Laptops :: No boot with DSL

Hmmm, the folks at the Ubuntu forum directed me to DSL, because Ubuntu is just too bulky to fit on a 6 GB (6,000,000,000 bytes) harddisk (Ubuntu minimal install: 2 GB, typical install: 4 GB). And because I can't find any larger harddisks for my laptop, I would be forced to buy a new PC, just to run Linux.

I was reading through the install documentation of Fedora, but that stated that you have to have GRUB installed on your harddisk and Fedora does no partitioning on its own to make room for its installation. So there is a lot of geeky stuff to do before you can install Fedora. And Ubuntu doesn't seem to be any better at it.

I hoped that after all these years Linux had grown beyond the technogeek stadium. It seems I was mistaken. Most issues in the Linux fora are very, how should I put this, technominded and more about solving technical problems of the OS than problems with applications.

How many more years do we have to wait until Linux is a user friendly OS, that is invisible to the user?

Sorry if I seemed very harsh, but this stuff is very frustrating for someone who is used to Mac OS X, which has most geeky stuff hidden and replaced with easy-to-use apps.

So now I have to become a technogeek myself, just to be able to partition the harddisk, how quaint.

René

If you had to install Windows, or MacOS, then you would go through the same processes. Most of the time, you don't have to install those because they are already on the system that they are sold with. Installing Linux is at least as easy as installing Windows. You just have to be able to follow instructions. Takes patience and maybe persistance, but not necessarily brains. Well. maybe you have to have more brains than a doorknob. I don't want to discourage you from trying it. Once you get it going it just works better.

MacOS is a form of Unix, by-the-way - but try installing it and running it on the system you have now. You cant!

I agree I'm probably not able to install Mac OS X on an PowerPC computer which has already another OS installed. The same applies to installing Windows on a x86 computer with a pre-installed OS.

So the problem seems to be:
- how to split a partition safely, without losing data
- how to set up a multiboot

The available instructions aren't very easy to understand. Terms like MBR, Lilo, Grub, etc. are very alien to me. I have never had to go into that detail of the computer hardware.

Most instructions asume a level of computer knowledge which I don't have and should aquire before being able to follow instructions. It would be nice if these instruction were accompanied with a kind of computer hardware 101, or point to an article covering that subject.

René

And it gets even worse. If you try to install ActivePython it is installed into /opt/ActivePython-2.4. However, this gets lost after reboot, probably because /opt is stored on RAMdisk. And because the HD installed version of DSL is the same, but from another device than a CD-ROM drive, it will get lost as well.

So I guess DSL is not for me. I want a Linux variety that is easy to use and where it is easy to install new applications, not necessarily present in the DSL repository. Well, you don't seem able to do it with some degree of ease. At least, I don't see any easy way of doing it.

Thanks for all the answers, to help me understand I have to look for Linux elsewhere.

René

You are describing the "Frugal Install"

If you want all of your directories (including /opt) to be stored directly on the hard drive, then just simply do a "DSL HD Install" instead of a "Frugal Install".

Problem solved.

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