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I am very new to linux and just installed Mandrake 10 official. At the end of the instal it asked me to configure my boot setttings with LILO. I did find a url on mandrakes site that briefly explained that those were the linux kernals show on the Mandrake Linux Control Center 10 Boot Loader. Where I am at a loss is what one do I select? I do want to use the full potential of my HT P4, but using the default my system says that I only have 896 megs of ram when I really have 2x512megs of RAM.
The other options I have are
linux-nonfb
linux-i686-up-4-gb
263.7
linux-smp
failsafe
windows
Windows of course is used for the dual boot and I am not having any problems other then not seeing all my ram. The only option that works with all my ram that I have tried so far is the i686 one. Could someone explain to me what these mean and waht I can do to get linux to optimize my P4 2.8 ghg w/HT, 2x512 DDR400 RAM
let me know if there is anything else that I should post about my system.
For the boot loader is there a better one I can use...Can I just remove the ones I dont use so when LILO loads I just see windows and linux as my two options?
For my windows NTFS partition, can linux view the partition just not write. I ideally would keep all my MP3s and movies and such on the NTFS and just play them on linux.
Is there anyway you can make the system not beeb at POST? I have an FIC VL67 Case.
For the boot loader is there a better one I can use...Can I just remove the ones I dont use so when LILO loads I just see windows and linux as my two options?
a) normal - about 900 MB (actually something less then 900 MB)
b) Highmem 4 GB - for memory up to 4 GB
c) Highmem 64 GB - for memory up to 64 GB
Which memory management model is used depends onthe kernel configuration.
So I assume that the option linux-i686-up-4-gb loads a kernel that is configured for Highmem.
The name also indicates that. Therefore you get with this option 1GB RAM.
The other options do load a kernel which has "normal" memory management model. That's why you get here only around 900 MB RAM.
Having said that: **Your system behavior seems normal to me**
linux-smp should be a SMP kernel (Symmetric Multi-Processor) - for the case you have multiple CPUs in your system.
2) About the lilo menu
take a look on /etc/lilo.conf
There are listed all the menu entries. You can remove the ones you do not want to be displayed.
I *suggest* you make prior editing lilo.conf a backup.
cp /etc/lilo.conf /etc/lolo.conf.old
Make sure that you load the higmen kernel (linux-i686-up-4-gb) since you have 1 GB RAM.
Also do *not* delete the failsafe option. It's very usefull for recovery in the case you mess up your system.
3) About NTFS and Linux
Yes you can mount a NTFS partition in Linux. Since write to NTFS is still in an experimental phase you
hall mount it read only.
First you need to determine what partition number the NTFS partition has.
If you have only one IDE/ATA drive then it's very likely called hda.
fdisk /dev/hda
enter p and press the enter key. This will display all the partitions on the drive.
The NTFS Partitions have a HPFS/NTFS displayed in the last column.
Remember the /dev/hdX (X is the partition number) and quit fdisk by entering q and
pressing the enter key.
I did notice on Mandrake that I coud find the partition with NTSF by going through the windows (hiting the up arrow till I hit the "/" directory and then going down till I hit I think hda2 wich is my NTSF partition, I was able to see everything from the trashcan to partition information in the folder) Can I just make a short cut to that folder and use it as my read only view? If so how can I insure that it would be read only?
Anyword when someone is going to reverce engineer NTSF? Hope its soon, seems like I hit agood time to learn how to use linux with all the new versions of Distros coming out lately.
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