iB::Topic::Frugul vs. Standard

	Damn Small Linux :: Damn Small Linux Board The DSL Forums

» Welcome Guest
[ Log In :: Register ]

Damn Small Linux Board » Damn Small Linux » HD Install » Frugul vs. Standard

		Mini-ITX Boards Sale, Fanless BareBones Mini-ITX, Bootable 1G DSL USBs, 533MHz Fanless PC <-- SALE $200 each!
		Get The Official Damn Small Linux Book. DSL Market , Great VPS hosting provided by Tektonic

Pages: (4) </ [1] 2 3 4 >/

[ Track this topic :: Email this topic :: Print this topic ]

Topic: Frugul vs. Standard, Is there another way?

< Next Oldest | Next Newest >

Sinphaltimus Offline

Group: Members
Posts: 9
Joined: Dec. 2005

Posted: Dec. 22 2005,14:12

Let first start off by saying I am super new to linux. I have tried every distro I could get my hands on and personally, I like many of them, some more than DSL. The live CDs for them worked great however, the installs always failed on all the others. DSL installs work great and currently is the only one that I can install to my very old NEC laptop.

However, I am a bit confused as to the 2 HDD install options. The standard install works fine for me and it saves all my data just fine etc... However, Synaptics doesn't work well, I can't seem to figure out how to install anything from it. I think the DSL help that opens up on boot up syas something to this affect and it recommends the Frugul install for upgradeability. Yes, I upgrade to the GNU tools and enable apt prior to trying Synaptic.

So, then I wipe out the system and install the Frugul installation. I am confused as to the difference between the GRUB install and the LILO install (even for the standard so I just choose LILO). Next, what are those boot option? (toram ssh lpd etc....) What should I choose.

My goal is simple. I have a 4GB HDD that I can partition anyway DSL would like best. I do not want to run anything in ran, I want it all on the HDD. I want to be able to upgrade, I want to be able to install DSL packages (and others I come across). I want to be able to save files to the HDD.

With the frugul installation, none of my settings or files get saved and I see hda1 as the ram drive I can't seem to find my physical HDD anywhere.

It is obvious to me that I am missing something. Yes I tried researching this prior to posting here.

Bascially, I want to be able to use DSL just like any windows installation. Install it, use it, upgrade it, install aps, uninstall aps etc... and know everything will be there when I reboot.

Please help... thanks sincerely,
Sinphaltimus Exmortus
(don't ask, just google it)
www.digital-church.com

_pathos

Group: Members
Posts: 91
Joined: Aug. 2005

Posted: Dec. 22 2005,14:34

Whats the partition table in fdisk look like? also what is the output of mount?

as for backing up your settings you may not have set a home partition in the lilo.conf so /home/dsl is not on a hard disk and thus all the files are discarded on reboot. I think you only need two partitions a ext2 for mydsl, lilo\grub, root, home, opt, etc etc and a swap partition.

You'll have to check out your lilo.conf and the man pages for which settings to change. best to post them here along with the parition table and mount points

doobit

Group: Members
Posts: 912
Joined: July 2005

Posted: Dec. 22 2005,14:41

You can do all that you want with either a regular hard drive install, or a Frugal install. The difference is in the details of how you do it.
Linux is not like Windows. It's not any harder than Windows, but there is a learning curve if you have always used Windows. People who have never used Windows normally have no problem learning Linux.
Frugal is a very nice way to get into Linux without any danger. You can really mess things up in your configuration files, run as root and experiment around, and then restore everything back to the way it was in seconds just by deleting the backup files.
I typically will use cfdisk to partition my hard drive into a primary, which becomes / and two logicals which become swap and /home .
I put my backup/restore files and all of my extentions in /home and also on the same partition I make a directory called /opt which carries my editable configuration files. I usually will format that as a journaling partition too. Linux is pretty flexible and you can use a single partition for each directory if you want to.
I have used both lilo and grub, and they are both about the same. I just like grub because it is a little more cross-platform, and the config file is a little easier to edit.
Look at the information in the documentation. Read that info file that pops up when you first run the live CD.

--------------
"Help stop internet piracy...use Linux!"

Sinphaltimus Offline

Group: Members
Posts: 9
Joined: Dec. 2005

Posted: Dec. 22 2005,15:31

Pathos - Thanks, your reply kind of makes some sense however it is more linux techie savy than I have become thus far.

Doobit, - I want to make sure I understand you correctly.
use cfdisk to create 3 partitions. one primary and 2 logical. the priomary will be for the HD install. The 2nd will be for my /home directory and the third for a swap.

Question, how big should they be (total HDD size = 4GB) ?
I won't be saving large media files, however, i do want to play with a lot of different aps and eventually see if I can indeed begin replacing some windows machines I have with Linux. I would at least require testing Wine for the adobe product I am registered for and some windows games however, it seems as though there is an open source solution to just about everything else.

Pathos & Doobit - Been using computers since the early 80's (TI99/4a, Apple II, IIc, IIe, TRS-80, Amiga, x86 (BeOS, Netware then finally Windoze)) and have (due more to circumstance than anything else) settled on Windows PCs and have been working the industry since WFW3.1.

Most of my Dos (and other shell skills) have suffered over the years and being an IT manager (of people and projects) many mnore techie skills have suffered. I'm no dumbass and can only guess that as long as I stick with playing on Linux, reading, researching and learning the shell commands as well as asking questions, any day now there will be a *DING* and I will have tipped over the other side of the learning curve.

So thanks for your answers, I will play more when I get home. I will read as much as I can, above and beyond what I have already read (a lot of which is confusing) and of course be backhere for follow ups.

So thanks again, much appreciated -

P.S.E.

ruserious

Group: Members
Posts: 23
Joined: Dec. 2005

Posted: Dec. 22 2005,21:11

Have you tried this: http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub....wto.pdf

for a frugal installation. It will make sure that you have a persistent /home and /opt directory on the harddisk. It's what I am using, aand I am pretty happy with it. There's long threads that discuss frugal vs. "regular" HD Install, and the plus-side seems to be you can upgrade very easily. And from my experience that's very true.

19 replies since Dec. 22 2005,14:12

< Next Oldest | Next Newest >

[ Track this topic :: Email this topic :: Print this topic ]

Pages: (4) </ [1] 2 3 4 >/

Damn Small Linux Board » Damn Small Linux » HD Install » Frugul vs. Standard