try changing the driver name "nv" to "nvidia" in your xorg.conf. It will probably work in other distros as well.
Well I have to get my TV tuner and web cam to work now which was fun last time I did it. Thank you to all the people that helped in this thread, and I'll probably be back to ask some more silly questions.
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