First thing I want to start out with saying is: Never install Linux on a new hard drive first if your intent is to have a multiple OS(Operating System) environment. I learned this the hard way. If you install it first, when you try to run fdisk, it will (has for me, atleast) lock up on you. Partition Magic will give you an error message when you try to run it. NT will tell you that you don't have a hard drive connected and will not install. Please keep in mind to install any type of Windows OS first, with leaving enough partition space available for Linux. With that said, if you are shooting for just a Linux OS, you need two partitions to make it work. You have to assign a parition as "/" (without the quotation marks) which is basically where Linux will be installed. Then you create a SWAP parition, which is the equivalent of Windows virtual ram. I recommend that you set the swap partition to the amount of RAM you have installed in your computer (If you have 128megs, set it for 128-130 meg partition). However, if you are running a multi-OS environment, during your Linux partition setup, you must assign "mount" points to the other non-linux paritions if you want to have access to them within Linux. That is pretty much what I have learned the past couple days dealing with installation (seeing how I have currently re-installed Redhat 6.0 about 15 times!!) - as of 3/23/00.

Getting Started:

When you run Linux for the first time, and you login, it seems pretty simple, right? Well here's how you can quickly add color when you try to do a "ls" (which is the equivalent to "dir" in other OS's) Note: (Pico is a simple editor in Linux).

Type: pico .bashrc

Add a new line below the last alias that says:

Then hit crtl+x, y, (to save the file)

Type logout and log back in. walla!

Another thing I have noticed is the floppy never seems to mount correctly.

Pico /etc/fstab and change where it says

/dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy ext2 ??

To: /dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy msdos??

If you want to add a ZIP DISK!

First, mkdir /mnt/zip. Second, pico /var/log/messages and look in that file until it shows the different partitions loading up. Around there it will show something along the lines of "hda, hdc, hdd, etc" which are the different master and slave components. Normally your ZIP DISK is on hdd or hdc.

Pico /etc/fstab (after you have discovered where your zip disk is) and add a line:

/dev/hdd4 /mnt/zip msdos noauto,rw 0 0 (You can cut and paste that if you want.. In the /etc/fstab file, it looks all nice and arranged, you can arrange it just like that if you want, but it really only requires 1 space between each field.)

You can mess around with how your prompt looks too. A neat (and simple) prompt is something like: (just type this)

More to come once I get X windows working *sighs*

Last modified: 3/23/00 7:54 p.m. EST.

-Kyle