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pixiestix1103
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i don't understand most of the terminology yet, and it would be hard for me to ask any more questions not knowing how to say it. for instance, some of the posts on this website go SO over my head, but i will go and look it up so that i know what the people are talking about. i have noticed that the people here are extremely intelligent, and it sure does help out people like me, but i am not the type of person that will sit there and let someone do all the work.

we are intelligent? you are kidding, eh? :cheesy: okay, iwanted to say something different...

it is quite normal that you do not understand all the terminology that is used here. in this forum we have some basic stuff discussed and advanced stuff that only a few in here understand. nothing to worry about. you will automatically learn a lot of things in this forum. trust me. when i started with linux some two and a half... three (?) years back, i did not know anything at all except that linux was an operating system. the manuals and forums helped to learn a lot about networking, filesystems, bug-cleaning etc in a very short time and in maybe six months, you will look back at your first steps in linux and say... wow, i really learned a lot.

 

most linux users tend to give advice to others, because they feel that they have a responsibility and they really have fun with helping others through the mess they had to fight with some weeks/month/years ago. i am almost sure that in some weeks you will be able to give some "basic" help to other newbies by reading forums and/or encountering some problems on your own box (and perhaps solving them).

speaking of learning something new, anyone want to tell me what a "second HDD and Partition Commander/System Commander Personal Edition" is? i am thinking a second hardrive and something that helps do the partitioning of the 2 hardrives,

correct.

 

p.s.: don't worry... you WILL get your hands dirty sooner or later. ;)

Edited by arctic
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Reading is nice and all of that, but you will not learn anything until you install a linux os. Actually, install several! :twisted: The only mystery with linux is the fud created by the tech industry that tends to respond to ms than to technology.

 

By the way, I have clients running xp boxes that require up time, and the only way to keep them going is to reboot them at least twice a week. I am grateful that the servers (nt and 2000) will run for 8-9 months before critical errors require a reboot, and as long as ntfs is used. I have had others tell me they run windows "all of the time" without issues, but I have personally never experienced such an animal. My linux box, on the other hand, can run forever without any problems, and I reboot it to access the other os's I am playing with. Linux is great.

 

So, just do it. ...Of course, I also don't mind breaking my box on occassion, either! :lol: Your best bet is to have a back up at any time.

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Yeah, I don't really mind "breaking" my system, anymore. I just accidently killed it this afternoon, by nor paying attention and reformatting my '/' partition as 'swap'. :wall:

 

It took about 10 minuted to figure out *why* things weren't working right, but then it was only about half-an-hour before I had a clean 10.1 system up and running again. :)

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Ok guys, another question... before i go and purchase mandrake 10.1, say i want to go and download linux, say from here:

http://www.linuxiso.org/distro.php?distro=29

or somewhere else, could i download the installs to something like a CD-R or RW and then just run it from the cd? if so, how exactly could i do that? i mean, i want to buy the cd, and the manual and all that, but there are some websites that will let you burn to a cd i guess to try it out or something, and i dont know exactly how i would do that. and another thing, what happens if i completely wipe everything out, what do i do then? i wont exactly be able to hop on the internet and get one of you guys to help me, so i will just be stuck. :cheeky: and that would be very bad! :) i mean, i dont even know how to partition my hard-drive yet cause i have never had to do that before... this is so complicated! :wall: i cant wait till i am settled with my new os. maybe i can get a tutorial? i will google it when i get a chance... thanks everyone for all your advice... maybe one of you can come over and watch me to make sure i dont break anything!? just kidding... thanks again.

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i mean, i dont even know how to partition my hard-drive yet cause i have never had to do that before... this is so complicated!  :wall: i cant wait till i am settled with my new os. maybe i can get a tutorial? i will google it when i get a chance... thanks everyone for all your advice... maybe one of you can come over and watch me to make sure i dont break anything!? just kidding... thanks again.

 

 

Slooow down :stop: take a breath, don't stress.

 

Download your iso's to your HDD and check your MD5sums

Burn the iso to discs - I assume you'll be using nero or something similar

 

Decide on if you are to dual boot or install mdk only (if you dual boot, defrag Windoze first)

 

Install CD, boot up, follow the on screen instructions MDK will sort all your partitions and everything for you. Depending on your HW and what set up you choose, it shouldn't take long - I'm always done in 30 - 45 mins on a clean install.

 

Tutorial time: this is all you'll need as a tutorial read through the installation section.

 

If for whatever reason it all goes horrribly wrong :evilmod: either start again, or reinstall :evilmod: windoze.

 

You can also download from here

Edited by ChrisM
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you can almost always download cd-images (isos) from every distribution available at no cost. linux is basically a free operating system. you might need to pay for some "boxed versions" but here, you pay money in first place for the printed manuals (i once bought a suse professional box and got two extremely big books with it) and some extra-support service for the customers. since one and a half year, i only download isos, burn them as images and install them on my boxes (some distros are only available as free download ;)).

 

in case you have a second hd available, you can set up a perfect dualboot system. if you do not have one, you can trust mandrakes partitioning tool. but, as said before, defrag your windows-partition first.

if you want to know if your hardware is supported by linux (thus reducing the risk of having a broken mandrake-install) is downloading a live-cd like mandrake-livecd or knoppix and test your system first with these "non-harddrive-using" operating systems. you can find all linux-distributions at http://www.distrowatch.com

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yes, i just realized that i dont have a program that supports burning the file extention "iso", so i might have to get nero or something... havent thought or that...duh! yep, just defrag'ed yesterday so that part should be ready (for the dual boot).

 

ChrisM : "check your MD5sums"- you have to let me know what that is...

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i was actually planning on buying just the mandrake linux 10.1 that comes in the box with the manual, (about $70.00) but right now, i was trying to download the "iso" from here:http://iso.linuxquestions.org/version.php?version=71.

i wouldnt be suprised if i am not doing it right! :cheesy: i have started downloading "ISO 1" and there are 3. i guess i will try to burn them to a cd later when i have all of them downloaded, but it is taking a minute. i have to find something that will allow me to burn an "iso" to a CD-R or RW.

if you are looking at the website and are realizing that i am not getting it from the right place, or not downloading something right, feel free to tell me to stop. i was trying to take the advice of running it from a live cd first, so i can check it out... :cheesy:

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Economy decisions.

 

If you have Nero, you can burn iso images. If not, you'll have to aquire nero. That is money and time! You can download Mandrake from many places all over the world. In my area, the server in the Netherlands gives me better speed than any domstic servers. (ftp.nluug.nl) You have a lot of questions, all of which will amke more sense if you just install it. So the most economical route (time & money) is to get a copy from the sight I listed, and install Mandrake. Buy the box set later. Or, if you have the money, buy the box set now.

 

Windows can be full of questions, but people are used to it through exposure. Give linux the same chance. Just do it. Cheap Bytes cd's are $11 delivered to you. Before I got dsl, I purchased many versions of Mandrake there. I've been using Mandrake since version 7.0, which was the first version to utilize a graphical installer. It is easier to understand while doing it. :thumbs:

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oh ok, :thanks: , i will check out that website. i am trying to take all the advice given to me, and burning to a live cd was just one of the suggestions. it is taking a while, although i dont mind, but now i am half way through the process. i also downloaded a "windows MD5 sum generator", also something else that was mentioned in one of the posts. i havent figured out what it does yet, but i thought that i might need it, so i got one of those too. :cheesy: i will google it. when i am done downloading, i will tell you what happens... :P

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