HD install...
Forum: HD Install
Topic: HD install...
started by: gfellmayer
Posted by gfellmayer on Jan. 01 2006,17:37
Happy New Year to all and greetings from Maple, CanadaI have an old notebook (150Mhz and 48 MB RAM). Partition Magic was able to create a 900 MB partition and a 400 MB swap for Linux.
I have loaded DSL from a CD and use the Tools-install to HD menu but I am stuck at the "Enter the target partition" question. How do I find out which "hda" the Linux partition is. I don't want to loose my winME for the time being.
Also after installing DSL on the HD does it give me to option for GRUB so I can select which system I would like to boot..
Thanks...
Posted by david on Jan. 01 2006,20:38
Please take this with many grains of salt, as I am not an expert. But, with that disclaimer out of the way:Boot from the liveCD.
Go into the terminal.
Type fdisk -l /dev/hda (that's dash lowercase L).
This should print out your partition table with the filesystem type in the rightmost column. From this information you should be able to deduce which partition is the one you want. For example, when I run that command on my desktop system I get:
| Code Sample |
| Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/hda1 * 1 1922 15438433+ 7 HPFS/NTFS /dev/hda2 1923 9728 62701695 f W95 Ext'd (LBA) /dev/hda5 1923 3779 14916321 7 HPFS/NTFS /dev/hda6 3780 9728 47785311 83 Linux |
In this example you can see that /dev/hda6 looks promising.
Enjoy and happy new year!
David Mintz
< http://davidmintz.org/ >
Posted by david on Jan. 01 2006,20:50
PS about the GRUB, I forgot to add: I don't know. Maybe Mr. Google can help you with that.
Posted by muskrat on Jan. 04 2006,00:45
I'm new to DSL but not Grub.When you install grub to the MBR, DSL script ask if you have windows persent on that drive and answer yes.
I just did an HD install, Grub didn't put windows into boot but it did configure it. Meaning, on my frist HD boot Grub didn't show windows. Not to worry, after booting into DSL.
Edit the file /boot/grub/menu.1st
At the very bottom of the file you'll see a part simaler to this
#title Windoze
#root ****
#makeactive ****
#chainloader ****
#boot ****
The *** is the data for your system each system will be slightly different all you do is remove the # on all lines from title to boot, and then reboot and you should be able to see and select windows from grub.
You can make other changes it that file, I like to set the timeout high, it's set at 15 secconds. I usually set it to 30 or 60 seconds.
Also you can change the default selected distro to boot. Ether DSL or Windows.
Posted by ki4lyd on Jan. 04 2006,05:49
thanks at all, but is there somebody who knows where I can buy DSL CDs? And Where can I find the system requirements for DSL 2.0?thanks
Posted by BarkingOwl on Jan. 04 2006,16:45
ki4lyd,The answer to both your questions is on the DSL home page.
System requirements:
| Quote |
| Damn Small is small enough and smart enough to do the following things: --Boot from a business card CD as a live linux distribution (LiveCD) --Boot from a USB pen drive --Boot from within a host operating system (that's right, it can run *inside* Windows) --Run very nicely from an IDE Compact Flash drive via a method we call "frugal install" --Transform into a Debian OS with a traditional hard drive install --Run light enough to power a 486DX with 16MB of Ram --Run fully in RAM with as little as 128MB (you will be amazed at how fast your computer can be!) --Modularly grow -- DSL is highly extendable without the need to customize |
And you can purchase a DSL CD from < HERE >.
Cheers!
Posted by Kismet on Jan. 07 2006,21:09
Hi, I'm new here. I didn't want to start a whole new topic for this cause this is probably posted like a million times!
I don't have DSL (yet) but Ubuntu. I was caught up in the hype to only realise what a disappointment it was (still is)! Granted, my PC isn't the best (Celeron 800Mhz, 450MB RAM) but this thing (Ubuntu) is slower than my Windows Millenium Edition!
So now I'm seriously considering of getting DSL. I would like to install it on my HD but have some questions first which I couldn't find an answer to in the FAQ section.
1) DSL is 50MB on a LiveCD. Will it take also (exactly) that much space on the HD if installed there? And if not, why?
2) One of the things DSL is capable of doing according to the site is:
| Quote |
| Run fully in RAM with as little as 128MB (you will be amazed at how fast your computer can be!) |
How is that possible? And do you also have to "reload" DSL into your RAM everytime you start your computer? Can you also save your settings like when you would do when you are booting from a CD?
I realise I'm asking a lot from you guys but this is my first time so please bear with me...
Thx in advance!
Posted by larkl on Jan. 07 2006,21:52
If you do a frugal install, you will create a partition for the boot image that'll be a bit larger than 50MB. You can partition the rest of the drive for a persistent home or backups or whatever. If you run to ram, it'll be amazingly fast, but it does take a minute to put the DSL image into RAM during boot up. I'd go for if you have 128M of RAM. Yes, you will be able to save whatever you want.
Posted by Kismet on Jan. 08 2006,15:18
Thanks for the reply larkl! But what are the exact steps I need to take to put DSL into RAM. Or is it done by default when you run the LiveCD??
Which one is faster? DSL running from RAM or DSL running from HD? I'm guessing the first one but I could be wrong...
This is probably not possible but I kinda wanna ask it anyway:
Can one run DSL from RAM when it's installed on the HD? In other words; you start your PC, DSL loads from HD but then you load it into the RAM and work from thereon out cause it's faster (that's what I at least think) and save whatever settings in a directory on your HD.
Posted by bobo034b on Jan. 08 2006,15:45
does this work anything liek windows or better? am i guna be totally confused trying to use dsl if im liek not a computer geek? i know enough to work windows but all i read from these forums r things that make me feel dumb...and i dont understand how to make my own cd with linux y does it have to be so hard:(
Posted by bobo034b on Jan. 08 2006,15:46
if anyone has aim and will help me out with anythign my screen name is RTiSmOk3R...thanx
Posted by kidko on Jan. 08 2006,21:11
How much space can it take up with a non-frugal install? I've got an old Win95 computer I'm going to change to a DSL machine.. so just wondering.
Posted by Kismet on Jan. 09 2006,14:54
Ok, I now know how to load up into RAM.You simply type "dsl toram" at the bootscreen and that's it! And to install it to HD: "dsl tohda" or something...
Just type F2 at the bootscreen for help.
But now I have another problem! I don't know where to view my folders, especially my HD!
I type "fdisk -l" in the terminal and then I get errormessage: "Can't open hda1"!
Posted by muskrat on April 20 2006,05:10
| Quote |
| does this work anything liek windows or better? am i guna be totally confused trying to use dsl if im liek not a computer geek? i know enough to work windows but all i read from these forums r things that make me feel dumb...and i dont understand how to make my own cd with linux y does it have to be so hard:( |
It works better than windows, infact windows is so far out of the league they don't even count!
You say you know enough to use windows, How long did it take you to learn that much? Give Linux that much time and I'll gearanty you'll know a whole lot more about linux than you ever knew about windows.
It's not really that hard, it's just MS would like you to stay dumb and they encourage users to staay ignorant, burning CDs from the command line is really much easier than using windows programs and you have so much more control.