This post is just for asking a confirmation that I've managed to install Windows and Mandriva to the same laptop (60 GB hard drive) right.

I installed Windows XP to my Fujitsu Siemens laptop. Then I installed Mandriva Linux One 2008 Spring. During Mandriva installation I gave Windows XP approximately 47 GB, Linux 9 GB and swap 1 GB of hard disk space. When I restarted my computer, is it normal to see:

linux
linux-nonfb
failsafe

For a newbie like me I was expecting to see Windows on the list also.

I read some FAQs and Wikipedia and noticed I need to edit this file:

/boot/grub/menu.lst

Then I noticed I can't use emacs, jed, joe, nano or style. I could only use vi and again it was time to read Wikipedia. I also noticed I needed to say "su" to be able to save the file.

Anyway, I added these lines to the end of the file, are they okay:

title windows
root (hd0,0)
chainloader +1

At least Windows XP starts, so I guess all is good now?

Yes adding those lines to that menu.lst file is the way to go. You could have done it graphically by opening the Mandriva control centre>boot>set up boot system>Next>Add.

As said, everything is okay. Normally, Windows should have appeared automatically on the boot-menu. At least it always did when I installed Mandriva alongside XP or Vista on any system during the past years.

Admittedly, vi is a rather hard to use editor for a newcomer. Nano would be a much better choice and I do not understand why it isn't installed by default yet. *shrugs*. If you want to install this really easy to use editor, just install the nano package through the Mandriva Control Center (aka Configure your system) and start nano later from a terminal or the command line/virtual terminal (you get to the latter one by pressing e.g. ctrl+alt+F1 and get back to the desktop by pressing ctrl+alt+F7).

the procedure would be:
ctrl+alt+F1

now enter the root passsword (can not be seen)

the file will open now and can be altered. Add the changes you want, then press
ctrl+o for saving and ctrl+x for exiting

ctrl+alt+F7

finished!

Well said about vi. It's totally puzzling. While on the other hand nano is great and VERY easy to use editor.

If you don't want to use a console based text editor you really don't have to if you are running a gui like kde. Just open konsole and run:

$ kdesu kwrite

You will be prompted for the root password and then a graphical text editor, kwrite, will come up with root privileges. Kwrite works just like a simple word processor. Navigate to the file you want to edit and have at it.

vi is not THAT puzzling (nano is much easier, of course), and more than that, some knowledge about its usage is required for pretty trivial things (like, say, editing the /etc/sudoers config).

vi is most usefull to know when you work in computing because ANY unix system always has this editor available.

You don't have to use it for visudo though. Just set your EDITOR environment variable to nano, or even a GUI editor (but must be something that does not fork into the background.

Yves.

Linux vs Windows
....Lex

Great tip! I had no idea... I will surely suggest it to some guys that find vi(m) clumsy to use.
Thanks for it... I guess it's never too late to learn something...