newbie

Forum: HD Install
Topic: newbie
started by: shankus

Posted by shankus on Sep. 17 2007,05:37

Hello everybody,
I am new to Linux. I opted for DSL since I use an old laptop - Compaq Presario, with only 60MB RAM and 5GB hard disk. With detailed instructions found on here on DSL forums - thanks everybody here for that; - I've done a frugal installation to hard drive.

At the onset, I miss a My Documents folder. Where do I save all my data? I've been messing around a bit. I found that I do not have a permission to copy files in to some of the folders. For example, Using Emlefm, I can copy to but cannot delete from /home/dsl. But then, tell me, where is it recommended that I make a 'My Data' or 'My Files' or 'My Pictures' etc folder? I see a lot of files - I've no idea what they are, may be I'll soon get to know them - scattered all over the place.

Is Emelfm like Windows Explorer? I'll use Emelf to browse through my hard drive, cut, paste, save and read - am I right? I do not get to right click and Cut, Paste, Send to ect., is it so?

I do not have an internet access at home - I'll get a connection once I feel at home with Linux- where I have my laptop. I download MyDSL extensions while at office, write them on to a cd and then try these from cd at home. I found that DSL hangs when I try to read/copy large files, or even multiple files that are cumulatively large (something like more that 1 MB) from my 2GB Transend pen drive. Thats annoying.

With MyDSL extensions, I have the following doubts:

1. Each time I reboot do I have to reload my programs? Will not they stay there? I've copied Abiword.dsl and MPlayer.dsl into two folders of the same names respectively in /home/dsl using Emelfm. But as I said before, I couldn't delete them later on.

2. Is there an uninstall?

3. Using MPlayer, I cannot play VCDs in full screen. In full screen mode, though the window maximises to full screen, movie is still played in a small, centralised screen.

4. Abiword: behaves like only Windows Notepad. No automatic capitalisation. No spellcheck - neither real time, nor when I click on Spellcheck on Tools menu. No automatic formatting (bullets and numberings.)

5. I miss right click on an image file and make Wallpaper option from Windows.

6. xMMs is as beautiful as Winamp. But I miss that right click on file and Add to Winamp playlist option.

7. How do I use this XMMX-ALARM extension? That seems like something I must try out.

Finally, at startup and shutdown, I get a warning message, something like – maximal mount times exceeded, e2fsck recommended. Should I do something about it? If yes, how?

Please advice.

PS: From another forum, I got this answer:
"...My Documents is the path /home/<userid>...The beauty of linux is that you can really use anything, however..."
So I gather /home/dsl/ is where I'll safely put my stuff in.

Thanks a lot.
Chees

Posted by Juanito on Sep. 17 2007,07:30

It's been said before, but the < wiki > really does contain a lot of useful information. To answer a couple of your questions:

1. No - create a directory /mydsl on your boot partition, move the extensions to the new directory and they will auto-load at boot.

4. You could try openoffice.uci for a more msword-like experience

There is a boot option to take care of the e2fsck message at start up - see boot option section in the wiki.

You could create a "my documents" folder in /home/dsl but everything there would be added to backup.tar.gz by default. It might be better to create the folder on your hd instead

Posted by curaga on Sep. 17 2007,07:43

I'll try to answer some of your questions.

My docs-style folder: Frugal install emulates a livecd, so nearly nothing gets saved into the base system. But as with Windoze, you can have data on the other partitions, which you can mount whereever you like (for example as /"my documents"

Quote

Is Emelfm like Windows Explorer?

Yes.

Quote

1. Each time I reboot do I have to reload my programs? Will not they stay there? I've copied Abiword.dsl and MPlayer.dsl into two folders of the same names respectively in /home/dsl using Emelfm. But as I said before, I couldn't delete them later on.

Yes. If you want them to be autoloaded, check the wiki on mydsl.

Quote

2. Is there an uninstall?

Deleting..

Quote

3. Using MPlayer, I cannot play VCDs in full screen. In full screen mode, though the window maximises to full screen, movie is still played in a small, centralised screen.

Add "-zoom" to the args you start it with, or select "software scaling" from the graphical options. You get the behavior because no hardware scaling is available, and as software scaling is slower, it isn't enabled by default.

4,5,4,5: and your questions were?

about the mount count, yes, checking the hd's would be good. Add "checkfs" to the boot arguments to have it check all ext2 drives on that boot..

Posted by curaga on Sep. 17 2007,07:44

@Juanito: beat me :P

Posted by shankus on Sep. 18 2007,02:26

thanks guys
am going over to wiki now...