Re: New User setup - need advice

[turnbull@example.com (Stephen J. Turnbull)]

>>>>> "Rory" == Rory Lysaght <rory@example.com> writes:

    Rory> Sorry to be so uninformed here, but I'm just beginning to
    Rory> grasp what the 'Slackware Distribution' actually means. (I'm
    Rory> assuming 'distribution' refers to the package of utilities
    Rory> bundled with the core program?).  I saw it on some of the

More or less.  Linux proper is the source to the kernel.  No command
shell, no utilities, no daemons even.  All that is assembled,
typically from fairly large freely distributable packages (Net2, GNU,
XFree86), but often on a standalone basis (Netscape, wu-ftpd), and
occasionally written (setup utilities), by the package creator into a
usable operating system distributed as a unit.

    Rory> book/CD packages but had no idea what it was or why I would
    Rory> want it.  What I have is a CD with the Linux Universe
    Rory> distribution.  Here's what it includes: Kernel 1.2.x, as
    Rory> well as misc tools from the Free Software Foundation, X
    Rory> Windows (release 6), complete ELF (?), iBCS2 compatibility.
    Rory> Don't know if this gives people a clearer picture of what I
    Rory> have.  I don't know if I have UMSDOS.

Not really.  Somewhere in the documentation it should tell you which
kernel configurations you can install.  Most distributions include
several pre-configured kernels, primarily because some hardware
drivers conflict with each other, and some kernels require certain
hardware to be available or they don't work at all.

Unless the distribution is Slackware, the general Linux user won't
know much about it.  Three others that somebody on this list might use 
are Yggdrasil, Debian, and BOGUS, but those people probably also have
a feeling for Slackware.

Try to find out if your Linux Universe distribution is FSSTND (Linux
file system standard) conformant.  If it is then lots of things will
be in standard places.  One thing that is not specified in the FSSTND,
unfortunately, is the location of documents.  Try to find the FAQs.
On Slackware, they're in /usr/doc/faq/.  Most important to you right
now is /usr/doc/faq/howto/Installation-HOWTO. [sic]  But there are
lots of other very interesting things in /usr/doc/faq/faq/ and
/usr/doc/faq/howto/.

    >> Secondly, while you certainly can continue to boot from floppy,
    >> a faster alternative is to use the DOS program LOADLIN.  This

    Rory> This option sounds like what I need.  Does this still
    Rory> involve a separate Linux partition?  If I had a spare
    Rory> machine, I'd go ahead and mess around with other options,
    Rory> but I absolutely need my PC up and running all the time, so
    Rory> I'm really cautious about doing anything that might
    Rory> jeopardize that.

UMSDOS builds a Linux file system on top of MSDOS's, and no separate
partition is needed.  Putting a swap file into a UMSDOS file system
doesn't sound like a great idea to me, but I know people who have used 
that configuration sucessfully.

-- 
                            Stephen J. Turnbull
Institute of Socio-Economic Planning                         Yaseppochi-Gumi
University of Tsukuba                      http://turnbull.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp/
Tennodai 1-1-1, Tsukuba, 305 JAPAN                 turnbull@example.com