Alright, I decided to make the switch from windows to linux and made a dual boot option with a 15GB ext2 linux partition and a 1GB swap partition, so this way I can come into windows if I need anything, and whatnot. Let me get to the easier question first..oh by the way my distro is Fedora2.

I heard Linux has problems reading and writing NTFS drives, so I converted my partitions to FAT32, although I cannot see these when I am logged in Fedora. Maybe I can create a shortcut of somesort or view it through the terminal? This is probably a simple question to answer for some of the linux knowers out there.

Since I started Linux yesterday, I have absolutely ZERO knowledge in any of its workarounds and such, and decided to TRY to install the linux version of AIM. It took me about an hour to figure out that I had to type:

rpm -i aim-1.286-5.i386.rpm (or whatever the filename is)

Then it asked for an updated version of another RPM, which I found, and installed. Then I re-typed the command above, and as I noticed with the other one, it didn't show an error after installing. So I figured it installed and I go to usr/bin/aim, and nothing is in the folder. What did I do wrong? If I can figure out how to do this simple thing I should have an easier time installing other applications and whatnot. Although I'm glad there is a newbie forum for people like me

Also, I am very fluent in MS-DOS and would like if anyone had any references for what linux commands are comparable to DOS.. if that made sense. Like what linux command is the same as the "cd" command in DOS or the "dir" command, etc.

Thanks and hope to post more

-colt

edit: I am logged in as root when I try to install

Your first question: The technical term(I don't know if it's really the technical term, but it's the one thats used, and the name of the command) is mounting... You mount devices, which include floppys, cdroms, and harddrive partitions, to name a few... You'll first want to root... Then, with the mkdir command, make some directories in /mnt which represent where you want the partitions to be mounted to(IE cd /mnt; mkdir C E F)
Then, you want to use use the mount command(man mount for more info) like this
mount -t <fs-type> /dev/hda<partition number> /mnt/<directory>
So, for example, to mount a FAT32(vfat) filesystem, which just so happens to be the first partition on your drive, and you want it mounted to /mnt/C... The command is
mount -t vfat /dev/hda1 /mnt/C
(NOTE: I might have mixed up /dev/hda1 and /mnt/C)
To have it auto-load, edit the /etc/fstab file

As for your AIM question, Fedora uses GAIM as a multi-client instant messaging service... But (I think) it is normal not to get any response from rpm... If you want to see whats going on, use "rpm -iv aim-<tab>"
The <tab> is for auto-completion when using the bash shell, and will finish the filename for you... If there is more than one(aim-37495-489054.rpm and aim-484695-37574.rpm), it will list up to the point where they are the same... Hit tab again and it will show all possibilities
The v stands for verbose, which echos what it is doing

Thanks for the reply, I got my hda1 drive mounted, which is the C:\ drive in windows, on my primary master. I also go the rest of that hard drive mounted because I recognize the folders in it. I am trying to get my slave mounted, which is about 100GB now that I took 15GB from it to make the ext2 partition for linux. I typed 'df' in the terminal and got this:

[root@localhost mnt]# df
Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/hdb3 13994212 2150644 11132692 17% /
/dev/hdb2 101105 5948 89936 7% /boot
none 258580 0 258580 0% /dev/shm
/dev/hda1 101827168 53615648 48211520 53% /mnt/H

hda1 is the drive with the rest of my information on my slave (my d: partition in windows)

I was thinking that hdb3 is my 100GB partition, i can tell that hdb2 is the 15GB ext2 partition because themount is /boot

Am I right about this.. is hdb3 my 100GB partition? and if it is, I tried to mount it and I get this:

[root@localhost mnt]# mount -t vfat /dev/hdb3 /mnt/C
mount: /dev/hdb3 already mounted or /mnt/C busy
mount: according to mtab, /dev/hdb3 is mounted on /

What's goin' on here? I'm going to play around with it for a while so I'll keep this thread updated if anything happens. I found a handy DOS to linux command guide and I am in heaven right now! I can move freely

edit: How would I unmount a drive?
edit2: got it working, went to hardware browser and found out it was hdb1, thanks for all the help, i think i'm good to carry on by myself now, hopefully

Just for a bit of explanation
Either /dev/hdb3 is already mounted(Obviously), or /mnt/C has something mounted to it

/dev/hdb3 is mounted as the root partition

And So it would be umount /mnt/C
umount /mnt/floppy
(From http://www.karakas-online.de/gnu-lin...he-system.html )