null

my usb stick works fine on my win2k SP2 box. But, yeah, tonight when I get home, I'm gonna d/l the SP4. No need for SP3, since later SPs include all the earlier ones. Here's a user's comments, from Aug. 2002, about SP3: I have a little problem with license agreement that says: The OS Product or OS Components contain components that enable and facilitate the use of certain Internet-based services. You acknowledge and agree that Microsoft may automatically check the version of the OS Product and/or its components that you are utilizing and may provide upgrades or fixes to the OS Product that will be automatically downloaded to your computer. I know the current discussion going on about WGA, but I don't have to worry about that. Don't own XP and not planning to. The above user's complaints are just about MS saying that they can automatically check your machine, and d/l what they want when they want, or as they call it, "automatic updates". I'll have to make sure to turn that OFF after I d/l SP4!!

like I mentioned before, I recently tried an 80 GB Iomega external usb2 drive my dad gave me for my son's win2k box, and I could NOT get win2k to recognize it... and I tried everything the Iomega help suggested... So, yes I did figure it may need a later service pack. I know there have been 4 for win2k (I think), but I have only gone to SP2. If I remember correctly, there was something in the news a long time ago about maybe you would not want to go beyond SP2 - something about spyware, phoning home, automatic updates, or whatever... :huh: :unsure:

this has turned into a "how old are you?" thread... :D I'm just glad everyone isn't a teenager... except for James, who is wise beyond his years...! Still, I'm older than almost everyone, except for aussiejohn - if that's really his pic that is...!

hmmm..... ok, how about this: The only reason I would need a huge partition is for backups of in-process home videos that I have captured with kino, but have not edited and burned to DVD yet. So it seems that, say, a 30 GB FAT32 partition for use under win2k, for my tons of mp3s and digital family pics, which would also be accessible under linux... and the rest (170 GB) would be ext3 or reiser or whatever - for use under linux, for all my linux /home stuff - including home videos in process. Since I do my video capturing under linux, I would not need winblows to access it... thanks for the tips !! PS: so win2k does positively work with external usb2 drives, right ??? We aren't talking about XP - I don't own XP !

I'm thinking about buying one of those 200 GB thingies, just for backup purposes, when one goes on sale somewhere for $69 or so. I would want it to be able to be connected to my win2k box, or my mandriva 2006 box, or any other modern linux distro. Last time I tried an external drive was with an Iomega external 80 GB drive my dad gave me for my son's computer. My son has win2k also, but I could never get win2k to recognize the drive (My Computer was unaware of it). Maybe I could have messed around in the BIOS settings, but I did not really make an effort to figure it out back then. Should these drives work under win2k? (I have SP 2). How about under linux? I assume it will be just like when I connect my usb stick, and gnome throws up an icon immediately for the "drive". (btw, I can't get kde to do the same thing). Also, do these drives get formatted just like internal drives? I mean, I would need to format it ntfs, or fat 32 right? If I want the files (pics, mp3s, family videos, etc) to be accessible from both win & lin, then I would need to do FAT 32, not ntfs. thanks for any pointers, or warnings!

ubuntu is a little different than I'm used to. I don't like not being able to add or remove packages during install. Also, it is always asking for the "user" password when I screw around with stuff - doesn't ask for root. And it took me a couple minutes to even find "teminal" - wasn't in an obvious location. Anyway, it seems like a good distro so far. I reinstalled win2k, on the 80 GB master, and ubuntu on the slave. This time I just told it to "use the entire slave drive" so no manual partitioning was needed. Something's wrong with our modem or router, so our internet connection dissapears every couple minutes. I can't do the apt sources and upgrading yet, as A.I. suggested. Will wait till the internet connection problem is fixed.

I'm only gonna make his 6GB drive for linux. During the first install last week, I made the above directories, but I remember not doing the /swap. I wasn't sure how to make that one. It let me make /boot, and / and /home, but not /swap... or maybe I needed to do that one differently? I made a /swap in other distro installs, but the ubuntu was the only one I didn't. for a 6 GB drive, something like this: /boot = 50MB / = 4GB /home = 1.? GB (whatever's left) /swap = 512 MB He's got one of my old machines - P-III 1GHz, 256 RAM, 64 MB nVidia. He's gonna have all his big games on the windows drive - 80 GB. On linux, he'll probably just want a few games: cube, sauerbraten, and he want's Americas Army (if that's a freebie?)

Even though my kid's ubuntu is working fine, I'm gonna open up his computer and reverse the master/slave on the 2 drives. I bought him a new 80GB drive before installing ubuntu, but I left win2k on his old 6GB drive and made the new big drive the slave. Made a 10GB partition on it for llinux, the rest for windows. It made win2k extremely slooooow. Clicking on Browse for Other Folders, or clicking on My Computer pretty much started taking about 5 minutes for something to happen. The ubuntu side works fine though. Anyway I'm gonna make the 80GB Master and the 6GB slave, make the 80GB NTFS and reinstall win2k on it. Make the 6GB slave and let ubuntu use it all. I think I goofed up in the original ubuntu install. My kid will have no "home" files - spreadsheets, docs, pics or stuff like that. He will just be installing variious games. A small /home should be enough right? First install, I think I gave probably 50/50 to "/" and /home. Programs (games) get installed in /, right, not /home ? I've always given myself a huge /home, since I'm into digital pics, mp3s, digital video, blah blah. Also, I used an old d/l on ubuntu (5.10). Should I d/l the new "dapper drake" or can I still install 5.10 and then get online and "roll" it to dapper? I know we had this conversation in the "rolling distro" thread...

ok, I read thru several threads in the official forum... You're right, it's definately the best place for help & info. A couple of newbies got a little impatient, which made the experts irritated... and then it just goes nowhere... But it looks like a great place, can't wait to try arch out as a "play" distro.

I was probably checking out the Arch sections of general linux sites, such as: http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/arch-linux-help/ I have not checked the "official" ones. Another "non-specific" forum I like is linuxquestions.org. I've gotten good help there, with RH, FC, Mandriva or whatever.

Ok, if I put it on my win2k box, I guess I'll stick with mub - other linux distros - for any questions. I've got a 120-day "student" version of MS Project on my win2k box, so I'll probably wait till I finish that class until screwing with my win2k box. I've only got something like 20 days left of my 120-day trial version - and I've still got most of my Project assignment still to do.... I need to get off my butt and finish it... I backed up the date on my win2k box 1 month, just in case that might fool the trial version... Anyway, I checked out 3 diff arch forums this afternoon, and I selected a couple of posts to read thru ... One had a decent reply, with help, and the other just had a snobby reply, with no help. Good to know some experts are here. Isn't James a teenager...? Man, I'm 46 now, but I was smarter back in high school..,. All those years of beer, margaritas, cigars, 4 hours of sleep every night.... edit: I agree.

I browsed a few of the arch linux forums that I found by googling... they don't seem to be as friendly as mub. Also, many people's posts were just left hanging, after one reply or so - with the problem not being solved. What's a good arch linux forum, and in mub - how many arch gurus are here? After d/l & burning ubuntu (5.10), kanotix-64, genieOS, and arch, it seems that arch is very highly thought of. So I'm probably gonna stick it on my win2k box and try it out dual-boot. I understand that it is a great "learning" distro. [Moved from Other Linux Distributions by arctic]

hmmm... I didn't know about sata-2. I was thinking about putting a new box together - with the newfangled "sata"... Guess I'll wait till most boards are supporting sata-2.

thanks, I did what A.I. suggested. Works fine. Now, since my kid wants sauerbraten on his computer (dual-boot win2k and ubuntu) I am gonna copy my sauerbraten folder to a CD and then put it on his machine, and do the same thing.

only problem with putting linux on my kid's machine, is that he doesn't have internet. My wife & I have 3 machines in the next room with DSL internet, and my kid has been bugging me and bugging me..."when can I get the internet...?" It's kind of a drag to unconnect his machine, and drag it into the next room to hook it up to one of our ethernet cables, but I told him we'd do it every couple months or so - to upgrade, or look for more games via apt. I still think he's too young to have internet access in his room...

ok, thanks. I did do the chmod +x sauerbraten_unix before I posted, but I did not try the ./sauerbraten_unix. I just tried double-clicking the sauerbraten_unix icon... edit: ok, doing the ./sauerbraten_unix from the command line in the directory works.... thanks !!! Now, how do I make the sauerrbraten_unix shell script icon on my desktop run the game...?

no, I never heard of edubuntu, but I'll check into it. I did look at the pclinuxos version for kids. However, it looked a little "too young" for my kid. My kid likes blowing away monsters & stuff. Although, his favorite type of games are the complicated "war" games, ie battlefield 1942. Those type of games do seem to involve "some" learning... For example, my kid now know what "Axis", "Allies", and words like that mean. He has a PS2 also, but he is not allowed to own any "M" games - such as Grand Theft Auto...

I tried to install sauerbraten a couple days ago. I d/l the tar.gz file to a GAMES folder on my desktop. Then I did the tar -xzvf thing., which resulted in a folder called sauerbraten. I tried running the sauerbraten_unix shell script, but it doesn't do anything. There's also a folder in the sauerbraten folder called bin_unix, so I tried running the linux_client that was in there, but also nothing. I never did these tar.gz installs very often. So, how do you run the sauerbraten game after expanding the tar.gz? Do you have to chmod +x anything? (I tried that already).

ok, that makes sense. tomorrow I'll try removing those things again - and tell it ok to the "ubuntu desktop" warning. I prefer the installs that have "pre-packaged" installations - such as "workstation" blah blah, although I usually select "manual" package selection... Ubuntu just forged ahead and never asked anything... Still, at least it installed without error. First I tried pclinuxOS but that bombed out very quickly...returned me to a limited shell. Then I tried a genieOS install, which went pretty good - until the package selection... got some error no matter what I selected - "manual" package selection, or else "workstation".. ended up not installing anything. I was pretty impressed with the genieOS until that point.

I just installed ubuntu (5.10) on my kid's win2k box. Install went fine, with no errors anywhere. I liked the installer just fine. Only thing I didn't like was that I wasn't prompted for any package selection or deselection. Seems it just installed something like 5000 things I did not want. I figured that I would just remove them after install. I'm not really used to the synaptic front end. I always used apt from the CL. I try to remove things like evolution, open office, and other things an 8 yr old would not be interested in... but it doesn't like to let me do those things. Would be nice if I could do what I wanted to. So anyway, when I go to "advanced" mode like it suggests, and mark those things for removal, it gives a message that it will have to remove the following other item: ubuntu desktop not sure what that means... remove the desktop...???

yeah, I know. Its no big deal though. He's only got 7 or 8 big games on it, and we have the CDs for them, so no big deal. When I installed win2k for him, I made him the admin and set his pw. Now, it turns out he changed his pw ... but then forgot it... I figure that its a good lesson for him to not be able to use his computer for a couple weeks... I suppose I should recover his pw, and then do a "dual-boot" install on his machine... that way it would be practice for later doing it on my own win2k machine... (ie "practice on someone else's computer..")

A while back I gave one of my old machines to my 8 yr old son, and put win2k on it. All he does is play some games. He hasn't been able to use it for a couple weeks now... he forgot his password (he was the admin). He's been bugging me to put linux on his computer. Guess I'll d/l & burn debian sarge, arch, and kanotix and try the install on all of them on my son's machine. That way I can get some install experience with several rolling distros, and I won't have to worry about trashing a working system... its already not working...!!! Based on my opinions of the 3 or 4 distros I run through on his old machine, I'll decide which one I favor - to put on my win2k box as a dual-boot... His old machine isn't all that great, but not too bad: 40 GB HD, 256 RAM, but only a 32MB video card.

ok, I haven't done anything yet. Just d/l & burned the genieOS. I may d/l & burn debian sarge too, and also arch.

I downloaded & burned the genioOS install CD (as artic suggested). Its supposed to be "pure debian". Anyway, I haven't done anything yet. There's a couple things I'm worried about: 1. don't want to trash my win2k system 2. although I have 2 hard drives in the win2k box, I'm pretty sure they are both NTFS

I've been using the command line quite a bit lately, I don't mind. I started using PCs in 1985, bought an 8088 with no HD in 1985 for $3000. Only used DOS, never used win 3.1 till around 1990 or so, back then I prefered DOS. Wrote alot of batch files & stuff like that. Even after my employer started going to windows 3.1 machines, I still used DOS to do most things - I prefered it back then... So, anyway, I realize now that 16 years of pointing & clicking has rotted my brain... I like my mandriva machine, and it will be my main machine for awhile still. Its just that my win2k box is still a great machine, that is hardly being used anymore, other than for university assignments. Its got alot of "wasted" guts - 1GB RAM and 2 hard drives, totalling over 200GB. Might as well do the dual-boot thing and learn about rolling distros...