Hey! I just bought a 120 GB HD for my computer, so now I've got 3 HDs, an 8GB HD and a 11GB one in hda and a 120GB one in hdd.

I had already tried Mandrake 10.0 Community but it gave me too many problems with sound, video, etc. + I needed some extra space for Windows (gaming ; ) so I deleted it... I liked Linux tho!!! Then I downloaded Knoppix and liked it a lot, and it detected everything on my PC perfectly. So I downloaded the 7 debian CDs and bought the HD, I partitioned it and everything, BUT i have some problems and some doubts regarding the installation:

I don't wanna delete Windows XP, I wanna have Debian and XP installed on different HDs. Do I need the /boot partition on the 120GB disk (which isn't the main drive)? If not, should I create that somewhere or shall just I install LILO on MBR???

When trying to make the system bootable (instaling LILO), it says there was a problem, but after installing the base system, modules and some other stuff i finally manage to install it, i create the bootable diskette, and then it says I have to reboot, I remove the diskettes, CDs and everything, but in the moment it should show LILO, I only get a lot of "01 01 01 01 01 01 01_" on the screen (on about 4/5 of the screen), the light that shows the HDs are working is on (that light on the computer case), nothing happens though, after a while the light turns off and the 01 01 01's are still on the screen.
If I put the diskette and reset, linux loads but in text mode only, is that normal??? I downloaded a guide which says it should ask for the time settings, but it says nothing about that.


Oh, and the guide is http://osnews.com/story.php?news_id=2016 btw.

plz help me, I'm a n00b so please dont make it SO complicated.


TIA!!
Esteban

I don't have Windows in my hd.

Reboot with the diskette, install LILO to the MBR, reboot.

If i were you, i would download/burn ISO for the debian-installer pre-rc2, it will save a lot of headaches.

Debian Net Installer
http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/

choose i386

Hola Estaban,

First, you have a good guide to go by, so stick with it if you can. I would advise that you not use tasksel and dselect when installing (choosing the software packages to install during installation). You can choose those packages later; in fact there is a good getting-started guide on this forum. But that's getting ahead of things.

It sounds like your boot manager is messed up. I don't know whether you were booting from the hard-drive or from the floppy, but you will need to fix that if it was the hard-drive. Are you able to start Windows?

It may be that you will want to reinstall Debian. It's easy to do, and worthwhile getting it right from the beginning, in my opinion. I installed four times until I was sure I had a good starting point.

I'm a newbie too, so I can sympathize. But Debian is a good system, so with some patience and willingness to learn you will be doing well.

First, can you tell us what hard-disks you have where, and where Windows is installed. (There is no reason to remove Windows, so no worries.) Assuming you have two hard-disks installed (not all three), the first hard-disk is hda and the second is hdb, unless you have SCSI instead of IDE. I assume you know this because you partitioned the disks. It would help us to know.

If you have fairly new hardware (I guess you will if you are a gamer), then you probably won't want to use the older 2.2 kernel, which is installed by default on the Woody distribution. The newer kernels (2.4.x and 2.6.x) will have a much better chance of supporting newer hardware.

You can install the newer kernels during a new installation as follows: on the boot screen after you start with (for example) an installation CD in, use one of the following options:
bf24 (installs a version of the 2.4 kernel)
linux26 (installs a version of the 2.6 kernel)

You might also consider using the Sarge distribution, which is the testing distribution. It is about to become the stable distribution though, there is very little if any risk in using it for you. You should consider following macondo's advice and burn the ISO CD for the Sarge netinstall. Just choose the links for testing instead of stable.

Now here is a very important hint for installing Linux: you should know what your hardware is. The good news is that Knoppix will tell you what your hardware is and what settings you can use to support it. So if you are in doubt about any of your hardware, start up the system with Knoppix and write down information about the components.

Let us know if you don't understand any of what is being said.

Heya!! thank u very much for your answers

Yes, my boot manager was REALLY messed up (I was booting from my primary hard disk), so I formatted it (not because of that, I know I can fix it with a windows diskette, but WXP was running very slowly because... well, it's windows).

I have 3 hard disks,
-The main is mounted on hda, windows is installed on it, it's just 8 GB, so I won't install Linux in there.
-Another one is mounted on hdb (i think so). This is where i put random stuff.
-And the newest n biggest one is mounted on hdd --> here is where i wanna install debian, the partition will be about 14 GB.

I really wanna reinstall debian, in fact im downloading this image: http://cdimage.debian.org/pub/cdimag...86-netinst.iso

Does that need an internet connection?? Is the installation process any different?? Does it need the debian CD's I downloaded?

Some system specs:
Pentium 4 1.3 GHz
384 MB RAM (PC 133)
Video card: NVIDIA GeForce2 MX (64 MB)
Snd card: VIA AC'97 Audio

If you need to know anything else, just ask me ;

"Does that need an internet connection??

yes, that is why it's called 'net-installer.

"is the process any different??"

not really, check F1 and F3, at the prompt, use what you need, probably 'linux' then Enter, take the defaults at partitioning time, skip the the 'choose your applications' line in the installation menu, at the end, install these apps as root with apt-get:

#apt-get install x-window-system locales mozilla icewm icewm-themes fluxbox

exit, as user:

startx

the next time you restart the computer you'll have xdm, follow the Debian Configuration Post-Install sticky at the top of this page.


"Does it need the debian CD's I downloaded?"
No. just the net-installer

OK... So I installed the linux kernel 2.6, everything in the installation went with no problems, I installed GRUB, BUT, when I rebooted the computer, it said

"Loading GRUB...

Error 21"

I couldn't boot as I didn't create a bootable floppy diskette... So I did "fdisk /mbr" with a windows 98 diskette.

I think I'll be able to figure some things out for myself... what should the apt-get command look like if I wanted to install KDE?? And what to do to fix that error??

Thanx in advance

cya

apt-get install kde

or

apt-get install kde-core

i don't know for sure, i don't use kde, but the boys at #debian-es on the Freenode server will know, or right here, do a search.

did you install grub to the MBR?, i can't remember if it gives you that option.

Google:
http://www.google.com/search?q=grub+...utf-8&oe=utf-8

and

http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bu.../msg00082.html

With knoppix you can get in, go to /boot/grub/menu.lst they got an example to dual boot with windows, if that is the case.

reinstall grub, edit it to include windows.

OK, thank u very much... it gave me too much problems, couldnt connect to the internet, didnt load correctly, X failed to start.. I gave up . Installed Mandrake successfully, updated the kernel, the apps, installed the NVIDIA driver, works perfectly

Thank u again,
Esteban