Hi all,

I'm VERY new to Linux (just downloaded and burned the CD's :P) and I was wondering..

I have WinXP Pro with NTFS installed on my harddrive, and I heard RedHat 9.1 is not compatible with NTFS.. The PC I'm going to install it on does not have an internet conx so I can't download a new module or anything.. I have an USB stick however.

Do I really have to format my disks, get rid of NTFS and re-install everything?

Thanks for your help

I'm not sure what you want to do. If you want to replace WinXP with Red Hat, you should not worry about it. Just follow the prompts and you'll end up with a Red Hat system, if you have pretty regular hardware. If you don't know much about Linux or your hardware, I'd suggest your visit www.tldp.org (the Linux Documentation Project) as well as the FAQs for Red Hat and get yourself familiar with what is really going to happen with your computer before you install anything. If you wanna share the computer between the operating systems, you'll have to resize your Windows partition to make room for the Linux (RedHat is Ext3) partition(s). If you have data you care about back it all up in case you hose your system in the install. Good luck.

Ok, thanks.. I want to run WinXP besides Linux.
Second question.. I have 2 HD's now (just installed one ), but the second is also NTFS, how can I convert it to another filesystem, and to which should I convert it?

Plug in your Red Hat cd and let it do the work. It'll wipe your NTFS partition (actually fdisk will do it too - all that happens is that the 'references' to the system are removed, which is why there's a data recovery business out there). When you install Red Hat, it'll reformat the partition for you. If it'll give you a default setup, I'd go for that (as in xxxMB for swap, xxxMB for '/', etc. I think it does '/',swap,'/home', if I remember correctly - haven't used RH very much at all, as I got another distro to work successfully, so I kept it). You're gonna have 2 choices as to where you put the bootloaderI'd suggest that you install it to the MBR of the first drive (make that the Win drive, its easier to work around M$ than to force the issue - it likes to be the first OS, so let it). When it asks you tm make a boot floppy, DO IT. If you install the bootloader (I only have experience with LILO) and it doesn't point to the right places, you'll still be able to boot to your Red Hat with the floppy. If you do have problems with the bootloader and the two drives, just pop in your WinXP cd and load up the recovery console and type 'fixmbr'. Thats the equivalent of 'fdisk /mbr' for win98. That'll get you back to windows (and it won't 'see' RedHat, although its still there - that's where your floppy comes in). Good luck, and read RH's docs. They have all the answers you need. Being the most popular distro of Linux in North America, it has been popular enough to warrant a lot of effort to produce very good documentation. I refer to the RH docs all the time for problems and things I don't understand, and I've never installed it successfully on a computer - found Mandrake and Debian after my first Red Hat screwup (which was a hardware issue). Happy penguin grooming! BTW, if you have a broadband connection, you might wanna try out tne Knoppix or Mepis live cd's. That'll give you a feel for Linux without having to install at all. But, the best way is to install and explore, with documentation at hand.

Cool, thanks for all your help, I installed Linux now and I could succesfully boot into WinXP and Linux (It calls my WinXP "dos" :P)

Anyway, yes, I have broadband, though not on my other pc on which I installed Linux.. I think I will get a simple Switch soon so I can get busy on the platform (I like Perl and all ).

Any recommendations about games/programs I REALLY should have?

There is actually a thread somewhere on this site that refers to program recommendations. I'll let you know what I have found to be most useful. If you have an ISP email account, or another that you want an email program for, I'd recommend trying Evolution if you're used to Outlook (otherwise, Thunderbird, if you're more used to OE). Browser - Mozilla (firebird's nice - if you install Mozilla, though, you can also use Mozilla mail, and it'll be integrated tightly, as always). Open Office 1.1 is strides ahead of any other office product. You can do most everything you can do with M$ Office (no Frontpage, but the writer'll save to HTML - I did my first few web pages with it). It even creates ppt files and pdf now. The Gimp is the best for image manipulation. Its about somewhere between Photoshop and Paintshop Pro in its power and complexity (as in not as powerful as photoshop, but much easier to use). XMMS is likely installed already for music (its pretty much like Winamp - kewl skins out ther for it too). Mplayer or Xine for video - dunno about DVD's as there is a sticky copywright thing about DVD software (I think both pay them as does Ogle). Don't be afraid to administer your system with the pretty GUI tools as well as the command line. I've found that (at least with MandrakeConf) a lot of tasks can be performed actually better and faster with point-and-click (not usually the case).

As far as games, I've no big recommendationsm, as I don't give myself time to game. If you're a SNES game owner, you can get an emulator (snes9x) and play your favourite snes games on your PC, if you can find the roms (remember, to legally use them, you have to own the game cartridge). As far as homegrown stuff, install TUXRACER!!!! Its mindless, simple to play, and hard to play well! And, hey, its just darn addictive! (a good test of your system's OpenGL capabilities, as well). If you're a Quaker, you'll love Quake for Linux. I'm told it runs better than the Windows version! If you're into cards and mahjongg, etc, just install Gnome games and/or KDE Games off your cd. Heck try it all. Not every glove fits every hand.

As for any other suggestions, you'll be able to take up days reading what others have wrote as recommendations. Familiarize yourself with the switches on the rpm command (or apt if you are using apt-rpm) so that you can install and remove files at will.

BTW, do you have sound when you log into your user account? I ask, as a lot of sound trouble is out there for two reasons: 1)You're not a member of the 'audio' group (add yourself and log out and back in) or your mixer is set to mute. If not, then I got a bit of typing in.lol

LOL, no I don't have sound when I login.. Or better, I don't have sound at all.. I'll make myself member of the Audio group and try again, thanks!

And many thanks about the recommendations, I will search the forum a bit to see what others wrote

And yes, TuxRacer simply.. ROCKS! LOL!
Linux is quite stable I must admit.. Though it's a little "hard" to get used to the browsing of files when you are used to Windows heh.

Great! One thing you can do is to, as root, type lsmod and see if your sound card driver is loaded. Also, as root, you should have sound, but perhaps not as a user. If that's the case, adding yourself to the group audio works fine. BTW, if you have a burner, k3b rocks, as does XCDRoast

Hmm, unfortunatly, there isn't an Audio group.. I guess my soundcard isn't Linux compatible? I'll check as root, but I don't think it's there.. Also, on shutdown I get 1 error like "can't locate audio-slot-1").

Perhaps it is but the module didn't get loaded. Load the sndconfig utility and run it to see if it can detect your sound card. If not, open it up and find out what chipset your card has. It may still be made to work with ease. Good luck (if worse comes to worse, I guess you could get another card, but that is $$$)