I tried Linux as an alternative to Windows XP. I loaded it on my second (SATA) HD. I got Suse 9 and KDE 3.1 came with it. I have 2 new partitions there. 1 24Gb one 1Gb. I want to get rid of Linux because it is simply too much hassle. I can't install anything because it seems 'make' and any sort of C compiler are missing . Yast is pointless and badly designed. Yes it it. I keep getting 'dependency' problems. I try to run the rpm command from the failsafe command prompt as root and get a huge list of missing files when trying to update to kde 3.2. So I am left with a useless OS on which I can't install an application or upgrade the GUI.

I need the Space to store captured video. Or 500,000 files containing the letter 'm' repeated a million times. Either would be more useful than Linux, it seems. Can I just wipe the 2 newly created partitions on my second drive? Will this leave me booting up from C without the Grub boot manager?(doubt it). How else do I get all trace of Linux off my system?


JH

you have "2" posts and your giving up..........geeze

try another distro or two!!
give Slackware a shot and you won't have that
dependency crap!!

Check my public bookmarks (see my signature) - there are a couple of links to how tos.

This site is "LinuxQuestions" - you could have asked your questions at any time by posting a thread. 106,029 members can't be wrong.

It's too bad that your experience with Linux was not satisfying. Maybe you could try out some other distros, even though I don't get how you had so much trooble with SuSE. To remove Linux from your hard drive you should first of all delete the Linux and Linux Swap partitions. From the Linux terminal, you can do this using fdisk, like so:

fdisk /dev/hda (Assuming your hard drive is /dev/hda, since it's a SATA drive, it's more likely hdf or hdg or something)

Once inside fdisk, you can view your partition table with 'p' (without inverted commas) and delete partitions with 'd'. To create new partitions, you would use 'n', and you can change their type with 't' (the NTFS partition code is 7).

To remove Grub, you would need a DOS or Windows boot floppy. Once it boots, you would type:

fdisk /mbr

Regards,

Thanks for the help - but yes I'm giving up! I may try another distro some time in the future, or even try reinstalling SUSE, but FFS! I can't even compile from source (can't find make ./configure unrecognised... must mean they're not installed.. on a new installation, default settings. COME ON! Like shipping windows without command.com) and the number of files I seem to need to get anything done takes up several screens to the console. It comes down to this. My XP installation works. SUSE doesn't. Harsh reality of the marketplace is I have limited time and patience and I don't see a benefit proportional to the time effort this will take to get going. I'm not alone, as a trawl through these furums has shown me.. So it goes.. Life is just too short.

JH

You said that 'make' and any sort of C compiler are missing...I did the same thing the very first time I installed linux (many moons ago...red hat 5 I think!). I didn't realise not having devel packages installed would mean that I could install any apps Hey, we all learn from our mistakes. Why not reinstall your distro (or try another one) and this time install the devel packages? That way you won't have to rely on yast (which I agree is a waste of time, as are RPM's in general).

Learn to compile software from source, it's much more worth it, and if you stick with linux you'll enjoy the freedom that comes with it...I don't run windows. Don't even own it, but that's not to say you mightn't want to keep it around to play games.

I believe he said that make and any sort of C compiler just weren't installed by default.. which I have to say sounds strange considering I've never had that problem before. Besides that though, in general I actually completely understand your comments. I ran mandrake, redhat, etc. and the dependency problems were a huge pain that caused me to give up on using them after a few hours of playing around with it. I recently checked out knoppix and have downloaded the newest mandrake (10.0) and plan to give another try at it after my failed attempt at using debian and screwing up my mbr temporarily with lilo.. hehe..

As far as compiling from source, that's something I was hoping to get to, since I have no problems with doing that in vis studio environment, but of course it's graphically oriented and easy to use.

Actually no. Mandrake doesn't install them by default either. I had to struggle with it when I first tried Linux, too.

Hmm.. I seem to remember installing it under mandrake, but it has been awhile.. but then again I think I actually selected packages because what's the point of testing out a new os install if you are going to go with defaults on everything.. hehe..

Maybe that's why I don't remember.. but I'm almost certain I saw python, gcc, etc. installed.

Considering he is using the 'wussed' up distos, I believe that Slack is not really the choice for him. If he doesn't know how to even spell suse (check his disto list) then I doubt he'll be eager at recompiling a kernel and buggering about with slack. He does not want effort in Linux, as far as I can see, he wants something uber simple. Like windows.

They are all part of the development set of packages, which you have to select yourself during the install. At least on 9.x. I don't understand it. I don't really need LISP libraries and such, but gcc should be part of any default installation.

I would say that's a reasonable thing to want though. If you have limited time on PCs, why do you want to spend it pulling your hair out trying to learn how to do things that are fairly basic in windows. Obviously, being a nerd of some sort I still feel the need to try linux, but I can definetly understand why most do not use it. I think the problem is, that getting specific help for your problem can be difficult. I am glad that I had some guidance here on doing a few things but it turned out my problem was something else entirely that I ended up fixing myself with trial and error. But it's that kind of thing that eventually gets on your nerves if you are just wanting something that "works."

The only real problem I have is with those who are elitist about Linux and feel that everyone who doesn't have the patience to bother with it is an absolute idiot. There are good things about linux, and there are bad things about it as well. I think linux has a long way to go in terms of userfriendliness to be an OS that's viable for most users.

And note, I'm not saying this having never needed to troubleshoot windows or download drivers, have pains with lesser used hardware, etc. I have done that many times, but windows is just easier to work with. There are real advantages to it as an OS, besides games of course. I'd like to see that change but the elitist movement that would rather keep everything difficult I think may prevent that from ever occuring.

Ordinarily I love tinkering about with settings and getting everything 'just so'. I don't buy PC's, I put them together for the fun of it. I tweak. I set up my office WiFi network. And it works. But when a default OS installation comes without even basic functions I wonder whether it is worth the effort when I have a working OS no a different drive. I'm not after Uber Simple - just f***ing sensible. But this thing didn't offer a way to get off the starting block and mess about in a fun way.. I just saw hours of tedium ahead... like in the days when Win 95 and Office came on floppies.. As I said, I'll go back to Linux at some point.. when I have more time and disk space..

JH

Well, I must add (since I've spent most of the last three days reading these forums and trying my best to get SuSE 9.0 working right) that I fall somewhere in between TheBaffledKing and the rest. I sought to try Linux cause I found myself using more and more of the windows ports of great open software (GAIM, GIMP, Firefox, Thunderbird, OpenOffice, etc.), but while they work beautifully on windows, a tribute of course to the whole open source movement, I couldn't get the same programs working properly on SuSE 9.0. All kinds of weird dependencies that were certainly exascerbated by my attempts to use Yast2 and then apt-get and then Yast2 again. The speed and configurability on Linux vs. windows 2000 were, indeed, amazing; and I would love to completely switch over, but I fear that I'll somehow corrupt my "important" data if I do.

Like 320mb said, perhaps I should try Slack or something, but as far as for my work machine I'm unfortunately gonna have to stick with windows in the near term.

n