an introduction and some questions

[cybormoron]

hi everyone,

for reference i'm still somewhat of a computer novice. i've only owned a computer less than 2 years now. sitting in front of my monitor has become quite the hobby for me. i can't wait to get home from work and "log on", lol. i'm learning my way around very nicely. i mainly just surf the web, lurk the message boards, download and play with lots of freeware, and chitchat with some newfound internet buddies.

 

installing mandriva le2005 recently was a big giant step forward in my computer exploration. if i can do it anyone can do it, lol. i didn't choose "mandy" but rather it chose me. the words on the front of linux-format magazine implied that anyone can do it with their step by step guide. so i paid the twenty US dollars for the rag and raced home to "git er done". i now know that i could have downloaded the iso and burned it much cheaper but the rag came with the 4 cd's and a pictorial guide for installing so i reckon it was worth it to get me over the first hurdle of how to do it. i now have a nice dual boot system with mandriva 2005le and windows xp. now for my questions.

 

as i understand things, 2006 will be available to the general public in a few weeks and includes some plugins and drivers that i currently do not have in my 2005. i'm talking about the JRE plugin and the flash player plugin. also the nvidia driver. so my questions are; should i just wait for 2006 rather than trying to learn how to get these into 2005 or go ahead and try to learn? also the biggest question; when 2006 becomes available to me how exactly do i install it? will i just "go over the top" or do i need to uninstall 2005?

 

thanks from a new linux explorer.

[devries]

The plugins you mentions only come with the 'pay' Mandriva versions. These plugins are not open source software. However there is nothing that stops you from dowloading and installing them :) (j2re from java.com, flash from macromedia.com etcetc).

 

The Mandriva installer doesn't change much so you can keep the magazine as a guide for installing 2006. Just download the ISOs and burn them.

[Aomighty]

I agree with the previous comment. The plugins are easy enough to install, but in case you need a little help, just ask! If you want a good, very comprehensive reference book btw, I'd recommend Running Linux, Fourth Edition.

 

You sound exactly like me. Roughly two years ago I was pretty casual with the computer, and now I'm a Linux user who helps all his friends with computer problems and even programs a bit. Computers are wonderful I think :).

[AussieJohn]

To replace Any Linux OS it is NEVER necessary to uninstall to OS being replaced.

The installer automatically reformats / . This can be over ridden of course but would make the new OS unreliable and unstable. That is one of the reasons that you are advised to make /home on a its own partition. This way you can leave / to be reformatted and /home to be left alone.

A big welcome to MUB.

Cheers. John.

[cybormoron]

thanks guys,

i did manage to get it done. i now have mandriva 2006.0 (cooker). there was an option to format existing partitions so i did that. relatively easy really. i only had 2005le about a week anyway so there was nothing to save really. i'm pretty new at linux so i'm just learning my way around. there's alot of new applications to learn, loool. there's also alot of tweaking and configuring i need to do. sheesh i'm fussy, lool. so i'm working on all my firefox extensions and plugins slowly. then i'm gonna work on getting the nvidia driver installed. it wants me to exit out of X first whatever that is. i need to work on the fonts also. i'll get there slowly but surely. thanks again.

[arctic]

... then i'm gonna work on getting the nvidia driver installed. it wants me to exit out of X first whatever that is.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

X is the basis on which graphical user interfaces like KDE or Gnome run. Thus, if the system asks you to exit X, then you should only log into a text environment (aka CLI = command line interface). You can do this by starting e.g. the interactive boot (or failsafe mode) and log into an "init 3" environment instead of starting Xorg, as Xorg will be changed once you install the NVIDA drivers. (It's simillar to this: You can't replace an engine of a car and try to drive with the car at the same time.)

 

Take a look at the FAQ section of this board, there should be a guide for installing NVIDIA drivers.

[solarian]

or you can start an Xless environment by just typing "init 3" as root in any terminal during the X session.

to start X again, type "startx"

[wilcal]

To replace Any Linux OS it is NEVER necessary to

uninstall to OS being replaced......

Well I am going to respectfully disagree a little

with AussieJohn on this one. Better put it should be

 

To replace(upgrade) Any Linux OS it should NEVER

be necessary to uninstall the OS being replaced(upgraded).

 

But being the animals they are OS's can be nasty things

and sometimes replacements don't behave properly.

Upgrades can be worse.

 

Most of us have only one PC and one OS so when going

through the exercise of replacement and/or upgrade

we kinda put everything at risk.

 

I have found over the years that to be absolutely

sure and avoid conflict with little left over nastys

here and there a complete wipe of the hard drive with

all zeros and an install from scratch works, at least

to get a proper install. That NEVER guarantees that

the replace/upgrade will work. It may crash miserably.

But by wiping the HD clean at least you are starting

with a clean slate.

 

First and foremost backup to something your critical

data. Put it somewhere where the unknown next OS

can't get to it. Give the Upgrade a shot then reload

your backed up data.

 

I use a bootable floppy or CD with:

 

http://www.killdisk.com/

 

on it and completely wipe the HD from beginning to end.

The HD looks just like a brand new drive and is loaded

from end to end with "0"s. Then I do a full install

letting the OS (at least the first time) do whatever

it wants to do to get going.

 

You would be amazed at what some of the Linux Distros

do, or don't do, or insist on doing (sometimes stupidly).

 

Anybody here remember the bad ole days of Windows when

you would have your Win 3.1 system running as best it

could then you would install an off the shelf commercial

program? You'd go through the load, then Windows would come

up and inform you that the program had installed properly

and is it ok to Reboot? You would answer Yes. The system

would reboot and completely crash and freeze. Everything

blown out and gone. Those were fun times.

[polemicz]

As long as you are not playing with the same partitions the many os's on your system will never mess each other up. You can have all the /, /usr, etc as you want (or hard drive can hold) and as long as they are not mounted as / or /usr, etc they may as well not exist. So AussieJohn is correct. Just make sure you have your bootloader set up correctly.