Mrgreaper,

Welcome to LQ!

First, let me assure you that yes, the Suse CDs are legal.

As to which distro you should pick, you're going to find that it's ultimately a matter of taste.

Both Suse and Ubuntu are excellent distros, and you can't go wrong by choosing either of them.

I recommend you install both of them. I don't remember how big Ubuntu's footprint is, but Suse 10 needs 12 Gb if you blindly install all 5 CDs. 40 Gigs should be plenty of room.

Use them, get to know them, then choose the one that's right for you.

(Every distro I've ever used was easy to set up to dual-boot.)

well as we speak im getting ready im converting my hard drives to fat32 (fingers crossed) that way linux should be able to see them hoping i dont need to convert all the hds on my network i shall post agian when all is done or all has failed wish me luck

04:05
im having mild difficulty converting from ntfs to fat 32 so it may not all get done tonight ! depends how long linux takes to install and if partition magic converts thede partitions faster (seems stuck on 31%at mo dare not reset pc) searched for help with partition magic found its often refered to as as partition tragic needles to say im not inspired with hope!

05:58
well i deleted all but the non replacable files most of the demos are easy to get hold of again and tried installing linux it couldnt resize so i resized with partition magic leaving about 260 gigs unallocated (second drive is 300 gigs not 200 gigs as first stated) so far done first cd and then for some reason the damn thing rebooted it seems to have picked up where it left of (i was bleased to see the boot menu had windows listed (grub i think its called) it adds more posibility for me to install on the other pc`s though i am yet to see a linux driver for nvidia cards (im also yet to look hard so no biggie) man i need some sleep soon got to be at work at 20:00 hours for a 12 hour shift! (its only guarding so not that bad)

06:16
for those wondering the instalation will be 3.6 gigs according to suse (i ticked gnome as the gui and then in software packages added kde (and all of kde) games,java(i may use azurues as my torrent programme of choice) and the network option (strange it wasnt ticked before hand i gather linux is mainly a network animal)
In relation to the first time i installed windows its going well though im yet to see under the hood and i must say i love the way linux tells you how long till the next cd etc (though this is proberly a suse only trait)

06:43
now at the point of installation where it gets the latest patches about 200 megs of em now so sleepy but derent leave it no idea if its safe to allow it to be unatteneded before its finished installing one good thing though its got access to the web through the router that means its connected to the network i think

Help!!!

ok its installed and with a bit of looking scratching head etc i was able to do the following
1) get into the local windows partitions c: (fat32) d: (ntfs)
2) browse the network
3) copy files from the network to my folder (provided the share had full access on the windows machine if it had read only then when i tried to copy from it im told it cannot read the source file must be a way around that)
4) run an .rpm file (vnc-E4_2_2-x86_linux.rpm (realvnc))though it conflicts with tightvnc and some others so i chose not to install it
5) browse the web and download the needed bf1942 server files

however i need help with the following;
1) **URGENT** the bf1942 server file is a .run file when i double click it it loads up gedit and says it cant determin the language coding (not the exact wording but i think the error is becouse gedit apears to be a text editor!) i have downloaded it 3 times now and same error what am i doing wrong?
2) i was told that suse includes a version of wine but every time i double click a windows exe file in suse it says it cant display it not sure what to do about that (i did find this http://frankscorner.org/index.php?p=cedegacvs i might try that when i have more time)
3) i cant find this tightvnc when i was installing i had the option to enable it so i could access my pc through a browser and i choose disable(i was half awake) how do i enable it? or can anyone suggest a free vnc program i could connect to my linux pc with my windows pc?
4)how do you share a folder? in windows all i have to do is right click a folder and choose sharing but i cant find the option here i need to make two shares one for music(so the network can access the music files) one for torrent files(so any pc can drop trrent files into this folder that the linux computer will load up automaticly and start downloading (providing i can get a torrent programme that does that) both folders need to have read and write permisions and both need to be on the linux hard drive as its the biggest now

im sorry for all these questions im so use to windows its taking me a while to get my head round all this

steps i have taken so far
i use a server manager for bf1942 a very good one and it has a linux ported so i looked at its hel files and found this http://www.blackbagops.com/files/bfsm20ug.pdf (so i loaded gnome terminial)i already have the files so i skiped the wget bit when i tried to run i got a permisson denied
ahh i thought and loaded up the super user terminial entered my woot pass word and browsed to my user folder executed the same command ...permission denied what am i doing wrong ?

step 1 is now solved i followed this guide http://bf1942.lightcubed.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=7921
i`d love to know how to do this in the gui though! and what the command chmod 744 does (dont like doing stuff and not knowing why lol)

1) Not sure what a .run file is, but it's probably a script file. when you downloaded it, there should be a file called README that will tell you what to do. If it is a script, you have to make sure it is executable before you can run it.

2) You'll have to google for how to use Wine. I'm no expert, but I think you generally have to run .exe files from the command line with something like wine blah blah blah. Try this link...

3) Look in your package manager (I believe Suse uses Yast) and install TightVNC (or vncserver, whichever is available). It should help walk you through the setup. Again, I'm not an expert on Suse, but setting up vncserver on Debian was pretty easy.

4) Here's a guide to setting up file sharing on Suse 9.3. Should be pretty similar for whichever version you installed.

As for permission denied, you might need to either be root while you install the file or change the permissions so that it is executable (note that the file should be on your linux drive somewhere, not on your windows drive). chmod is the way you change permissions on linux. You can also usually do it by right clicking on the file in the gui and changing permissions that way.

Please take the time to read some of these tutorials for beginning linux users. They will help you understand the basics of how to work with the command line and also explain things like permissions (which aren't generally used much in Windows).

yet more problems sorry guys
ok followd the links provided i can now see the shared folders on the linux pc on any windows machine but when i try to access it asks me for user name and password (i tried the same user nam and password i use for linux and username root ) but it wont let me in i have also browsed the network from linux and it needs a password to get into its own folders that way to, also i now cant access any network folders from linux it tells me thier desktop profile files!!!
its clear i have made a bobo a pretty major one but there doesnt apear to be a system restore does this mean i have to format and reinstall or is thier a way wound this?

also tightvnc is installed already just unable to locate its exe file (or run file) i downloaded the windows version and tried to connect no go. i redownloaded the RPM file for it on the linux pc and triied to reinstall it came up with a conflict with needing sbin service ? i looked in services in yast but couldnt see it any ideas?

i feel useless at moment so many things are unknown (i discovered after moving 4 mods and around 400 maps linux does not like capitials it seems to see lowercse different to uppercase so i have to go through them all and change them to lower case that will have to wait till the linux is up and running proberly first)

is it a case of im just two windows minded to be able to adapt to linux?
oh well 12 hours at work will give me a break from it. i think at the moment it looks like windows but where i expect it to bark it meows if that makes sense

Did you remember to add samba users? In a root console type smbpasswd –a username, and it should prompt you for a password. That should be the username you'll have to use for accessing your linux shares.

Hi mrgreaper, first of all I want to congratulate you for trying Linux, this is the first step and in most cases the most important.

1. You didn't mention how the installation went, for future reference you can give us some feedback about your experience, I mean it will be useful if you can share some first impressions. Did SuSE recognize all your hardware?, how about your internet connection?, The first thing to do is cover these basics steps and learn where to go if you have some problems in the future.

2. You have to realize that Linux is different, don't expect that something works the same as in Windows. Therefore you have to spend some time getting used to the new environment, play around with the software installed, you can use both GNOME and KDE (Desktop environments, most known GUIs for Linux). I'm aware that you want to have the same or more productivity that you have with Windows as fast as it can be, but this requires first that you get acquainted with Linux.

3. Coming from other background means that at the begining you'll feel very frustrated, one thing I can tell you is that after this adaptation process you'll be more productive and you'll have the absolute control of your system, then you can tweak it as you wish. Keep in mind that you have to learn to "walk" before attempting to "run", grasp the basics of Linux: the filesystem, file permissions, the CLI (Command Line Interface), now that you're in SuSE, learn how to install/upgrade/remove software using YaST and from the console, get amaroK or other multimedia package working, and giving the fact that you need to work in a network environment, learn the basics of Samba, NFS, probably you'll need to use Apache web server also.

4. Please notice that when you work with Linux you don't have to reinstall it everytime that you think the system is not working properly, most of the problems can be solved without using this drastic option.

5. Once you have covered the basic steps you can safely start using Linux for your main objectives, if you have some problems you can start a new thread with a specific problem here or in the SuSE forum, you'll find a lot of helpful people that will try to guide you.

Because of these facts, I suggest you to continue your business as usual in Windows, but whenever you have time boot in Linux and keep learning and tweaking it until you think you can safely use Linux for your main objectives. At that moment you'll feel the unmistaken sensation of having the control of your system.

Congratulations again and Welcome to the Linux world.

ok im just home so these are brief points as my beds calling
1a) the instalation went well (a lot better then i expected) and although this is a hardware deprived machine linux detected everything including the sound card windows insists doesnt exist! during the install it connected to the net through my router and downloaded the updates perfectly
1b) first impressions ....well you say i need to walk before i can run i feel at the moment i can bearly crawl, the main objective was to create a better bf1942 server and i installed it fine till i moved the config files and custom maps/mods across and discovered linux`s inabilitie to deal with uppercase and lower case charecters (i still need a linux application that can go through the bf1942 folder and change all uppercase charecters to lower case)
1c) first impressions of this forum(ok you didnt ask for that but hey its relevent) if it wasnt for you guys the linux partition would of been deleted or shrunk and left forgotten by now its just so ... alien but you guys have helped immensly and for that im truely grateful

2) true
3)the cli reminds me of my good old dos days when i couldnt afford windows 95 and it seems second nature to use it though the commands are new and different it almost seems like an old friend
4) that network problem is a major hicup (all windows shares showing up in the linux pc but say they are desktop config files if double clicked) a system restore would be the easiest approach but i cant find the option (does it exist in linux)
5) i must admit im a dive in the middle type persion (once i know some of the things i find you cant find more questions till you have tried even if it means failing, nothing helps us humans to learn more then trial an error (even if its the little red switch on back of the power pack make the computer go bang (i still renember my old IT tutor saying to the student who did that "which way did the flash go"))

@pljvaldez
i shall try that l8er when more awake thank you

pljvaldez it worked perfectly
also the network proble fixed itself before i tried that so now both linux and windows can see and share each other (is linux self repairing?)
i still need to find both a upper case to lowercase converter (it would take hours to do it all by hand) and a fix to the tightvnc problem stated above)

right im off to snooze not got long before im off to work again (ok 10 hours but hey i got to get some sleep in between that to)

You need a script or a one-liner for renaming to lowercase.
http://www.northernjourney.com/opens...s/newb016.html
Or something like:
(although i don't know if the last one is recursive)
You might need 'find' to do it recursively.
Instead of tr [:upper:] [:lower:] you can also use tr 'A-Z' 'a-z'

chmod changes the access rights of a file/directory. The number there is a representation of the rights for different groups- see http://www.linuxcommand.org/lts0070.php#chmod for a full explanation of the number and it's effect.

That's the spirit! ;) And congratulations on your success so far.

This one is recursive for moving uppercase files to lowercase files:
(it's not the most efficient one-liner but it works :D )

I always just somehow sensed that bash was a full blown programming language.

i confess i cheated i shared the folder and used a windows renamer to do the work for me (bulk rename utility was its name very useful programme)

the chmod guide was useful thank you now if i can just find a torrent programme i can control remotely (other then the extremely hard to install torrentflux) id be happy i did try try azurus (under great protest) but its well it comes in pieces i kinda need an rpm file for one i can get on well with rpm files and now .run files but im not at the stage where im comfortable with loads of cli commands
its a shame about torrentflux (havent quite given up on that yet but finding it hard)

so far it seems linux is not very user friendly (i think suse 10 personly hates me :) )

Sounds like you've made good progress. "User friendly" is kind of a personal preference type of thing. I personally find linux very user friendly because everything seems to make sense where as with Windows sometimes I have no idea at all what the machine is doing...

Basically your difficulty is that Linux and Windows are different and you have to unlearn some Windows things to start getting comfortable in linux. But that happens with any sort of major change, you have to get calibrated to the new environment. Stick with it though and you'll have a lot of power at your fingertips.

You might get more answers to your torrent program question if you start a new thread Under the Linux - Software forum. Mention whatever windows torrent program you were using and what features you're interested in.

Good Luck!

yeah i still havent given up with torrentflux
so far i have an apache webserver sorted out for (sort off) and was quite pleased when i put my local ip into my windows pc and saw the apache webserver screen (now i just have to get torrentflux to work) if i give up on torrentflux (though im a stubborn old sod) then i will take your advice and post in that forum (i have done many many many google searches for a linux torrent programme and this seems by far the closest to what i need)

i still have to use windows on my two main pc`s and laptop s thier gamming machines something linux sadly is not cut out for (well thats proberly the wrong phrase linux strikes me as it could run the games better then windows if developers supported it)

The bf1942 server (after many many teething problems worked a treat) for reference;
problem = solution
it wouldnt start proberly = had to change every file to lower case including extensions and folders
linux server would load any dcx map (desert combat extended mod) and run it happly but any windows client machine crashed on map load 100% = now this should not of worked but did i lowered all case on the windows machines deleted the mod folder desertcombat extended and copyied from the linux machine
but now some of hud icons are missing and the weapon select screen looks glitchy but its still very playable = aint fixed that YET


ps while typing this i have also been working on torrentflux it it seems *touch wood to be working*