Heya.
Just made the switch from XP to Linux, and man am I lost. Online tutorials have taught me absolutely nothing because I can't even figure out how to apply all the meaningless lines of command in a gui....
Most importantly, I haven't got a clue as to how you "install" an application.. (is that even what the terminology is under linux? My searches pulled up nothing..))
Please. If anyone can help me... I'll.... draw you a pretty picture.

-Mitch

Mitch-

I feel your pain as I've been where you've been and I guess my best advice is to put some time into it and it will pay off. I wanted to give up and or throw my puter across the room but even though I'm still relatively new to linux, I've made good strides. I was able to "google" and LQ my way through most problems and I put a lot of time into getting better. My best suggestion would be to run linux on a box you don't care much about and keep rebuilding it with different distros and don't worry about blowing it up. You can take a look at this link...

http://www.mepislovers.org/modules/n...id=510&forum=1

Goodluck!

Yeah, we've all been there.

Firstly, what lunux distro (that's the jargon for the particular flavour of linux you're using) are you using?
I presume that you are using some Mepis version as this is a Mepis forum.
I'm using Mepis 3.3 for example.
Mepis also makes use of the GUI (graphical) more than some other distros, so you may not need to use the command line (CLI) at all.
Post back with as much info you have about your system and you'll get quicker and more specific help.

Let's see... my Mepis version is 3.3.1, which is the latest full release if I'm not mistaken.

Here's the history of my system:
- Started out with a single 80gb drive, installed win98 to it
- Windows98 became completely unusable, so I added a 10gb drive and installed XP to it.
- Somewhere along the line, I decided to add linux, so I take an unused 20gb drive, copying all (or at least most) of the files from my 10gb onto the Fat32 partition I created.
- I created a Linux partition and swap on the 20gb drive as well, and proceeded to install mepis to it.
- Removed the 10gb drive from the system to use the cables for the other CD drive

Long sad story, huh?
Well so now, I have no idea how to get back into windows, which sucks because I was hoping it would be a multibooting system.

I've been trying to figure out how to setup GRUB to multiboot XP... How do I find the kernel for it?
Let's say the windows partition is something like "(hd0,2)" (I'll experiment until I find the right one.)
What is the exact list of commands I'd be inputting?

I've gotten as far as this...
Doesn't really work, though...

Excrucio Semper

When in Mepis, open qtparted (can't remember where it is), but if you type qtparted in the run box, it will open.
When in qtparted, it will tell you what partitions you have and hopefully where your windoze one is too.
Don't do anything with qtparted, like change your disk format, just to get the information.

If you did this correctly:
Somewhere along the line, I decided to add linux, so I take an unused 20gb drive, copying all (or at least most) of the files from my 10gb onto the Fat32 partition I created.
- I created a Linux partition and swap on the 20gb drive as well, and proceeded to install mepis to it.

then your XP should be hda1 and Mepis on hda3 and swap hda2(in qtparted)

Grub uses a different counting system (how convenient lol).

Can you remember when you installed mepis, where you installed the MBR?

My xp is like this on grub: it's hda1 under qtparted

title Windows XP
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1

As far as reading goes, have a read of the Mepis User Guide in PDF from the official site or from another mepis users site with a wiki

http://www.mepislovers.org/

I almost had it, but, alas. SYSTEM DISK ERROR, when I finally set it to the right drive...

I can hopefully obtain an iso of the xp professional disk, as I lost my copy, but still got the key.
Maybe if I try reinstalling xp to the same partition, it might work?

Are you sure that XP isn't on the disk?

If you are certain, then you could reinstall it to the FIRST partition.

You will probably need to reinstall Mepis again though as XP is greedy and wants to take up all your space.

When you do reinstall Mepis, install grub to the MBR.

Another alternative is to have 2 hard disk drives, one on say primary master(XP) the other on primary slave (Mepis).

I have a setup like this.

SO, XP will be hda and Mepis hdb.

Did you check the program qtparted?

w00t. I figured it out... I took a blank 40gb HD, copied the linux partitions to it, backed up my old fat32 partition on the 20gb, created a new partition on the 40gb, and reinstalled windows sp2 pro.
Afterwards, I got back into MEPIS via the cd-rom, activated the linux partition, and reinstalled grub to the root, reconfiguring it to the new setup.

I feel like less of a n00b now. ^_^ Efharisto para poli, anticapitalista.

parakalo Excrucio Semper

Enjoy Mepis