Sometime back I had Mepis linux on my box, and I liked it ok. Nevertheless I got frustrated with Linux because I couldn't play my Windows games on it. I had a dual boot system. I am considering playing around with Linux again and will have a dual boot system again. My wife has a program at school that she uses and I don't know if it will run on Linux. So I will have my Windows games on one hard drive and her program on the same.

I have one main concern with going to Linux. I download some stuff occassionally and I use e-mule for this. Will I still be able to do this with Linux, and will I still be able to play my movies, and mp3's in Linux. Actually some of the stuff I listen to is MPC. What if any are the limitations? Also I forgot, can Linux unpack .rar files?

Also, since that time I am sure that the distros have changed. Can someone offer me a tip on which distro will be best for me? I may also eventually use something to record some of my guitar playing as well. The games will be played through Windows, I want my music and movies to go through Linux, as well as some database, spreadsheet and wordprocessing functions. That is an easy one, I'll just use Open Office. Do Linux drives ever need defragging?

One other thing. I've noticed that my hard drives (both) do not seem to report the full space that they supposedly are. Is there a way to repartition them and get back the lost space? I think I am missing something like 20 Gig on one of them and I had Linux on that one before. I've tried just about everything that I can think of including using an old Windows 98 CD with fdisk on it and trying to delete the non-dos partition. It didn't work. I even tried with a free version(not illegal) of Partition Magic or Partion Magic like program that I had downloaded.

i'm still using a dual boot with mepis 6. mepis 6.5 has been released recently. for more mepis linux info goto http://mepislovers.org

linux drives do not need defragging, the ext file system is very tidy :) .
i'm not sure about your missing space. 20 gig is a lot to lose. again, try the link above.

I have one main concern with going to Linux. I download some stuff occassionally and I use e-mule for this. Will I still be able to do this with Linux, and will I still be able to play my movies, and mp3's in Linux. Actually some of the stuff I listen to is MPC. What if any are the limitations? Also I forgot, can Linux unpack .rar files?
You can do all these in Linux
- eMule: I recommend aMule
- Movies: You have three good choices here: MPlayer, Xine and VLC
- Music: XMMS

Also, since that time I am sure that the distros have changed. Can someone offer me a tip on which distro will be best for me?
Ubuntu is the most user-friendly distro out there. You can find some reviews here: http://www.linuxquestions.org/reviews

One other thing. I've noticed that my hard drives (both) do not seem to report the full space that they supposedly are. Is there a way to repartition them and get back the lost space? I think I am missing something like 20 Gig on one of them and I had Linux on that one before. I've tried just about everything that I can think of including using an old Windows 98 CD with fdisk on it and trying to delete the non-dos partition. It didn't work. I even tried with a free version(not illegal) of Partition Magic or Partion Magic like program that I had downloaded.
Are you talking about the 137gb LBA limitation?

Are you talking about the 137gb LBA limitation?

No, my drives are formatted NTFS. I was wondering though if I purchased Partition Magic or something like it if it would do the job? I really can't understand where the space on my HD went.

Ubuntu is the most user-friendly distro out there. You can find some reviews here: http://www.linuxquestions.org/reviews

Ubuntu is the most advertised distro out there. ;)

My personal recommendation would be PCLinuxOS (http://www.pclinuxos.com/index.php). Probably the best distro out there. But then, a distro is a personal thing. You really need to try several to see what you like best. Many people swear by ubuntu. Many more swear *at* it. The same can be said for any distro. To each his own.

As for the missing space, if you had Linux on that drive before, and deleted it, Windows will not automatically pick up that "free" space. Check with a Live-CD (PCLinuxOS, Ubuntu, Knoppix, etc.) and see if they register that space, either as a linux filesystem, or as free space. If they can't see it, you may have to totally repartition and reformat your drive.

I have no choice at this point, I am going to have to repartion and format both of my hard drives anyway. I am thinking that I might be better off picking up a disk manager software like Acronis, which is also a boot manager, because fdisk on my Windows 98 CD won't do the trick on the size of my hard drives.

I am having trouble with my XP setup. I get error message ntldr missing. Repartitioning and reinstalling may be the only way I can go.

I will try out PCLinuxOS, hope it sees all my hardware. I got a new video card.
ATI Radeo 1950XT PCIe. This video card screams. Too bad my system won't allow crossfire.

To Padma: If I remember correctly you were using Mandriva when we last communicated. Have you switched over to PCLinuxOS?

I have no choice at this point, I am going to have to repartion and format both of my hard drives anyway. I am thinking that I might be better off picking up a disk manager software like Acronis, which is also a boot manager, because fdisk on my Windows 98 CD won't do the trick on the size of my hard drives.
You could try using nearly any Live-CD, as most have either QTParted (a Partition Magic look-alike) or GParted (a different partition tool), or even the GParted Live-CD (http://gparted.sourceforge.net/livecd.php). Any should be able to repartition/reformat for you.
I am having trouble with my XP setup. I get error message ntldr missing. Repartitioning and reinstalling may be the only way I can go.If the NTLDR is missing, you *might* be able to fix it with your WinXP install CD. I don't remember the exact command, but I think it's something like "fixmbr".
will try out PCLinuxOS, hope it sees all my hardware. I got a new video card.
ATI Radeo 1950XT PCIe. This video card screams. Too bad my system won't allow crossfire.PCLinuxOS has some of the best hardware detection around. :)
To Padma: If I remember correctly you were using Mandriva when we last communicated. Have you switched over to PCLinuxOS?

Yes, indeed. Mandriva 2007 was giving me some irritating problems. Nothing serious, or even unfixable, just stuff I didn't feel like dealing with. So I did a little "distro-hopping". I quickly found (and settled on) PCLinuxOS. PCLinuxOS is the project of Texstar, who was probably the best Mandrake 3rd-party packager back in the "old days". He saw where Mandrake/Mandriva was heading, and forked PCLinuxOS off from MDK-9.2. It is now a separate distro, although still loosely based on Mandriva.

IMHO, PCLinuxOS is simply the best distro out there. And yesterday they released Version 2007-Final. (We've had test releases (kinda like Release Candidates for other distros) for the last five months.) But the move to the new libc / gcc compiler is complete, and we can look forward to hassle-free upgrades for the next several years! :D

I am going to go ahead and get Acronis Disk Director Suite. I am afraid of using the partition managers that come with Linux. Just don't feel comfortable with it.

The way to fix the missing ntldr is (assuming the CDROM drive is e:)

copy e:\i386\ntldr c:\
copy e:\i386\ntdetect.com c:\

I tried that, and I got an error message something to the effect that I am not authorized to do that, even though I was signed in as Administrator.

To bad I couldn't do like in the old days.-- Sys C: and press enter.

If time allows, I will get PCLinuxOS tonight and install.

No problem. Use what you're comfortable with. :)

(And the administrator thing is one of the things I don't like about Windows....)

And I'm downloading PCLOS 2007-final via bittorrent as we speak (type?).

I started downloading it just a second ago. Gotta hit the sack. I work days now, so I won't get to install it until tomorrow night. No matter what I tried I still couldn't get Windows to boot on it's own. :mad: But that Acronis really works well.

Question for you on the PCLOS. I noticed that it doesn't ship with the Win32 codes or DVD Decryption software. Is this going to be much of a problem, and if so is there a work around? I intend to use Linux for just about everything but playing Windows games. My experience with Cedega last time was horrible and I don't want to go through the hassle again. I will probably be doing some database management, and also listening to a lot of music, and watching DVD's or video files.

Also, I know it's a bit late, in fact waaay late, but congrats on the 1st Lt.

Win32 Codecs can be found here
http://www.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/releases/codecs

The Ubuntu Linux distro with Cedega 6 is a very good base for running most Windows based games including Civ IV vanilla and Warlords. But that's just part of it, Ubuntu does a very good job at a lot of other things you use your PC for on a daily base.

My install still is dual but with a small XP and I hardly ever boot it. If you install Ubuntu also install Automatix which gives you a lot of codecs and video drivers. Iirc lots of distributions don't include codecs because of fear of potential legal issues in some countries but I don't know an example of an actual one.

There are a lot of distros out there and I've tryed a couple of them before Ubuntu catched me (and I hate advertising), I guess main reason was with the great support from the Ubuntu community I could make almost everything work very will with Ubuntu. Given Padma's enthousiasm about PCLinux I guess that's a nice distro as well but I can't speak from experience there.

I feel real stupid here, and don't really know where to turn to research this. I found Linux Tracker and found that they have PCLOS. But I don't have any idea how to do this, or how to download a CD image file. I really don't want to spend any money trying to get it if I don't have to.

It appears I solved part of the problem.

Using Bit torrent downloaded Azureus, and I am downloading the ISO as I type. However, I will still have to figure out how to burn it to CD. I have Nero, but if something else is simpler by all means, please advise.

Ignore most of the above. I got the image downloaded ok. I am trying to burn it with Nero, but I got a message saying something to the effect that there was not enough space to burn the image unless I finalized the disc after burning. I did that I hope it works.
Padma: How did it work for you last night?

It looks like it worked great for me. I am burning the CD image now. (Between work and babysitting grandkids, I haven't had a chance to get on my computer since last night...)

And the Win32 codecs and DVD decss are in the repositories. There are legal reasons they can't be in the main download. But just fire up synaptic, select them, and away you go! :D

Edit: And the PCLinuxOS forums are the friendliest forums I've seen. ;)

:D Hooray, I got the live CD burned, not thanks to Nero. I did a search on the internet and found a way that I could burn it through Windows. The first time I tried it didn't work, but I slowed the burn down to 8 instead of 10 and it worked out great.

As a matter of fact I am typing this from PCLinuxOS right now.

Getting ready to install it to my hard disk. Hope it works.:)

Didn't work last night. Couldn't boot windows afterward, but figured it had to do with the NTLDR problem that I didn't get solved. Well, I repartitioned and installed XP and it works.

The question I have now is where do I put Linux where it will work best for me? I have one 200 gig hard drive and the other is 250 gig. I want to use Windows for windows games. Linux for all of my other computing needs. Music and video are huge for me. I will probably store a lot of my CD's on my computer. (is something lossless like MPC or APE better to use than MP3?), I also am interested in possibly doing some recording or my guitar playing to the computer. Is this feasible with Linux?

Keep Windows on hda, put Linux on hdb using partitioning it something like this:

hda1 swap (1 gig or less)
hda2 /boot (1 gig or less)
hda3 / (20 to 50 gigs)
hda4 /home (Whatever is left)

This of course assumes you have ide drives. It will be sda, sdb if sata but newer kernels are blurring the distinctions. Swap really isn't needed if you have more than a couple gigs of ram and can be a security risk but some distros insist on it. For convenience, you may also consider creating a vfat partition on the Windows drive to transfer files between the two systems. Grub should be installed to the Master boot record of hda.

As to multimedia, vlc and mplayer play just about anything as long as the codecs are there. Avidemux is a pretty good front end to making and encoding videos and Audacity should get you started for sound editing.

I was gonna ask about PCLOS2k7. A coworker of mine goes on and on about how great it is. I haven't played with it much. I've got a spare 30 gig hd at home, and I might throw PCLOS2k7 on it and play around.

Padma - Got a link for the PCLOS2k7 forums?

PCLinuxOS Forums (http://www.pclinuxos.com/index.php). :D

You can download PCLOS from a link near the top of the page.

I just installed PCLOS-2007 (final), and am totally thrilled. It recognized all my hardware, and installed the appropriate drivers, including my new HP w1907 wide-screen monitor. :woohoo:

Cool, thanks.

You know, you should probably test that wide screen on multiple platforms. Just ship it down here to me and I'll work on it...

I've got an install disc for it, and I won't be d/ling it again. 700mb more than once....nah....I'll pass on that. ;)

I think I finally got everything up and running. Now I just have to learn to use it.

Edit:
Yep, got everything installed now, both Windows and Linux work as they are supposed to. I will have to change my screen resolution in Linux, and check to see which driver is installed for my video card. Where do I look to find that information?

Also, are there any tips any of you can send my way to help keep me from breaking my Linux install?

And should I break my Linux install, is there a way to easily delete it and re-install? I know Mepis was pretty easy in that regard, but it has been so long since I have even looked at Linux I forgot what I did.

One other question. I have heard that Firefox has become full of holes under Windows and that IE7 is the best way to go in Windows. But what about Linux? Suggestion on browsers?

I think I finally got everything up and running. Now I just have to learn to use it.

Edit:
Yep, got everything installed now, both Windows and Linux work as they are supposed to. I will have to change my screen resolution in Linux, and check to see which driver is installed for my video card. Where do I look to find that information?

Also, are there any tips any of you can send my way to help keep me from breaking my Linux install?

And should I break my Linux install, is there a way to easily delete it and re-install? I know Mepis was pretty easy in that regard, but it has been so long since I have even looked at Linux I forgot what I did.

One other question. I have heard that Firefox has become full of holes under Windows and that IE7 is the best way to go in Windows. But what about Linux? Suggestion on browsers?
Number one for not breaking your install: Don't run as root. Be sure you have a user-level account for your normal use. Those apps that require root access (e.g., PCLinuxOS Control Center) will request your password. To do other things, you can always open a terminal window, and type "su<return><root password>", and access it from the command line.

Otherwise, if you restrict yourself to installing only apps from the PCLOS Repositories, via Synaptic, you shouldn't break anything.

And if you do hose things so badly you need to reinstall, just insert the Live-CD, boot the system, and re-install. :)

As for a browser, the PCLOS default is Firefox. Works great. Or you can try Opera. It is in the repos.

As for your video card problem, make sure you have the "ati-dkms" package installed from Synaptic. (Might require a reboot.) Make a copy of your current /etc/X11/xorg.conf file just in case it doesn't work right, though. See this thread at PCLOS forum (http://www.pclinuxos.com/index.php?option=com_smf&Itemid=58&topic=23816.0), for more help. (The folks there know this stuff way better than I do, and are usually pretty willing to help. They're also commonly as old as we are! :eek: )

So, if I understand your post correctly, I go through Synaptic and look for anything that has to do with my video card and download and install it?

Also, I have a new sound card which it appears Linux has no drivers for it. I have on board sound, but I can't seem to get any sound anymore. The new card is a Sound Blaster X-Fi, the one for gaming.

Edit:
Well, I broke it already. Tried to install drivers and I am now at a black screen with lots or writing on it. How can I get back to where I started or do I have to reinstall. That screen, I think is basically telling me it didn't like what I did to it, and is asking me to log in.

Okay, that's just init level 3, the multi-user interface without a GUI desktop.

Log in, and try the command "startx", which will start the desktop, if it can. If it doesn't work, copy your backup of the xorg.conf back to /etc/X11/xorg.conf, overwriting the current one, and try rebooting. (You *did* make a backup of xorg.conf, right?) That will get you back to where you were before you made changes.

On the back up. Well um, honestly, um, no. I didn't know how. But a bigger problem for me now is sound. I can't even get the live CD to recognize my on board sound. It appears that there is no driver for my new sound card (sound blaster X-fi extreme gamer), and probably never will be for Linux, because Creative is very much in bed with MS. This sound card really made a huge difference.

Edit.
OK, I've re-installed. Sound still doesn't work, yet. I don't even know how to open my CD drive. Before I do anything, yes I want to back up that file and install my printer so that I can print some stuff that I read.

The other thing about Linux that I like, is that the Desktop looks better than Windows does. At least it does to me. I don't know whether it's the colors are sharper or what? The font is different? I don't know, it just looks cleaner.

As far as In understand your main issue is with sound atm? Best option is to post a question at the PCLinux forums Padma gave you a link to and see if some of the experienced guys got a solution. You're right Creative (not just them) are in bed with MS, nevetheless the Linux community most of the time if not always are able to find a solution.

One of the things that helped me getting the right drivers for my nVidia in Ubuntu is Automatix. Since PClinux also is deb based I guess it should work there as well. Just Google Automatix and you'll find it.

Iirc fonts in Gnome distros are antialiased so that's the reason they look better.

On a side note: a friend of mine installed Ubuntu 6.0.6 on his very new box and it didn't recognize his very new wireless LAN. After an upgrade to the latest Ubuntu release (7.0.4) iirc everything was sorted pretty well except for his Lexmark printer but this brand is notorious in Linux in general.

Yeah it seems that X-Fi is not supported
http://www.alsa-project.org/alsa-doc/index.php?vendor=vendor-Creative_Labs

Since PClinux also is deb based
It's rpm based

Well, I have been hanging around alot at pclos forums. I have my Linux box up and running ok now. My on-board sound card is working in Linux. X-fi is not supported and probably never will be. That is a huge sacrifice for me because I am very particular about my sound.

One question that I asked over there, but haven't got an answer for though, is I understand that the Audigy 2 card is supported. The question that I asked is, if I bought and installed an Audigy 2 card, a.) Would it give me significantly better sound than on-board. PCLOS, sees my onboard sound as Intel, but the drivers are C-media. and b.) Can I also install it along side my X-fi card or will they conflict with each other?