first time linux user, frist day with mandrake9.1 on my system.
 

Ive been using windows since i started using pc's and i got curious a few days ago downloaded Linux in the mandrake version, my install went as smooth as i could have imagined a OS install being, id done windows clean installs before hardly any of them without running in to a bsod any how. im running linux now and getting used to it but i have some newbie questions as ive never had the opportunity to operate a unix/linux machine. Ive tinkered around with installing new programs a little bit from what i understand some programs are made into easier installs threw "rpm" basically like a windows type exe installer program. all the programs ive tried to find in a rpm file type have a error "the following packages have bad signatures" every single rpm i dl does this.
i can still continue threw the install process tho, some programs i tried to isntall aka "limewire" gives me a message "Everything already installed"... so umm ok if its installed where is it? im getting fairly used to the different extentions, operating the konsole ect ive been able to install a rpm based theme, as well as a tar.gz zipped theme. so basically my questions are. i guess ill stop rambling and just ask my questions

Where do the isntalled RPM packages go?
Why am i getting the bad signature error?
Is it possible to mount a harddrive partioned in fdisk/fat32?
Why cant i log in as user "root"? and or where is that option?
any pointers anyone has are appreciated as well

tia, sorry for the long post.

ok well most of the time when you install an rpm it will go to /usr/bin/<filename>, so one thing you could start off doing after installing the rpm is go to the console and we will use the program limewire as the example and you could issue the command "whereis limewire" or "locate limewire" it will show you where it was installed to..

as for the bad signature i don't have an answer..

yes it is possible to mount a fat32 drive...i will use an example of how i did it for one of mine and you can go from there....
first off i'll start by telling you that the file /etc/fstab has all information about your mounted filesystems and this is the file you will edit to remove or add new mounts..
so you will start off by navigating to the /mnt folder as root, and you will make a directory for the mounted information...so issue a command such as "mkdir fat_drive"..then you fire up a text editor and open the file /etc/fstab you then define the mount and i'll show you mine:
/dev/hdc1 /mnt/80gig vfat user,rw,exec,uid=500 0 0
the first column is the device itself which is hdc or my secondary master drive...the second column is my mount directory i made, the third column is the file system which vfat tells it that its a fat32 drive, and the fourth column is the permissions and i'll explain each:
user = to allow ordinary users to mount the drive
rw = read/write access
exec = to allow for executable binaries
and uid=500 = specify my normal user to have all the permissions on the drive.
if i don't specify this then my normal user will not be able to write to this drive.

as of the root, you can open up a terminal and type "su" at the prompt and type in the root password and then you will have root privledges...

if i was too brief on anything just ask somemore questions :D

In order of importance:

The 'root' user has the power to bypass all the protections put in place to preserve the integrity of your system. That's why it's better to log in as a user (ie, yourself) as you can't, for example, delete critical system files by mistake; you'll be told you don't have authority to do that. If you were logged in as root, the files would just be deleted. Better in the learning phase to only log in as root when absolutely required; then you'll have less of a chance to mess things up. The way to open a console as root is to select K->Terminals->Konsole - Super User Mode. The window that opens will prompt you for the root password, then you're in. Other functions that require root permissions to make changes will also prompt you for the root password first. Examples are: K->Applications->File Tools->File Manager - Super User Mode and the Mandrake Control Center.

They go to different places, depending on how they're packaged. You can find out where they are by entering at a console:

whereis <programname>

For example, I removed Mozilla 1.3 and installed Mozilla 1.4b, which went into a different location. The 'whereis' command gave me:

[geoff@MyComp geoff]$ whereis mozilla
mozilla: /usr/local/mozilla

You might have had errors in your downloads. Use md5sum to check the integrity of your downloads (search this site on 'md5sum').

Yes, and it should have been set up for you during the installation. No matter, just open Mandrake Control Center->Mount Points->DiskDrake. This will open a window showing all the partitions on your hard disks. If you have more than one hard disk, they will have separate tabs at the top left of the window. The Windows partitions on each disk will be shown in blue. Click on the blue rectangle to display the partition data. If there is a box showing 'Unmount' then it is already mounted and should already be visible to your system. Otherwise, look for a 'Mount' button and click on that. Click 'Done' when done; your mount point changes will then be made. Be careful in this part of MCC, as you can do a lot of damage if you get things wrong. If at any stage you want to back out without changing things, don't click on 'Done' - click instead on the 'Mount Points' icon in the left pane. You will get a dialog saying the current changes will be discarded. Click OK and DiskDrake will close without making changes.

GREAT instructions, both partions from my other HD are mounted up and i can view the files from both accordigly, i understand now th su/su root commands in the terminal allow me to use it as the root user i suppose ill wait a while before making an actual logon for the root user the reason i didnt mount the other HD during the install is because that HD is bootable for windows 98 when i wanted to switch to linux i didnt want mess with a dual boot at first i just swaped in a different blank HD and clean installed from there.


speak of which is there a way to dual boot from two different HD's?

Good to hear you had success, and thanks for the feedback.

Previous versions of Mandrake let you choose 'root' or 'user' from the logon window. In 9.1 they've made it harder to just log on as root, because of the pitfalls involved. Most needs of our system configuration/maintenance can be met by su-ing as root in a normal terminal or opening up a root terminal as I described.

Dual booting with Mandrake 9.1 couldn't be easier. My Windows disk (hda) didn't have much room for a Linux installation, so I connected a second drive and installed 9.1 on that. Lilo looks after the magic that is dual booting and just skips the Windows disk when booting into Linux (which is now 99% of the time). This is all very easy to setup in the Mandrake installer.

so how do i go about setting up the dual boot...now that ive already got linux installed? lol


i believe i have java installed correctly i followed the direction on digitalferret.com to the T but im still getting this in konsole

[root@localhost Sephier]# sh ./LimeWireLinux.bin
Preparing to install...
Extracting the installation resources from the installer archive...
Configuring the installer for this system's environment...
No Java virtual machine could be found from your PATH
environment variable. You must install a VM prior to
running this program.

what gives?

Setting up dual boot now is a good question... I'll have to have a think on that one. I presume that your Linux disk is hda and your Windows disk is hdb?

On the Java question, you'd be better off posting that in a new thread so you could attract a wider audience of helpers.

yup, i checked (MCC9.1>boot>drakboot>Configure LILO ) but theres no option for it.

will do

I don't think we can swap the hard disks in MCC, because they need to be connected as Windows=hda and Linux=hdb to configure them that way, but this would give us a Catch-22 situation, because your computer would not boot into Linux in this configuration.

I think this is do-able though. First, I need some info about your configuration. Please post the output of the following console commands:

ls -l /dev/hda*
ls -l /dev/hdb*

Please also list the contents of the following files:

/etc/fstab
/etc/lilo.conf

I will then be able to construct a method of re-configuring these files and a procedure to install them and boot with them.

Acutally, i already did... not exactly sure how tho lol with a bit of tinkering you can use the 1st mandrake install cd to boot and then to reconfig lilo into listing windows as a bootable option from startup, without reinstalling linux all together.


but as we all know i fix one thing and then arises another problem... i can no longer view the contents of my other hard drive? what gives. if im in a terminal as super user i can view the contents they are still there but, in konqueror theres nothing there.


java and limewire work now too thanks to this.

http://members.rogers.com/ctmlinux

Well done! I thought it could be done with the Mandrake install CD - using 'Upgrade' instead of 'Install' - but I thought it would be simpler for you to modify a couple of text files than go through the whole install routine. No matter, you got there; you must be an adventurous soul.

To look at your new problem, it would be good to have the output of the console commands and files I listed in my previous post.

oh for future refrence you can add this command line to lilo.conf if you add a seperate HD with windows on it and you want it as a bootable option in LILO startup.

ther=/dev/hdb1
label="windows"
table=/dev/hdb
map-drive=0x80
to=0x81
map-drive=0x81
to=0x80


These are the command outputs you requested

[sabastian@localhost sabastian]$ ls -l /dev/hda*
lr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 32 Jun 18 03:15 /dev/hda -> ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/disc
lr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 33 Jun 18 03:15 /dev/hda1 -> ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part1
lr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 33 Jun 18 03:15 /dev/hda2 -> ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part2
lr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 33 Jun 18 03:15 /dev/hda5 -> ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part5
lr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 33 Jun 18 03:15 /dev/hda6 -> ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part6

[root@localhost etc]# ls -l /dev/hdb*
lr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 32 Jun 18 03:15 /dev/hdb -> ide/host0/bus0/target1/lun0/disc
lr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 33 Jun 18 03:15 /dev/hdb1 -> ide/host0/bus0/target1/lun0/part1
lr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 33 Jun 18 03:15 /dev/hdb2 -> ide/host0/bus0/target1/lun0/part2
lr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 33 Jun 18 03:15 /dev/hdb5 -> ide/host0/bus0/target1/lun0/part5


These are the plain text contents you requested
FSTAB

/dev/hda1 / ext3 defaults 1 1
none /dev/pts devpts mode=0620 0 0
/dev/hda6 /home ext3 defaults 1 2
none /mnt/cdrom supermount dev=/dev/hdc,fs=auto,ro,--,iocharset=iso8859-1,codepage=850 0 0
none /mnt/cdrom2 supermount dev=/dev/scd0,fs=auto,ro,--,iocharset=iso8859-1,codepage=850 0 0
none /mnt/floppy supermount dev=/dev/fd0,fs=auto,--,iocharset=iso8859-1,sync,codepage=850 0 0
/dev/hdb1 /mnt/win_c vfat iocharset=iso8859-1,codepage=850 0 0
/dev/hdb5 /mnt/win_d vfat iocharset=iso8859-1,codepage=850 0 0
none /proc proc defaults 0 0
/dev/hda5 swap swap defaults 0 0


LILO.CONF

boot=/dev/hda
map=/boot/map
vga=normal
default="linux"
keytable=/boot/us.klt
prompt
nowarn
timeout=100
message=/boot/message
menu-scheme=wb:bw:wb:bw
image=/boot/vmlinuz
label="linux"
root=/dev/hda1
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
append="quiet devfs=mount hdd=ide-scsi acpi=off"
vga=788
read-only
image=/boot/vmlinuz
label="linux-nonfb"
root=/dev/hda1
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
append="devfs=mount hdd=ide-scsi acpi=off"
read-only
image=/boot/vmlinuz
label="failsafe"
root=/dev/hda1
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
append="failsafe devfs=nomount hdd=ide-scsi acpi=off"
read-only
other=/dev/hdb1
label="windows"
table=/dev/hdb
map-drive=0x80
to=0x81
map-drive=0x81
to=0x80
other=/dev/fd0
label="floppy"
unsafe

I can view the contents of the Drive when in File Manager (super user mode ) but not as a reg user so.. the permissions must have been changed somewhere or something?

OK, I can see what you've done here. You've added the Windows disk to lilo.conf so it will be able to boot, but you haven't changed the physical connections of the disks at the IDE cable. I was under the impression that Windows has trouble booting off a partition other than the first partition of the first hard disk (ie, in Linux-speak, hda1). Have you been able to boot into Windows? If so, does Windows see your CD-ROM drive?

I'm still looking at the other data for why you can't see your 'other drive' in Konqueror. Which drive can't you see in Konqueror, your Linux drive, or your Windows drive?

I can boot to linux and windows just fine. yes windows sees the CDROM drives. hardware wise the two HDS are on the same cable the linux drive is primary and the windows drive is slave.

windows does have issues booting off a partion other than the first but its on its own drive on the first partion so no problems.
the windows drive is partioned into two sections ( C drive / D drive)

I cant see the contents of the windows drive in konqueror, it says its empty, but when in super user "konq" it shows everything just fine. So its there and linux can read it just fine but something about the superuser/reg user permissions is screwy im guessing.



something else i just noticed...if i try to log out and switch users or reboot..it hangs my system..? But just plain System shut down works fine. Hardware issue?

In Konqueror - Super User Mode - click on '/mnt' in the left pane (F9 to get left/right pane setup). 'win_c' and 'win_d' should be listed in the right pane. Their permissions should both be 'rwxrwxrwx', with owner 'root'. If the permissions are not like that, right-click 'win_c' and 'win_d' in turn, and select the 'Permissions' tab. Put an 'x' in each box to change the permissions. Also put an 'x' in the box 'Apply changes to all subdirectories and their contents'. Click OK. Then see if this makes a difference in Konqueror - Normal Mode.