The first time I tried to start a linux system I complety crashed my computer. After three months my computer was fixed and I tried to start a system again. I installed Fedora Core 5 on my second harddrive and the problems i've had are all involving the most important features. The computer is a desktop i got from a fundraising sale for a local college, so since it's not my primary hardware i'm trying to create a usable linux system.

1. Grub has only a three second counter and I doesn't show any other operating systems, I have windows xp on another harddrive and would like it to offer it as an option.

2. Most importantly my internet doesn't work. I have a usb wi-fi receiver that requires drivers from a cd. The drivers are only for windows and linux won't recognize the hardware. If it helps it at it's a zytel receiver

3. My sound card didn't autorecognize. Is there a way to get my linux system to use my settings from my windows xp.

Any help would greatly be appreciated. I've taken classes on linux but none of them dealt with installs and setups, all shell work.

Hi and welcome to Linux questions

Over my short time here i've seen many of the same question, the forum has an excellent search feature that will help you track down the answers.

1) you can edit the grub timer in /etc/grub.conf (you must be logged in as root to edit it) you can also add the WINXP boot section there if you know what it is (do not start copy/pasting random stuff), if not look into grub-install, i believe it'll pickup the partitions itself.

2) Wi-fi is quite a pain from what i understand, on the account of Windows only drivers, there is such a thing called NDISWRAPPER that will put a wrapper around windows drivers to make them work on a Linux system - http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/

3) What is the soundcard? it's not really the settings, it's the drivers, more obscure/newer cards may not be supported YET (but chances are it will be, aint Linux great )

Sorry it's not definitive steps but gives you something to research on each problem,

hi,
post the o/p of grub.conf and #fdisk -l

regards

1) you want a dual boot. (as root) check out your grub settings:
On my machine it boots windows with this section from menu.1st:
But it depends on your harddisk setup which disk you point to ..

I found my grub file and tried to edit it as root. How do I get rid of my swap files from failed attempts at editing it?

Neogenesisfool, ndiswrapper is the last and bad solution, you have to see if your wireless card has native-Linux support.
Zytel? Zyxel? Which model? Give more information..

I'm really against ndiswrapper unless it's the only solution.

Be sure you are editing the file in /boot/grub---it is often named "menu.lst"

Generally, when you edit a text file, the system will keep the previous version (with "~" appended). To delete one of thesee, just do rm <filename> If you are playing with any config file, it is always wise to save the previous version so you cna get back to it. As long as there is only one file named --eg--menu.lst, the system will not get confused.

When i go to the auto recognize section for wireless it doesn't even list the brandname.

my sound card is a cirrus 4614/22/24 [crystal clear soundfusion audio accelerator.
The wireless car is a Zyxel G-200 external wi-fi receiver. I've looked online and can't find a driver for linux for it.