newbie notes

Forum: User Feedback
Topic: newbie notes
started by: lovdsl

Posted by lovdsl on April 30 2006,07:16

oops
not helpful

Posted by underdog5004 on May 01 2006,20:25

Quote

dsl is a versitile live linux cd, if you have 128 meg ram and a computer that boots from cd, just pop the cd in the drive and let it run.

You only need 128 megs RAM if you run with the dsl toram cheat code...I'm running my media box with 32 megs of RAM...

Quote

Or choose install to hd

You will need to know to what drive and partition to install to.ie: hda1.
for a basic desktop
say no to multi users
say no to ext3 file sys.
Read and Follow the prompts carefully..
Say yes to boot loader and choose g for grub.. or l for lilo.
when the computer reboots it will ask for boot and root passwords. remember them for later.

Frugal is way better than standard harddrive install because if there turns out to be a corruption of the hard-drive, all you need to do is recopy the livedisk .

Quote

you will need a swap partion to run dsl 2

No you don't.

Good try...and I'm sure you're coming from a good place, but getting linux noobs to format their harddrives, and do all this other stuff is just plain misguided.

Posted by lovdsl on May 01 2006,22:14

sorry.. post removed

Posted by roberts on May 01 2006,22:42

Yes. It is true.

I run dsl on a 32MB laptop with no hard drive using a 64MB CF/IDE frugal install with no swap with pcmcia wireless net access and print to an hp 4050 laser printer and backup to a pendrive and/or the web with the webdata tool. This could be running just from the cdrom, but it is too slow.

You do not need to do a traditional hard drive install. I don't even recommend it.

The benefits of frugal type installs has been discussed here so many times. A smaller footprint, bulletproof OS that is easily upgraded.

Of course with 32MB of ram you are very limited in additional apps (mydsl extensions) that can be run. You are mostly forced to use very small .tar.gz or uci type apps. Of course you cannot run firefox and the larger apps. You can run Opera. Trying to load .dsl type apps witll quickly overwhem the machine's inodes and appear to be out of memory.

Installing to hard drive is so overly complicated for the new user and them come the gripes about upgrades and removal of extensions.. Doing such a traditional hard drive install means you should be using Debian for package management. With that small of machine most debian fetched applications will also quickly overwhelm its resources caused by the dictates of its dependencies.

We give you the choice. You can always choose to do as you wish. Your choice or requirements of extra apps may leave you no other choice. But I still do not recommend it. It just means grief later when you want to upgrade. I hear it all the time.

Posted by tedmoore99 on May 01 2006,23:21

Roberts:
I may be way off base here, and please set me straight if I am. I tried a frugal install but then could not get my boot options set so I had to type them in each time I booted. I was given information about how to change menu.lst, but try as I might I could not make any changes. In desperation I went to a hd install and then it was easy to go set my options in menu.lst.

My point being, with the frugal install you are very limited to the files that you can change due to everything running in ram.

Time for an old man's memories: Back in 1981 I began teaching at Texas A&M Extension Service. We had no computers so we built two Heathkits. I had heard about UNIX but could no afford the software much less a computer to run it on. No, in 2006, I can install a FREE copy of dsl on my old Armada 1750 laptop and do anything I ever wanted to do. Thanks for dsl and keep up the development work.

I am putting in my bid for a striped down version with the option being of downloading the extensions I might want. I have discovered that the little word processor, spreadsheet program, etc. that comes with dsl is fine for most of what I am doing. I hope to populate my classroom computers with dsl. (Yes, I am still teaching!)
--Ted

Posted by underdog5004 on May 01 2006,23:40

All you have to do to change menu.lst is

Code Sample

sudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst

I've done it on my machine a few times.

Posted by roberts on May 01 2006,23:45

Changing the menu.lst is just as easy in frugal as in traditional.

As root edit:

/cdrom/boot/grub/menu.lst

The /cdrom is just the mount point of the hard drive partition or pendrive partition where the frugal install was performed.

You do not have to type in the boot options each time.

Posted by lovdsl on May 04 2006,16:05

I find it interesting that a new linux user who tries dsl should be suggested to try it as a live cd with 32 meg ram and no swap file.

I find it interesting that the OR try a hd install is instantly attacked as a poor choice. when the frugal way WAS first mentioned.

I find it interesting that info on bios settings , rawrite, and in particular how to partition with links to good information is useless misguidance.

I had issue useing fdisk with dsl 2 with out a swap on low ram and being my newbie notes noted option should this occur via alternative linux tool kits.

I will in future make these posts to my blog. although it praised dsl, I shall note such things there as contrast.

I have much to learn regarding the frugal install so must read the forum..but can not reframe from occasional posting so posting on the blog instead may suffice to my newbie good will here.

Posted by underdog5004 on May 04 2006,16:36

lovdsl
I think that you misinterpreted my post. (I was very blunt). I didn't mean that dsl should, as a first option, be run with 32 meg ram. I just meant that that worked for me. Furthermore, if someone is just trying out dsl on a windows machine, then it would be extremely foolhardy for them to partition their drive to include a swap. This would effectively castrate (possibly kill) their windows install. I also took issue with you recommending at least 128Mb RAM, when that's only for the 'toram' cheat code, which most newbies won't try anyways. I am not your enemy, but as a member of this forum, I feel that it is my job to stop the degradation of the image of linux. If that means stepping on someone elses' toes, then so be it. Most of your guide was pretty damn good, but I didn't think that it was a good idea for any misinformation to be distributed.

Posted by lovdsl on May 04 2006,16:59

you are not an enemy nor do I post in anger...the first post in my newbie notes was that for best results...if you have a computer with 128 meg ram that boots from cd just pop it in...how can you go wrong..

Run fully in RAM with as little as 128MB (you will be amazed at how fast your computer can be!)

I did suggest haveing a good look around with links before installing and posted frugal as the first choice OR hd..hd is still easier regardless the lack of uninstall for extensions..I gave equal interest.

swap is simply nessessary knowledge as is partitioning and are frequent issues to linux newbies..these were notes to self and suggested for total newbies.

it is naturally disappointing that my newbie knowledge is of no use to others...it is non the less a truth and there are other forums for such things.

I removed the post as it may infact mislead and was not requested.

worked and works for me.

Posted by cbagger01 on May 08 2006,03:45

FYI,

Usually people who are running DSL on an old computer with only 32 MB of RAM have an existing DOS, Windows 95 or Windows 98 installation.

For these typical users, the "safe" way to speed up DSL livecd with swap space but without repartitioning their hard drive is to "Create DOS swapfile".

This will create a swapfile on the existing DOS/Win95/Win98 partition called something like "knoppix.swp".

Since no changes are made to the hard drive configuration, the only extra step needed to completely "undo" the changes is to delete the knoppix.swp file on their "C:\" drive after they reboot into DOS/Windows.

Just my $0.02

Of course if the user has reached the point where they actually want to permanently install DSL, a full hard disk install + linux swap partition is ideal for the user with only 32MB of RAM.