[plug] Newbie after advice.

[Steve Grasso]

Hi Gavin,

Welcome!

On Wed, 29 Nov 2000, Gavin wrote:
> I intend to install a new hard drive to run red hat using my current
> drive as primary and installing LILO on that keeping windows ( 95
> version 4).  
> Will this set up work?
> 

Sure. There are a few things you might like to consider:

1.  Back up any essential data contained on the Win95 disk

2.  The LILO bootloader will install itself in the Master Boot Record (MBR) of
the Win95 disk (which is hda in Linux parlance). Your Linux disk will be hdb

3.  In the install process, make sure you specify LBA support (it may still be
referenced to SCSI devices in the install, which makes it non-intuitive when
you've got IDE disks -- I can't remember -- but is necessary for LILO to work)

4.  Have I mentioned backing up your Windows disk data yet?  :-)

5.  Make sure you create a boot/rescue disk at the appropriate spot in the
install process

6.  If your MBR becomes screwed, and nothing will boot on powerup, BLERK! -- a
copy of the original MBR and partition table is stored in /boot on your Linux
disk, and can be restored to hda by booting from your newly-created Linux
boot/rescue disk(s), then typing: 

cat /boot/boot.0300 > /dev/hda

BTW, to retore JUST the MBR, type:

dd if=/boot/boot.0300 of=/dev/hda bs=446 count=1 

OK, this probably won't be necessary, but here it is, just in case.
(Also, as a side-note, restoring the MBR using undocumented DOS fdisk 
parameters sometimes -- mostly in my experience --does not work)

7.  There will be a ton of documentation on the Red Hat install CD. I suggest
you browse the CD and use as much of it as you need. There are also many
online resources eg. http://www.linuxdoc.org/

> To what extent will Red Hat self install?
> 

Start by collecting information about the hardware you have eg. video
card make/model, NIC make/model (if you have one) IRQ's/memory I/O used by
devices etc -- get this info from Start->Setup->Control Panel->System under
Windows and either print it all out or write it down

Then, have some idea what you want to do with your Linux install, eg.
general internet/workstation, server etc

If you have these two in the bag, the install process is usually pretty
straight-forward. You may configure your new Linux system using linuxconf as
the root user.

> I also need to change modem as I currently only have a WinModem.  Will
> any external modem do, or are some better/more compatible than others ?
> 
> Any advice will be gratefully received.
> 

There has been some recent discussion about the relative merits of
various modems on the PLUG list. And also some discussion on setting up Linux 
to access the internet. There is a searchable archive of the list at:

http://www.cantech.net.au/plug/

All the best!
Steve