jhsu
Group: Members
Posts: 175
Joined: Mar. 2007 |
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Posted: Mar. 18 2007,18:16 |
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Quote (lucky13 @ Mar. 18 2007,12:03) | Quote (jhsu @ Mar. 18 2007,11:43) | I got my Damn Small Linux Linux to work as a live CD. It booted up nearly flawlessly - the only hitch (and a small one at that) was the video mode error, which didn't seem to matter as I just hit the space bar to continue. |
This isn't a problem since it defaults to xsetup.sh so you can configure mouse, resolution, keyboard.
Quote | Last night, I tried to install Damn Small Linux to my hard drive. Unfortunately, it didn't install properly. While I agreed to the deletion of the data in existing partitions (created in my Fedora Core 1 installation), space in the partitions ran out, and many files didn't install. |
How big are your partitions? Which type of install did you attempt? For DSL, you may want to repartition in a manner consistent with DSL's size and for the kind of install you want ("frugal" installs the ISO to the hard drive and "hard drive" is a traditional system). A frugal install would use a swap determined by your particular RAM and needs, a bootable / partition of 55MB, and a persistent /home and /opt of however much space you want to dedicate (three partitions). A traditional hard drive install would require the swap and another bootable partition for the system (two partitions).
Quote | To make matters worse, my computer would no longer boot up Damn Small Linux as a live CD. (I have no idea whether the CD or the computer was at fault. I did mess around with the old Fedora Core 1 partitions, though. Is there any way I can tell if a CD is bad?) So I ended up having to reinstall Fedora Core 1 just to connect to the Internet.
Was there something I was supposed to do before installing Damn Small Linux? I assumed that it would wipe out everything that was already on the computer and allow me to start out fresh. |
No, it shouldn't do what you don't tell it -- you have to set your own partitions if you want them changed. It sounds like you tried installing to an existing partition without knowing its size (or type?).
The first thing I would do is run cfdisk (or fdisk) to see your partitions and decide what I really want to do with respect to repartitioning. Make damn sure you know exactly what you're doing when you partition your drive with respect to sizes, bootable toggles, swap, types, etc. If you repartition your swap, you'll have to do mkswap and swapon for it before any Linux distro recognizes and uses it.
Finally, and this is a personal preference, I usually run a wipe utility right before I start over and install something by itself to a hard drive. You don't have to do that, but it's helpful if you want to get rid of everything -- MBR and all -- and eliminate any potential problems down the road and start totally from scratch. You can find utilities like Darik's Boot and Destroy available online if that interests you. Don't run a wipe utility like that if you have data you need to save because it will be irrevocably destroyed. |
< How big are your partitions? Which type of install did you attempt? For DSL, you may want to repartition in a manner consistent with DSL's size and for the kind of install you want ("frugal" installs the ISO to the hard drive and "hard drive" is a traditional system). A frugal install would use a swap determined by your particular RAM and needs, a bootable / partition of 55MB, and a persistent /home and /opt of however much space you want to dedicate (three partitions). A traditional hard drive install would require the swap and another bootable partition for the system (two partitions). >
I thought I got rid of the old partitions by booting up on Damn Small Linux and using root privileges to rm and rmdir hda, hda1, and hda2 in the mnt and dev directories.
< No, it shouldn't do what you don't tell it -- you have to set your own partitions if you want them changed. It sounds like you tried installing to an existing partition without knowing its size (or type?). >
How do I get rid of all partitions? I couldn't figure out how to use cfdisk or fdisk. I'm not interested in saving anything on the hard drive, as I've already backed up the files I need to save to a CD.
What hard drive wipe program do you recommend? How do you verify that everything has truly been wiped out? How do I install it? So far, I have yet to install software that didn't already come with Fedora Core 1. Do I wipe the hard drive while I'm in Fedora or DSL? I've never tried to wipe a hard drive before.
-------------- Current cheatcodes: kernel /boot/linux24 root=/dev/hda1 quiet vga=normal noacpi noapm nodma noscsi frugal home=hda3 opt=hda3 restore=hda3 root=hda3
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