I''m setting up Linux, but I don''t know what I''m doing. I''m using Disk Druid, from a boot disk. I''m setting up partitions, but I have no idea what all the weird categories mean or do (Mount Point, Device, Requested, Actual, Type). I can''t continue because a stupid error comes up; "blah blah, no route to Linux native partition). How do I set Linux up? Also, how do you delete Windows? I think I aalready did by clearing all past partitions. HELP!!!

at the risk of inciting a distro flame war....

i've heard that mandrake is an easy newb distro to install. search for it on google.

as for clearing windows, deleting partitions and formatting the drive is good nough.

as far as what partitions to set up, that also incites a flame war. but for fun, i'm just using one 500MB partition for memory swap space and the rest is one root partition for the OS

-me

[edited by - Palidine on April 5, 2002 7:04:31 PM]

OK, I have no idea what you''re talking about. I want to stick with my boot disk. Can anybody explain to me the basic concepts that I mentioned before?

ok what i'm saying is that there are many many many different companies or open source communities that make a Linux Operating System. Mandrake is one of those companies/communites. from all reports their installation is super easy and doesn't require you to worry about mount points, device, requested, actual type kind of stuff.

anyway if you want to stick to your boot disk the first question to ask is what linux is it:

is it red hat?

whatever it it, i would try doing a google on "how to install linuxType linux"

my google for linuxType = Red Hat produced several detailed instruction pages covering exactly the kind of info you are talking about.

i'd be more helpful but i really don't understand your question.

-me

[edited by - Palidine on April 5, 2002 7:20:17 PM]

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Original post by gamechampionx
I''m setting up Linux,

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Good idea.

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but I don''t know what I''m doing.

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First thing you should do is head to Linuxdoc (http://www.linuxdoc.org) and read the "Installation-HOWTO". Without a basic knowledge of what you''re doing, giving you a step-by-step walkthrough won''t be of much help.

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I''m using Disk Druid, from a boot disk. I''m setting up partitions, but I have no idea what all the weird categories mean or do (Mount Point, Device, Requested, Actual, Type).

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I''ve never used Disk Druid, but I can help with at least some things. The "type" is the file system to be used by a partition. Typical ones are ext2fs (default on most distros) for "regular" partitions, and "Swap" (or "Linux Swap" for swap partitions. There are also journalized -- or "sort-of-journalized" -- file systems (ReiserFS, ext3fs, XFS, etc) which you probably don''t need for a first installation. From the user''s point of vue however, they''re mostly identical: they permit faster data integrity checks and some allow encrypted partitions (ReiserFS is one).

The mount point is where the partition will be "mounted". Mounting means making the disk (or floppy, cdrom, etc) part of the file hierarchy. Each partition (beside the swap) will be "mounted" under a directory (this is simplistic but it will do) called the "mount point". You will need at the very least a root partition, named "/" (without the quotes), and a swap partition (which doesn''t require a mount point). On Unix (and Linux), the file system is a hierarchy, and all "directories" are below the root one (unlike Windows). So a root directory is required. To give you an idea, I have the following partitions : "/", "/usr", "/usr/local", "/var", "/var/log", "/tmp", "/boot", "/opt", "/home". One of the reasons behind this is that, if one of them is damaged for whatever reason, it won''t affect the other ones. Another reason is that filling a directory (like /tmp or /var/log) won''t fill the whole disk: it will only affect a partition and won''t slow my system to a crawl.

If all you want is to test Linux, just create a swap partition (the size depends on your physical memory and the size of your HD) and a ext2fs partition with mount point "/".

The device is your HD. If using an IDE HD on the primary master bus, it will be hda, and the first partition on it will be named "hda0", the second "hda1" and so on. You shouldn''t have to change the device unless you have multiple HD, in which case you''ll have to tell Disk Druid which one to partition.

"Requested" is the size of the partition that you requested. "Actual" is probably what you actually got (the size has to be rounded by clusters, IIRC).

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I can''t continue because a stupid error comes up; "blah blah, no route to Linux native partition).

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Without the complete message it will be hard to help at best. I don''t remember ever having a "no route to Linux native partition" message though, so I can''t help. Goodle and Linuxdoc might be of some help.

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How do I set Linux up?

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Vague question: linuxdoc is your friend. Also if you require specific help, telling us which distro you''re using would help, as they all have a different installer.

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Also, how do you delete Windows? I think I aalready did by clearing all past partitions. HELP!!!

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If you deleted the partition Windows is on and then actually wrote the partition table, it''s gone. Most installers will warn you and tell you that you''re about to partition for good.

Keep in mind that, if you want to dual boot (ie have Linux and Windows on the same disk), you''ll have to install Windows prior to Linux (Windows likes to mess with your partition table). It means you''ll also need a FAT32 (or NTFS for NT/2K and I guess XP) partition.

Hope this helps.

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Original post by gamechampionx
OK, I have no idea what you''re talking about. I want to stick with my boot disk. Can anybody explain to me the basic concepts that I mentioned before?

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I forgot that part. Do you mean you want to do the installation from the boot disk? Or do you mean you want to boot your system from a boot disk once it is installed?

The former requires nothing special beside maybe swapping floppies (and maybe CD or telling the installer which ftp/http/nfs/tftp/whetever server it will have to install from). The latter means you''ll have to install your boot loader (LiLo, Grub, ...) on a floppy rather than the MBR or the first partition.

Again, read the "installation-HOWTO", it will probably have the answer to most of your questions.

Hope this helps.

OK, thanks for the info. Now, I don''t really get the point of directories and subdirectories. Also, what can I do so that I can just run the OS, no complex partitions...

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Original post by gamechampionx
Now, I don''t really get the point of directories and subdirectories.

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A Unix system has a top level (root) directory, and not different ones like on Windows (A:, B:, C:, D:, etc). Since everything under Unix is a file (or looks like one for you), partitions, devices etc are just files under the root directory (I hope it will look fine):

/ # The root directory.
|_______> /bin # Applications needed at boot time.
|_______> /usr # Filed needed by users.
| |_______> bin # Binary files (typically apps).
| |_______> man # Manual pages.
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|_______> /dev # This holds the devices (cards etc).
| |______> hda # Master IDE device on the primary bus.
| |______> hda0 # First partition on hda.
| |______> hda1 # Second partition on hda.
| |______> cdrom # The cdrom device (usually a link).
|
|_______> /home # Top home directory.
| |_______> foo # Home directory of user "foo".
|
|_______> /sbin # Binaries needed by the administrator(s).


Now the file hierarchy is bigger and not as simplistic, but the point is that you don''t access devices like on Windows (or DOS) with "C:". To you, the whole system looks like one big tree, which makes it easy to seamlessly integrate new partitions in the system (you mount it under the tree and it''s there, no need to change drive letters or whatever). You can also work with network file systems (like NFS) without even knowing it''s located on a remote host. To do that, all you have to do is change to the said directory. If your "/home/foo" is on the partition "hda4" and your "/tmp" on the partition "hdb2", you just type "cd /home/foo" or "cd /tmp" to go there (as long as they''re mounted, but this is done by the system at bootup, usually). You don''t need to know the physical layout of the system. The same goes if your "/var/spool" is on a network file system. Once it is mounted, you just type "cd /var/spool" and you''re in, like if it were on the local disks.

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Also, what can I do so that I can just run the OS, no complex partitions...

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Create a swap partition (of type "swap" or "linux swap" or however your distro calls it). The typical setup used to be twice your RAM, but this isn''t true anymore. It can''t hurt if you make it twice the RAM in size though, so I''d just go with it.
Then create a partition of type "ext2fs" (sometimes named "extended linux native" that fills the rest of the disk, with the mount point "/" (without quotes).
Then keep on installing.

Hope this helps.

Being a linux noob myself, maybe I can help shed some light for you.

linux does not use a directory structure like Windows. There are no "drives". Instead, there is just a file structure. This file structure starts at / (otherwise known as root). At a bare minimum, Linux needs two partitions, one for the swap space (think of this as windows "virtual memory") and one to mount root. Lots of other people create other partitions, like /boot, /usr, /var, or others.

The other tricky thing about *nix is how they name partitions. If you have one ide hard drive and 3 partitions, they will respectively be, hda1, hda2, and hda3. And to make matters even more confusing, there''s a plethora of file system types as opposed to Windows 2 major types (NTFS and FAT32). There''s ext2, ReiserFS, ext3, swap, and XFS just to name a few each with their own advantages and disadvantages.

As the others suggested, you should just get an easy distro like SuSE (what I use) or Mandrake. Once you get your partitiions out of the way, you''re pretty much set, and the distro will do the rest of the work. I''m at the point now where I want to learn the nitty gritty of how Linux works, so I''m toying with Gentoo, and not caring if I screw up my system by recompiling kernels and things like that.

Trust me though, Linux is not easy. Yes, KDE and GNOME are "almost" windows-like, but there''s enough about Linux to make you pull your hair out when you are new. For example, compiling from sources and finding dependencies. Linux is not for the faint of heart, but the reward is learning a very rich OS that in my opinion is a programmer''s paradise

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Original post by Dauntless
Trust me though, Linux is not easy.

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It is as long as you don''t go digging . If you don''t want to dig, you don''t have to with newbie friendly distributions (as you said, SuSE and Mandrake). If Linux distro''s came preinstalled and setup like Windows normally does, that would be one less worry for the average home user .