I am new to Linux. I don't know which version of Linux will work for me best.

For example I tried to install Suse Linux 10.1 and finally got it to connect to the Internet and then I found that it doesn't support the printer I have: Lexmark 730 series.

I installed Freespire and run it from the CDROM and found the browsing to be painfully slow. Perhaps installing it to the hard drive will make browsing of Internet to be faster?

I tried to install Ubuntu 6.06 and found that I didn't know how to connect to the Internet. It was later deleted to try out SUSE Linux 10.1.

As I talked to friends they will encourage me to try the version they are familiar with.

As I only have one PC at home I try to un-install one before installing a new one. As I don't know how to un-install the Linux OS I resort to using the Disk Management of Windows OS to delete the partition containing Linux and also the partition containing Windows. I now have to re-install Windows and re-install Linux.

This takes up a lot of time because once I delete the Windows all the programs installed under Windows also are all wiped out.

I have to delete the windows because the “GRUB” was installed in the root directory together with Windows. After deleting Linux I can't start Windows either.

Can someone suggest a better way of installing a different version of Linux without having to delete all the OS in PC?

A related question: Can we install two or more different versions of Linux OS in a single PC with 2 hard drives each with 2 partitions made from Windows OS?

Thanks and regards

No need to delete windows. After deleting the Linux partition, insert your windows CD. Somewhere will be an option to fix the MBR which will remove Grub. Just go through the different options that are offered.
Further I doubt that there's a need to delete Linux (see below). As far as I know there's no need, even when you want to give it back to Windows.

Just install it. It will allow you to erase partitions, create new ones etc. Just make sure not to wipe windows partitions.

One can install 10's or 100's of different distro's on one system.
My suggestion (for Windows 2000/XP)
drive 1, partition 1 for Windows and programs (NTFS)
drive 1, partition 2 for Windows data (NTFS)
drive 1, partition 3 for data exchange (FAT32, a few GB is enough)
drive 2, partition 1 for Linux 1
drive 2, partition 2 for Linux 1 data (home directory)
drive 2, partition 3 for Linux 2
drive 2, partition 4 for Linux 2 data (home directory)
drive 2, partition 5 for Linux swap (twice the memory or max 1GB (whatever comes first)

If you use Windows ME or earlier, you don't need the third partition on the first drive and the given filesystems don't apply (will always be FAT32). The third partition is there to more easily share files between the different operating systems. Linux support for NTFS is risky (when writing).

The size of the Linux swap partition is debatable. Lot's of people will say that 512MB (or even 256) is enough. I use 1 GB.

You don't say how big the drives are, so further advise is a bit difficult. It depends on the distro how much space you need. A full Slackware install takes about 3.5 GB, a full Suse install will probably do more (no experience). You need to keep some space for updates and additional software that you might need and some space for data. So around 10 GB will be OK for one distro for now.

PS

the given partitioning scheme is one of many options. You can also decide to put all OSes on one disk and all data on another.
If you just want to play in Linux for now, you can omit the Linux data partitions. The home directory will then be on the partition where you install Linux.

Thank you for your advice.

The master drive has 40 GB capacity and has been squeezed into one partition in a previous Linux installation that wiped out the Windows.

The second/slave drive has 80 GB. The first partition is used for all the downloads and data from the Windows programs. The second partition is where the Linux OS is installed.

After lots of re-installations when I boot from Linux it shows Linux (1), Windows (1), Windows (2), ...Don't know how to get rid of the item Windows (2).

Deleting the Linux partitions in the slave caused errors in loading the OS. That necessitates re-installing windows.

Once booted from CD, Windows just asks for installation or replacement of installation. When the Windows partition was not deleted or reformatted installation will not complete. It simply loops over and over again in the early phases of preparation for installations!

It is an endless loop!

I would try to install over an existing copy of Linux to repalce it and see what happens. Right now I am just playing with Linux OS as nothing useful can be done yet as I can't get the hardware like printer and scanner to work yet. All sound/video players are also not working. Questions will be raised in different posts.

Thanks and regards.

You can repair the Master Boot Record (MBR) using fixmbr command via the recovery console to remove the bootloader (grub or lilo) instead of reinstalling windows everytime.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314058/

The grub bootloader uses a menu file called menu.lst that is typically located in the /boot/grub directory. When this file is deleted grub will fail to boot and you will see just grub>

Thank you for your advice.

I had gone as far as seeing the command: C:\Windows>

After looking at the commands after typing “HELP” I didn't know what to do with them.

It is heartening to see advice on Microsoft KB from a Linux user! That can only mean you are fluent on both OS. Thanks.

Regards.

Hi

I tried installing Ubuntu and Suse and setup a triple boot with windows xp, I already had windows installed, then setup Ubuntu and finally installing suse, but found that suse didnt see ubuntu when installing Grub, and as I was a complete newbie I didnt know how to add os's to grub.
So the hard work answer was to reinstall Ubuntu.

hi, i have found that windows CDs suck, i would resort to a boot disk, bootdisk.com, then run fixmbr or something.
On another note, when i was first testing out linux,i didnt install grub/lilo to whole HDD, just the linux partition, then when i wanted to go back to windows i would use boot disk then some partition manager, uhh..., then go to set active partition, select NTFS- windows.
-restart, and check it out.

Let me know how it went.

May I venture to say Linux sucks

I am new to Linux.

First I installed SUSE Linux 10.1 and found that I didn't know how to configure the network card and couldn't connect to the Internet.

A friend suggested I try UBUNTU 6.06.

So I deleted SUSE Linux. After that I couldn't start my Windows. Being new to Linux in particular and OS in general I resorted to completely delete the partitions for Linux as well as Windows in order to re-install Windows. All the programs installed with Windows also were gone.

I installed UBUNTU Linux 6.06.1 and found that it didn't detect the DSL router. Searching in the Internet didn't give me an easy answer on how to connect to the Internet.

While searching for an answer in the UBUNTU site I saw this link to Freespire Linux. It sounds great. So I downloaded the CD image and burnt a CD.

I booted from the CDROM and was able to connect to the Internet. Great. But when I tried to surf the Internet it was so painfully slow I thought it is not worthwhile.

In the meantime I got some advice on how to configure the network card and tried Suse Linux again. This time I was able to connect to the Internet. Well done!

When I started to play around with it I found that all the sound/video/movie players that come with the installation don't work.

I also found that my home-user's scanner and printer are not recognized by Suse Linux.

Somebody suggested SANE as a back end driver set. I surfed the site and found that my printer and scanner were not listed. I couldn't get on to their mailing list to inform them so.

I deleted the Suse Linux again. This time I didn't re-install the Windows but use Windows Recovery to fix the MBR error caused by the deleted Linux.

I thought installing Freespire into the hard drive might speed up the Internet browsing. Since there is no one to advise I just gave it a trial.

This time I was unable to connect to the Internet at all.

On re-boot I wasn't able to open the Windows. Error message “NTLDR is missing. Press CTRL ALT DELETE to re-start”. I had to insert the Windows CD to re-start the Windows.

I searched in the Internet and someone advised to use the Windows Recovery and copy the NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM to C:\. I did that and nothing happened.

I then realized that perhaps I should copy the files into the Linux partitions. But then the Windows doesn't recognize Linux partitions. So I am stuck with this problem.
So I deleted the Linux partitions using Windows Disk Management.

When I re-booted the Freespire menu was still displayed. When I chose to start Windows the same old error message re: NTLDR persisted.

When I finally realized that the Linux MBR were installed in the Linux partitions I had to go through Windows installation in order to delete the Linux partitions and made new partitions. Only after that I was able to get rid of Linux and re-start Windows in peace.

By now I have ripped all the Linux from my PC along with all the programs installed by Windows.

I am tempted to say Linux sucks. It takes to long to install any version of Linux. I can't afford to buy one set of printer and scanner or speakers or sound system for windows and another set for Linux.

Since a lot of people start with windows and want to play with Linux can Linux be made to be more friendly with Windows OS? A sort of co-existence?

But it could be that I am just too ignorant about how OS work or how hardware drivers work.

Is there some free tuition for such stuff in the Internet? Can any body point me to some links?

Thanks and regards.

I'm not going to waist too much time on this. Just stay with windows or buy a mac, and have a nice life.

WAMP instead of LAMP?

As a person not trained in computing I started playing with computer since the early Apple II clones days and then with an IBM-PC-1 which had gone through a fire insurance claim.

My first software was an end user package called Muliplan. Then came Lotus-1-2-3 and then Microsoft Excel. I learnt DOS 6.0 that came with my first notebook.

Just before I retired I learnt the HTML and web stuff through the W3C Schools and ASP from a for-Dummies book.

One year after my retirement in May 2002, I went through some courses in the self-paced study in Microsoft Press in programming in Visual Basic 6.0, Office 2000 and such like. In October 2002 I went to attend a public seminar by Microsystems on Java and was given a set of CD’s. The following day I attended a seminar by Microsoft on ASP.Net and was given a set of CD’s on Visual Studio. The person-in-charge told me it was easier to learn Microsoft stuff because of the IDE. So I went through the on-line book and tutorials. In December 2002 I got a job in web-development using Asp.Net and SQL 2000 which I picked up on the job.

I was employed up to October 2005.

After that I got an occasional freelance job now and then. I can’t secure any more employment since. I was even interviewed a few times and was told that I was not hired because of my age. I am just a little over 60.

Somebody suggested open source as it is quite expensive to acquire the developer editions of Microsoft software when one is retired and unemployed. I learnt something on Ruby On Rails. Then someone suggested PHP. The reason being there are not many ROR developers around in my country. Customers would feel worried if no other developers can follow up my ROR projects.

A couple of weeks ago I downloaded and installed Apache 2, MySQL 5, and PHP 5 for Windows and went through some basic tutorials in MySQL and PHP and installed CakePHP.

Then someone told me about LAMP where L stands for Linux. Hence my adventure in Linux.

Now it seems to be easier to stay with W+AMP if I want to venture into open source programming.

Are there any other suggestions from someone else on how to make some money out of computing?