shanenin

I just picked up a computer that is about 5 years old. does the limit of 137 gb have anything to do with the OS(a windows problem?), or is this just to do with the bios. I do plan on running linux on it.

If a person chooses to install vidalinux, they can choose bianaries that are compiled directly for their processesor. In my case, my base system, kernel, and gnome are all compiled to run best for an athlon xp type processor; that seams very optimized. In all honesty, I dought those optimizations over a i386 optimized system are a whole lot faster for daya to day use. Slackware is only i368 optimized and it seems to be a very fast distro(no benchmarks to back that up). So basically, the only good part of VidaLinux is portage (which they did not code) which compiles everything on demand which

the info iccaros gave you is more universal and should work on any linux distro(it is good to know) . If you want your setting to be global instead for just one user. You can follow the directions that are given in /etc/rc.conf. This might be more gentoo specific. modifing you xinitrc(like iccaros said), is probably a more universal solution.

you should look at the config file /etc/rc.conf you can uncomment the line so startx will run kde XSESSION="kde-3.2.3" you need to have the exact version of kde you are running. The next time you use the command startx it should start kde. If you want X to start automatically you need to add xdm to you init scripts. You can use the command rc-update to do this for you rc-update add xdm default make sure you edit you /etc/rc.conf file to use kdm as you windows manager(it looks nice), it may use xdm by defualt DISPLAYMANAGER="kdm"

When I use the command ls -s with all of my linux systems I get permissions of 777 for the link. In my bsd system(using bash) when I make a sybolic link I get permissions of 755, is this normal? I have installed bash, but do not have a .bashrc, .bash_profile, or /etc/profile file to set parameters. Does that seem like the problem?

The first time I went thru the install I chose yes to ipv6 support(I to did not understand the question). If you choose that it does not offer to set up using DHCP. My understanding that ipv6 support is new and not fully implemnted yet.

I chose no to ipv6, then yes to dhcp. If I remeber corectly you have a router that acts as a dhcp server, if so you want to choose yes to "Do you want to try DHCP configuration of the interface?"

My router acts as a dhcp server(correct term?) It gives out addresses to all of my computers that are plugged into it. I have a one windows, one linux, and one bsd box, all plugged into my router. All of my operating systems are set to use dhcp. I pretty much choose "use dhcp" to set up my network. I did not have to do anything other then choose "use dhcp" to set up the network for BSD to run. Networking is my weak area, I am glad the dhcp sets everything up for me.

I am really enjoying this system. Just today I blew out my gentoo(main) install to make more room for BSD. I am goig to make BSD my main install for a while. With the other space on my drive, I am going to experiment with using portage on some different distros. edit /added later what kind of uses do you need it for? Stuff that linux can't do, or just stuff you would prefer to do with BSD?

I know there is documentation about installing portage on another system. I wonder how hard it would be to install portage on slackware. Their would be no advantage to that over an all gentoo system, but it would be a fun learning experience. I am sure the gentoo docs are very noob freindly, I might just give it a try.

yup FreeBSD-5.3 . I had a pretty easy time with it(hardware was compatible with the default kernel), everything went smooth like it was supposed to. It took three installs to do it correctly. Setting up my sound was surpisingly easy. I just had to load one module kldload snd_via8233 FreeBSD uses ports(what gentoos portage is based on), it is makeing software installation a dream, everything has installed smoothly. BSD is different in a lot of ways(from linux), so it is interesting. It is similar enough that things are not to hard to figure out. Linux seems a little more polished for the deskt

Here is my new beautifully working BSD sytem. I will enjoy it today, because in a few days I will probably break something :-)

it configures the same way gentoo does. I just had to run the program alsaconfig, that allowed my to choose my audiocard(onboard via chipset). Then alsamixer, to turn up the volume. It was very easy. edit/added later what review, madpenguins? It set up my network automatically. I do not think you would have any problem.

if you go the vidalinux(has portage) route, you will have a fully compiled system with X and gnome, plus some software after a few minutes. It is like a stage three gentoo sytem plus gnome. It uses anaconda, so the install is quick and easy. The only thing you would need to compile would be KDE, that is assuming you would like it.

slackware is a great distro if you want to compile stuff by hand. It seems to have all of the needed libraries in standard places(unlike fedora). The biggest negative to slackware is a good package manager. I know it has slap-get, but i am not sure how reliable it is. To me a good easy reliable way to install software is important. Slackware uses bsd init scripts which to me are more complicated then system V scripts like most linux distros use, that may not be an issue. Fedoras biggest advantage over slackware its is package manager, YUM. YUM seems like a very reliable and easy way to install

That is cool, I might have to install that.

I appreciate all of your patience. I am still a little unsure on this point. If a system uses an initrd.img, does it load its modules from the initrd.img(only) or does it still load them from the root partition. If it is the latter, and still loads them from the root partition, wouldn't those modules need to be updated along with the kernel update. Sorry if you already answered this question, I probably just missed it. Thanks again for your help.

ya that seems to clear it up(kind of). if you are building a distro, won't you know where your root partition is? if you update the kernel and initrd.img, wouldn't you still need to update your module directory on your root partiton? NOT TRYING TO ARGUE, just trying to understand :-)

is their any real advantage to using an initrd.ing? So long as your boot and root partitions have file system support built directly into the kernel, why would it be needed? So many distros use one, so their must be other advantages I am not seeing.

you can install kde with one command emerge kde this will start the process of compiling about 80 programs from source code. On my athlon xp 2000 system with 512mb of ram this will take about 12 hours. If your system is slower or faster, adjust accordingly.

I switch back and forth between KDE and Gnome, I am currently running gnome. Kde was acting kind of buggy for me, so I switched back to gnome. The one thing I miss from kde is the klipper(clipboard). It would allow you to copy multiple items , then choose which one you want to paste. I have not found anything like that in gnome, but I have not really looked.

they do have a commercial version, but also a free version. They are identical, the only differnece is the free version does not have a couple of programs installed by default. The free version comes with mozilla, not firefox. Firefox is easy to install, one commandl emerge mozilla-firefox The paid version comes with the "startbar" by default, with the free version you just need to install it, again one easy command ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="~x86" emerge gdesklets-startbar" then you just need to add what programs you want on it. Below is a link to my desktop using the startbar http://webpages.charter

here is my polished desktop. It is not very original. I just installed gdesklets, so I used them to the fullest. Also, the eterm is only used for screen shots, I find it impractical to use a transpartent shell, but looks cool. http://webpages.charter.net/lindbergfamily/Screenshot.png

thanks for the welcome :-)

is this the same version I tried? Did you fully remove the harddrive installer, or just not reccomend people use it?