Hello,
I'm using the Ubuntu Drapper LiveCD. I was amazed at how well this is running from a CD! I think it smoother and faster than my windows! (I'm sort of a linux virgin :P ) and I really want to make a permanent switch to linux from my WinXP.

I'm using the LiveCD to make sure I will in fact get this distro to do everything I need it to do, which is not really much. There are TWO things that I haven't been able to do:

1. Write to my NTFS hard drive. I made a search and find plenty of explanations on how to do it but they all involve editing fstab and maybe I'm wrong in this because I'm new but if I edit my fstab is it gonna make a difference since I'm running a LiveCD and the PC won't get to restart with the new code?
Is there a code I can write on a terminal to make the code work without restarting the PC? (my HD is at /dev/hdb1 and I made a folder called /mnt/windows for it)

2. I need to be able to use the svideo output in my Radeon 9200se video card. Right now I have a good resolution in my monitor so I guess it's possible Ubuntu has my card's drivers already. I also went to easyubuntu and installed some ATI drivers I saw in there but didn't know what they were. I thought they could be my video card's driver but I didn't see any difference or program to manage it after it installed.
As of right now my svideo output is plugged to my TV and the signal is there but it's not right. It sort of looks like static but with the colors that I have on my desktop. When I move the cursor I see movement on it but it's not identifiable as a desktop, let alone a cursor.
I know my video card is fine because the svideo out works perfectly in my WinXP.

If anyone can help me with those things, I'll be extremely thankful! I'm excited to format that windows hard drive and never come back again!

P.

1) It can be done but is generally not recommended because the linux drivers were essentially reverse engineered, not built by MS so you risk damaging your data. I've heard it's loads better than it used to be, but I still stick to a shared FAT32 partition except in extreme circumstances.

That said, if you want to try, here's a link to a walk through.

2) No idea.

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Thanks for your reply!
I am aware of the risks of the whole ntfs thing and I'm willing to take the risk. The problem is that right now I have two hard drives with information I would like to save: one is external and formated ext3 and the other is internal formated ntfs. I looked at the link you gave me but it also told me to modify my fstab. Am I wrong in believing that I will need to re-start for those changes to take effect?

I understand the fstab sort of at the equivalent of for example win.ini for Win98 that executes code at boot time, so if I modified it I'd have to reboot for the changes to take effect. am I wrong in that?

You are mistaken. You simply need to remount the drives that you altered. Or as the link shows near the end of the howtowhich will unmount and remount all partitions. Typically I just do a (of course, your NTFS partition is probably called something else).

Oooh ok.
I tried to follow all the instructions step by step by copy/paste only replacing what's particular to my system like /dev/hdb1 and stuff but I stumbled across this:

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo umount -a
umount: /tmp: device is busy
umount: /dev: device is busy
umount: /var/run: device is busy
umount: /: device is busy

at that point I figured there was a problem but decided to type the next line anyway and this is what I got:

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo mount -a
realpath: No such file or directory

ntfs-3g v2007-08-22-BETA - Third Generation NTFS Driver

Copyright (C) 2005-2006 Yura Pakhuchiy
Copyright (C) 2006 Szabolcs Szakacsits

Usage: ntfs-3g device mount_point [-o options]

Options: force, no_def_opts, umask, fmask, dmask, uid, gid, show_sys_files
silent, locale, streams_interface. See the details in the manual.

Developers' email address: linux-ntfs-dev@lists.sf.net
Linux NTFS homepage: ((url censored))





Any idea what this means to me? why wouldn't it umount it?

I'm just shooting in the dark, but it might have to do with the fact that you're running from the liveCD. Maybe it can't release /tmp, /dev, /var/run, or / because they're already mounted in ramdisk. I bet on a normal system, linux can keep running because it just copies the essentials to ramdisk and then remounts the partitions. Since these parts are already in ramdisk, you can't unmount them without bringing down the system.

Just my guess...

Can you post your /etc/fstab? The "Usage:" line implies you need to change the fstab a bit. I certainly looks like fuse is installed and working okay.

You'll be amazed at how much faster Ubuntu is when you run it from hard disk. As to the ATI driver, I'd assume the facts are consistent with those of Nvidia which I use. Linux recognizes the Nvidia chip set but the open source driver is 2D only. To get the 3D speed you need the Vender driver. EasyUbuntu should have installed the ATI's 3D driver as long as you selected it. Note that it is possible that after a kernel update you may need to reinstall the ATI driver. Someone else will have to help you with those details because my experience is only with Nvidia.