My Linux Switch
I finally finished uninstalling Linux I think over winter break. I have been going through an updating my web pages and noted that I never finished the saga. I can't remember what I did to finally remove the Grub loader, but it is gone. The important things is to not just delete the partition, because the the computer still looks for the dual boot, and if it is totally gone, that is bad.
After I removed the grub loader, I did just delete the linux partition and all was well again. Sorry I coulnd't be of more help.
Now that school has started (well like 9 weeks ago.) I have had no time to pursue my dream of running Linux. Normally I wouldn't have bothered uninstalling it, but I got sick of the dual boot screen (GRUB is the name of the program) because it defaulted to Linux after 5 seconds which does me zero good when I can't use Linux. So, I decided to get rid of it.
There is not way to "uninstall" and operating system. I figured the only way to accomplish this was to just get rid of the 4 or so partitions I installed Linux on. With the help of my good friend Alex, I determined that this could be accomplished using Windows Disk Manager. To get there:
Here, you can manage all of the partitions on your computer. I was able to get rid of the Linux partitions, and I thought I was done. My computer still worked and I thought I was living large.
I rebooted and then I had some trouble.
As mentioned above, Debian Linux uses a program called GRUB to be the dual boot manager. It seems to work well enough, but it is very difficult to get rid of. When I finally rebooted my computer after removing the Linux partitions, I got a message that said "GRUB error 17" or something like that. I was stumped. :(
Luckily I have two laptops sitting around the house that still worked. I went to Google and seached for the error I received. I discovered tbat I wasn't alone! GRUB had infested many other computers like the parasite that it is. What I eventually determined was that the answer to my problems was to...
I have been behind on updating my status.
On my main machine I am still running into issues with my monitor. I not had much success in fixing in. I have, after some difficulties, subscribed to the Debian Users list for help and have received some good advice. The most useful things I have learned so far is how to make my floppy drive work. In Linux you have to mount all of the drives manually, so I needed some help to do that. For those that might run into this problem in the future I have included the instructions here.
This was stupendously helpful advice.
I needed to do that so I could copy a log file over to Windows and e-mail in for help with the monitors. This has been moderately helpful so far. I haven't had the ambition to dig into the issue fully just yet. I tried a few times to reconfigure the xserver using "dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xfree86". Doing that I have tried several different drivers and several different resolutions.
So far the best advice I have gotten was to visit Andrew's Debian-nVidia HOWTO, but I haven't gone through all of that yet.
On my old Compaq computer that I keep in the living room, I have also installed Debian. It went just fine out there once I connected a wired ethernet card. Apparently the default Debian installed doesn't find a wireless card by itself. The best thing about the new installation in the living room is that I am using RealVNC. This is neat little free program that lets me control the little Compaq from any other computer. I have only tried it from computers that in my LAN, so I am not sure how well it will work from outside the LAN since my computer gets its IP from the DHCP server.
I do have two irritations with the VNC server. First, I am not sure how to make it start automatically at boot up so that I don't have to go over to it and start it. Second, when I use the VNC client to log into the Compaq,a pop window opens on the Debian desktop saying that someone is trying to log in. This is annoying because you have to hit allow on the Debian desktop. I would like to set on the Compaq without a monitor or a keyboard or mouse, and this is hard to when I have to manually start the server and click allow.
It is a small price to pay to be able to play MP3's on my stereo though that computer and control what track is playing from a different computer.
I need to follow the instructions given on Andrew's page to try to get my monitor working. I don't even really care if I get both monitors working at once at first, I just want the xserver to be working.
The install went okay, but I have encountered a hiccup. When I try to load the GUI interface in debia, xfree it says, "no screens found." This is bad. I have tried using different available drivers in the configuration program, but no luck so far. I have posted to debian help list, but no response yet.
I must say I was very sad with the debian IRC channel. I logged into it and asked my question and no one even acknowledged my presence. I found this to be very rude.
Hopefully soon an answer will present itself. For now, though I am not using Linux.
After reading more information on the KNOPPIX site, I have learned that KNOPPIX should not be installed on a hard drive, and that it is designed best to run as a Live CD. KNOPPIX says that I should run Debian GNU/Linux as my OS. So, that is now my quest.
I am keeping a running list of the programs now.
For no particular reason, I have decided to make the switch to Linux. I want to try it out, though I have many reservation given my years of Microsoft use. I have nothing against MS personally. I would however like to support the open source world, and I figure the more users of Linux there are the more support they will have. To begin the switch I had to figure what version of linux to run, as there are several. Distro Watch was very helpful for this. They track all of the major and minot Linux distros and provide links to get the software.
I started by using Live CDs as a trial. A Live CD is a bootable CD you can put in your computer and when it boots up, you are running Linux. When you are done, you reboot, take the CD out and you are back in Windows, and nothing is left on your hard drive. Very useful if you want to play around or if you want to demo for someone what Linux is and what it can do.
I used the KNOPPIX Live CD and the MEPIS Live CD. Between these two I chose to install KNOPPIX because from the reviews I read it is more mature than MEPIS. Both run the same desktop, KDE, and both come with a ton of free software with the package.
I want to try to do this in a slow controlled process, the next decision I have to make is what software I am going to run on my Linux desktop. I have decided to make a list.
To begin this list I am going to try to make a list of all of the major things I do or need to have on my computer on a regular basis and then try to find the best program to run to accomplish these tasks.
Those are the major things I can think of now. I already have a lot of software that I use in Windows that I know has an Linux version of the same thing, so that will be easy enough. For the rest I will check mailing lists and Google for the answer.
Last updated 9 June 2006.
