I am interested in trading up to linux from windows xp. I downloaded the live eval cd from SUSE and it boots fine and it looks like I will enjoy it...the only thing that i can't figure out is that I am not sure how to access my files that are on my computer.

Please help me!!!

I assume that your XP installation is NTFS? If so, you generally won't be able to access the files on your hard drive - the CD's just not made for that. The new 2.6 kernel has got reading NTFS down, but writing to it's still pretty unreliable and I'm not sure how experimental you're feeling.
The liveCDs generally set your home directory to a ramdrive and allow you to save files, but they're lost upon rebooting and you'd have to copy them to a fat32 partition on your hard drive or a floppy to be able to save them permanently.

hth,
Laura

so what good is the eval if i can't see if it can do what I want it to be able to do?

you could always just make a little fat32 partition and throw some files on there. like a sandbox.

I have a FAT32 hard drive but I don't see it anywhere in SUSE.

This is a longshot and shows my complete n00bishness, but..

From a GUI (KDE/Gnome is nice too)

try accessing, /mnt/hd(a letter here, you should stop at E)

(e.g.: /mnt/hda)

or /mnt/win_(letter, usually c), if you want to access the hd with windows on it.

(e.g.: /mnt/win_c)

Longshot.

I couldn't get that to work...how exactly should i do it?
please excuse my ignorance.

Ok, I wasn't sure how exactly to do it (never used SuSE before), so I downloaded and burned the suse live-eval CD
It doesn't mount any partitions automatically, and you can't make a new directory under /mnt (the cd's read-only, after all ^_^) so you have to create the mount point in your own home directory. The filesystem on this computer's NTFS, and I just mounted the it fine [*smacks self upside head, reminds self to look before speaking*] with the commands:

(in your home directory):
linux@linux:~> mkdir hdd
linux@linux:~> su
linux:/home/linux # mount -t auto /dev/hda1 hdd
linux:/home/linux # ls hdd
my C:\ directory listing appeared here...
linux:/home/linux #

I'm still not sure about writing to NTFS, honestly, mainly because I'm not sure that it works and I'm not going to risk corrupting a filesystem that's not mine. However, if you're FAT32 you shouldn't have any problems `-t auto` should work with FAT32, or if that fails for whatever reason I think `-t vfat` is right.

hth,
Laura

Hi Laura and Edicius,
the live eval was surprising here: after using suse 8.2 (both hd installed and live eval) for some months, then upgrading to 9.0 and using it for some time, when I tried to run the live 9.1, it couldn't boot! I got very surprised. After a few steps booting, it hanged. Checked iso's md5, everything went ok, no mistakes.

This is to tell that liveCD is designed to be a sample of the product, but for some reason, people have been getting ugly errors from these disks. My impression is that they no long are a good example of what the system can be. Don't trust these disks too much.

By the way: the ntfs drivers is read-only. I guess you won't be able to write to a partition, even if you try. Paragon Software apparently has come up with rw drivers for ntfs.

Can you tell me exactly where to type that stuff? Coming from windows it all seems a little alien.

No problem

Click on the green lizard icon (all the way on the left of the bar, on the bottom of your screen). That menu that pops up is roughly analogous to the Start Menu. Click on System, then Terminal, and choose a terminal of your liking. I generally go for the straight X Terminal; it's the one with the least frills and stuff on it, but they'll all do the same thing. That'll open up a terminal window, which is where all such commands are entered.
When the end of the prompt is just ">" , you're entering commands as a normal user. Type "su" to become root (i.e. Administrator). Normally root has a password associated with it, but since this is a liveCD there's not much point. When you're root, the end of the prompt will be "#". The prompt will also tell you which directory you're in: "~" is a shortcut for your home directory.

Note: this is something it took me awhile to figure out, but maybe you've gotten it already, in which case ignore this - cut and paste doesn't work the same way in X as it does in Windows. To copy text, just highlight it. You don't have to hit Ctrl-C or whatever. Then, to paste it, click your middle mouse button (press down on the scroll wheel, if you've only a 2-button+scroll mouse). Some apps have Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V hotkeys associated with them (Konsole does), but some don't and the middle-mouse button thing will work for all X apps.

cool,
Laura

thanks I'll try that... I also could not get my modem to dial out. It said smpppd error or something like that. Any suggestions?

Haven't a clue - I'd try it again to get the specific error message, and post that particular question in the Networking forum. You're more likely to get an answer there

cool,
Laura

Is there something that I have to do to make it recognize my modem? Do you think that this is just the live cd or will the regular os have these quirks too? Is this a Linux thing or a SUSE thing or am I just doing something wrong?

Quite frankly, Linux always has and p'bly always will have quirks. However, you've got less chance of getting it to work with a LiveCD, largely because you can't compile in modules and what-not. Check the HCL, see if your modem's there. Then, post your question in the Networking forum