Hey, glad to find a forum to help me with my Linux woes (I am a long time windows user here, but I still use it :P).

You can check out all the major Linux distributions and more at Distrowatch - currently around 140 of them :

Click here to go to Distrowatch

Thanks

You know Skyline: every one of your posts is just recommending Distrowatch. He didn't even talk about a distro.

No offence, but most people know about distrowatch, and they'd learn it from your signature anyway.

Excuse me !! - I DO take offence to that - Who the F**k do you think you are ?? - try checking out my 800 +posts and youll see my contributions so far - including roughly 25-30 personal thank you's - your a disgrace - check out my posts before you open your mouth. - and when you reply back I'm going to list a sizeable number with all the details just for Contrasutra.

Well, "search" found 60 threads where you recommend Distrowatch, most as the only content in your post.

I guess in the scheme of things its not that much.


You make the text so big, it kind of sinks in. Sorry.

Everybody posts links were they think its appropriate - I do too - I post Distrowatch because I think its an excellent site for new Linux users - Its perhaps the premier Linux distro site on the web - and IMO is well worth looking at - my other contributions speak for themselves and Ive had many, many personal thank you's for a job well done - I'll continue to learn and keep helping others here...........

60 out of 810 posts in 2 months roughly means that

Over 90% are non link posts.

But he just said hello. And his sig says he's using RH9 - how's it appropriate to be shipping him off to DistroWatch? And most people who post links include some other reply as well as the link, or provide a whole list of 'em, as long as they're not straight-up being asked to provide a link. Then it's all that's necessary.

And now he's got a small firefight going on in his howdy thread.

Howdy, floyes. There's a 'New Member Intro' forum that might have been a better spot for this, but welcome aboard.

Sorry, I thought this was the correct forum! I did not mean to cause a fight either LOL, thanks for the link I added it to favourites and looked around as well. It is a very useful and has good information. Any other stuff I should add to my sig?

Okay people, count to 10, then bitchslap each other. But not me.

Wotcha Floyes, I too am a newbie using RH9. People around here are very welcoming and friendly, at least in public.

Dan

No, you didn't cause a fight, don't worry about it. And it's kind of confusing but Newbie is for getting help on a specific problem, usually something you might think is pretty simple, whereas Intro is for just intro-ing.

More links?
Link to links (Need to scroll down a little.)

I forget what all was on there - if these aren't, they're good, too.
http://freshmeat.net/
http://sourceforge.net/
http://slashdot.org/
And despite all the yelling DistroWatch *is* cool. And LinuxISO.org.

-- Oh, and of course, the links button at the top of LQ's pages.

Just a couple of my posts from the last few days :


To stop services that would ordinarily run on start up you can always delete your chosen S symlinks in the relevant /etc/rc.d subdirectory ( /etc/rc.d/rc5.d for run-level 5 ) - be careful if you do this - and keep a note of what symlinks you've deleted - I've recently deleted about 7 or 8 symlinks to services in /etc/rc.d/init.d that ordinarily started up in Red Hat 9 that I dont need. (just an idea - but be careful


You'll have to use a shell as root user to delete a symlink in these directories - you delete the symlinks form

/etc/rc.d/rcx.d

where x is the relevant run level

DON'T delete anything out of /etc/rc.d/init.d


init.d contains the actuall services themselves

(yes I know moving the symlinks is better) - edit - to move them for example:

mkdir /etc/stopped_services

For S20random in /etc/rc.d/rc5.d - as root user

mv /etc/rc.d/rc5.d/S20random /etc/stopped_services


........... And if you want to boot into X each time you boot up:

Open a terminal

su
root password

kedit /etc/inittab

Look for the line near the top that says:

id:3:initdefault:

change the 3 to a 5 - so you now have

id:5:initdefault:

save the file and reboot - you'll now reboot into an X login and graphical session


The "problem" with LILO is that each time you want to run the map installer /sbin/lilo after youve made changes to lilo.conf, the relevant kernels listed in lilo.conf have to be mounted locally for /sbin/lilo to succesfully create a new map file. This particularly becomes apparent when adding a new Linux distribution - I typically use the lilo.conf file from 1 distribution to configure each new distribution I add - I just create a mount point and temporarily mount the partition that contains the new kernel - then simply put a new entry in lilo.conf taking into account the mounted nature of the new kernel - ie if typically the path to a kernel is

/boot/vmlinuz

after locally mounting it becomes

/mnt/Slackware/boot/vmlinuz

(using Slack as an example as configured from a lilo.conf file from another distribution)

Remember also if your new distribution uses an initial ramdisk, the entry in lilo must take into account the temporary mounted nature of the file (the initrd.img file is typically in the same boot directory as the kernel image - if your using a Root partition)

So - typically the path to an initrd.img file might be

/boot/initrd.img

after locally mounting it becomes:

/mnt/redhat/boot/initrd-2.4.20-8.img

(using Red Hat 9 as an example this time)

Remember also - even for small changes to lilo.conf like changing the default OS, you have to run /sbin/lilo as root again for the changes to take effect.

For these and other reasons many choose to use GRUB - I dont mind either but use LILO more often (at present)


The general idea is to create a mount point first in Mandrake then mount the filesystem from the partition on your back up drive to the mount point in Mandrake - you will then be able to see your files.

Linux sees IDE drives like this:

/dev/hda - drive on primary master channel
/dev/hdb - primary slave
/dev/hdc - secondary master
/dev/hdd - secondary slave

So - suppose your NTFS filesystem was on the first partition on your primary slave drive - Linux would see the partition as

/dev/hdb1

So you want to mount this filesystem to the mount point in Mandrake:

Open a shell and type :

su
Then type you root password – then type :

mkdir /mnt/windows

Then - open /etc/fstab with:

kedit /etc/fstab

Then - put an entry at the bottom of your /etc/fstab file on a new line - (just substitute in the device name of your Partition in place of my example one)

/dev/hdb1 /mnt/windows ntfs auto,ro,umask=0222 0 0

Once youve made the changes to Fstab - save it and reboot - this is only an example - youll have to repost to give me more details on whicj IDE channel your drive is on and what the partitions are to take it further.

MAndrake can read NTFS out of the box, so dont worry - you cant write to NTFS though - dont try it.


Your initiall problem that you have now solved was because you went to the wrong Control centre - you went to the Mandrake Control centre - you should have gone to the KDE Control centre -

Just for reference regards the KDE Control Centre

K
Configuration
KDE Control Centre
System
Login Manager
Aministrator mode butoon - type root password
Users tab
Uncheck the cross next to Root user, in "hidden users"
appy

Log out
Log in

and you'll see the option to be Root user for the session


Regards your new problem - you have to run

/sbin/lilo

as root user from the command line to make the changes in lilo.conf take effect - if you dont run this map installer then nothing will change


Umask essentially sets a filter of permissions for all new files and directories created - defaults, amongst other things enables an automatic mount on boot up


quote:

/dev/hdb1 /music vfat auto,rw,user,umask=0777,uid=joel,gid=users 0 0



You need a umask=000 value

Personally I'd use

/dev/hdb1 /music vfat defaults,umask=000 0 0


To mount a NTFS filesystem automatically on Boot-up, put an entry at the bottom of your /etc/fstab file on a new line - (just substitute in your Partition and Mount point in place of my example ones)(remember to su to root and create a mount point etc etc as I showed in the last example)

/dev/hda1 /mnt/windows ntfs auto,ro,umask=0222 0 0


( Red Hat currently doesn’t include a NTFS driver because of uncertainties surrounding the legal status of the driver)

So - to READ a NTFS partition from Red Hat, you can either:

Download and install an RPM – or

Compile your kernel


Your best just getting the relevant RPM - Check out this site for an RPM

http://linux-ntfs.sourceforge.net/info/redhat.html


These are just some of my posts over the last 3 days or so - I think any neutral observer would consider them good solid advice/information - You,ve grossly misrepresented me and my contributions over the last 2 months Ive been here - your obviously not going to apologise - shame on you Contrasutra

What's so ironic is that Floyes has even thanked me for the Distrowatch link - He's obviously got some use out of the site - which doesn't suprise me............its an excellent site for new Linux users and others alike - hope its helped a little.

Oh wait. Slowly seeping through the brain damage - I was thinking 'links to put in your sig' - like Skyline has. Thought you were asking for more links. If you mean more information to put in your sig, it's entirely up to you. There's a distro field in your control panel which is where people usually put it but hardware specs in sigs are often useful and you've got them together. That's what most people need to know when trying to help. Might include sound or modem/ethernet or whatever - those often give problems. And if you're confused by the GUI and want to ask about it a lot without specifying maybe include your main GUI. But, like I say, it's your choice. I myself have a fairly useless sig. Important, but useless.

Assuming this was aimed at me (), I ran sbin/lilo from the latest kernel build and both are in the same partition (possibly the wrong way to do it, but I just used RHN updates). How would I do this in my situation?

Dan

I am so confused LOL