I already have WinXP Pro installed in my machine which has one 80GB hard disk. The disk has 4 partitions - C:, D:, E: & F:. C: is the System partition but WinXP is installed in the D: drive i.e. D: is the Boot partition. Today I installed Mandrake Linux 8.2 in E:. During the instalation process, the setup asked me for the Mandrake Linux 8.2 CD2 & CD3 which I didn't have (it was only when the setup asked me for CD2 & CD3 did I realize that those 2 CDs are also needed). However the setup didn't abort due to this & the installation went off smoothly. All I was told (when I was asked to insert the 2 CDs in the CD-ROM drive) is that if I don't have the 2 CDs, then just press the 'Cancel' button to proceed with the installation. At the end, the setup also showed a message saying that Linux has been installed successfully. Now when I boot my machine, I get the following 5 options to boot from: linux linux - nonfb failsafe windows floppy When I select linux or linux - nonfb, Linux does a series of successful checks (like hardware config, drives etc.) after which I am told to enter my login name & password (which I configured during the installation process). After entering the correct login & password, all I get to see on the screen is this: Last Login: 13/08/2007 4:34:29 PM on vc/5 [ronnie@localhost ronnie]$ where ronnie is the login name. After this, nothing happens. I don't see the Linux GUI & the programs I had selected during the installation process. Can someone please tell me how do I get to see the Linux GUI with all the programs? Is the non-availability of CD2 & CD3 the cause of this? Please note that during the installation process, the setup didn't generate any errors, of course, except for the 2 CDs goof-up. Thanks, Ron A FEW DAYS BACK, I READ THAT SMOKING IS INJURIOUS TO HEALTH. SINCE THEN I HAVE STOPPED..........READING!!

First, you do have a successful Linux installation because it boots up and you are able to log in. There are many instances where the GUI is not an essential part of a Linux installation (e.g: in a server environment). More importantly, you have installed a very old release of Linux-Mandrake which is far past its end of life for security patch support. Linux-Mandrake (now Mandriva Linux) is released about two times a year. Since 8.2, 9.0, 9.1, 9.2, 10.0, 10.1, 10.2 (a.k.a. Mandriva Linux 2005LE), 2006, 2007.0, and 2007.1 (Spring) have been released. If you are able, you should download and install the current release - Mandriva Linux 2007.1 (Spring). It is available as an iso image for an installation DVD, or a Live CD (Mandriva One). To answer your question, I believe the missing 2nd and 3rd CDs may be why the GUI will not start (and may not be installed). To check, log in and run the following command: startx If the GUI software installed successfully, this command will start it. If the startx command is not found, or fails, you will need the other disks (or better still, get a newer release). HTH, Ernie Registered Linux User 247790 ICQ 41060744

Thanks, Ernie, for your response. I typed startx after logging in using my login name & password & this is what I was shown: --------------- xauth: creating new authority file /home/ronnie/.Xauthority xauth: creating new authority file /home/ronnie/.Xauthority execve failed for /etc/X11/X (errno 2) giving up. xinit: No such file or directory (errno 2): Unable to connect to X server. xinit: No such process (errno 3): Server error. [ronnie@localhost.ronnie]$ --------------- You have also recommended me to get a newer release. If I am not mistaken, you are referring to Mandriva Linux 2007.1 (Spring). Can it be downloaded from some site (I don't have any CD)? If yes, can you suggest any URLs from it can be downloaded? Thanks once again for your suggestions, Regards, Ron A FEW DAYS BACK, I READ THAT SMOKING IS INJURIOUS TO HEALTH. SINCE THEN I HAVE STOPPED..........READING!!

Ernie, today I installed Debian 2.2 as well (& this time I had all the 3 CDs) but after installing it, I still don't get to see the GUI & the programs I chose to install during the setup process. As in case of Mandrake, here too I am asked for login name & password & after entering the correct login & password, all I get to see is this: ---- ronnie@RONNIE:~$ ---- Moreover, during the setup process, I had said that I want Debian to load from the hard disk (& not from the boot floppy which I was told to create during installation) but if I boot from the hard disk, then WinXP starts automatically. Moreover unlike Mandrake, which used to give me 5 options to choose from including WinXP at start-up (as stated in my very first post), Debian doesn't even give me any such options. Note that Debian starts only if I set the first booting device (in the BIOS) to Floppy with the boot floppy inside the floppy drive but, as already mentioned, above, I don't get to see the GUI after entering my login name & password. Any idea what could be causing this & how do I make Debian display the GUI? Thanks once again, Regards, Ron A FEW DAYS BACK, I READ THAT SMOKING IS INJURIOUS TO HEALTH. SINCE THEN I HAVE STOPPED..........READING!!

If I understand the situation correctly, Debian has installed the Linux boot loader on a floppy disk, not to the MBR. If you want to get a menu at boot time from which to select the OS to start, the boot loader must be installed to the MBR. If you want to make learning Linux easier, you could install a virtual machine and install the various Linux distributions to the vm. I use Virtual Box here to run Windows XP under Mandriva Linux. There is a version for Windows XP hosts as well, and Virtual Box is free for personal use. To be completely honest, if you decide to try this, you will get better results if you increase your system RAM to at least 1GB. I have 512 MB RAM here, and Windows XP runs a bit slow in the vm. More RAM will cure that for me :). If you choose to stick with Debian installed to your hard drive, I believe Grub is the boot loader. I am unfamiliar with Grub so I will not be of much help with it. Perhaps some one else can help you get Grub installed to your MBR. Good Luck, Ernie Registered Linux User 247790 ICQ 41060744

Thanks once again for your suggestions, Ernie. As you suggested, I went to the Virtual Box download page (at http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Down... but to be honest, couldn't determine which Virtual Box to download. Did you suggest installing ONLY Virtual Box or Virtual Box OSE? If it's the former, then under the heading "VirtualBox binaries", there are several options. Which one should I go for? VirtualBox 1.4.0 for Windows Hosts? Also you have said that you use Virtual Box to run Windows XP under Mandriva Linux. What do you mean by that? Does your machine give you the option of the 2 OS's (WinXP & Mandriva) when your machine boots so that you can select which OS you would want to log into? Right now, I am downloading Mandriva (whose size is a woeful 4.3GB) using BitTorrent. What do I do after that? Just open the torrent file in WinXP after the download finishes? Moreover, BitTorrent says that it will take about 25 days to complete the download! Will it indeed take so many days to download Mandriva (my Internet speed is somewhere between 9-10kbps practically but BitTorrent indicates that the "Down rate" is 2-3kbps)? Lastly now that I have decided to adhere to your suggestion of installing Mandriva, how do I uninstall Mandrake & Debian? Will just deleting the partitions from the WinXP Disk Management (right-click My Computer-->Manage-->Disk Management) automatically uninstall Mandrake & Debian (the partitions were created during the installation setup)? You might find some of my queries childish since my knowledge in Linux is highly limited. This is the first time I am trying to use Linux. So please excuse me for the childish questions. Thanks once again, Regards, Ron A FEW DAYS BACK, I READ THAT SMOKING IS INJURIOUS TO HEALTH. SINCE THEN I HAVE STOPPED..........READING!!

If you have a fast computer (1.5 Ghz or better) with enough memory (1 GB RAM or more), enough video RAM (at least 64 MB), and enough hard disk space (10 GB or more), you can install VirtualBox in Windows, then install Linux in a VirtualBox vm. When you want to run Linux, you simply start VirtualBox and direct it to start Linux. For this, you would install VirtualBox 1.4.0 for Windows Hosts. VirtualBox is a program that lets you create a virtual computer (a computer simulation). To do this, you configure VirtualBox (in a wizard) to make a virtual computer to run Linux. You tell it how much of your real computer's physical and video RAM the vm should use, and how large the virtual hard drive should be. The virtual hard drive will exist in a file on your real hard drive, and can be dynamic (will occupy space used up to the allocated limit) or fixed (will fully occupy the allocated space) in size. Using a virtual machine is not a dual boot. When you start Linux, Windows will be running. You can run Linux in a window on your desktop, or you can switch to a full screen mode. The advantage is that you can try out Linux and see if you think it is worth the bother without any risk to your Windows installation or your existing system configuration. The main drawbacks are that you share your system resources with the vm so it will not run as fast as if it was the only OS running. Mandriva Linux is my everyday production OS. I have a small technical support side business here supporting Windows users. When I first started using linux (about 1998), I ran a dual boot configuration. Live CDs were not yet available and vm's were not practical. By the time Live CDs became popular, I had already made the move to Mandriva Linux as my primary production OS. When I found VirtualBox, I decided to put Windows in a vm to avoid the need to reboot when I had to use Windows in my work. I did not know your Internet connection speed was limited, but I should have considered that possibility. Downloading with BitTorrent will be slow on such a connection. Does your local library have a fast Internet connection (or perhaps a friend)? You would do better to get the Mandriva One CD image (an .iso file) rather than the DVD installation image because it will be much smaller (about 700MB for the CD image vs. more than 4GB for the DVD image). IIRC, the Mandriva One image is named mandriva-linux-2007-spring-one-KDE-cdrom-i586.iso and can be downloaded from any Mandriva ftp mirror. I use this mirror here. As for uninstalling Mandrake 8.x or Debian, did you install Debian in new partition(s) or to the same one(s) you used for Mandrake 8? If the Debian installation used the existing Linux partitions, Mandrake 8 has been overwritten by Debian and when you install Mandriva you should be able to use the existing Linux partitions again so Mandriva will overwrite Debian. If you installed Debian in its own partition(s) (along side Mandrake), then you should delete any Linux partitions before installing Mandriva, then install Mandriva in the empty space. The Mandriva One CD is a Live CD so you can boot from the CD to Mandriva Linux without installation, then run MCC > Mount Points > Create, Delete and resize hard disk partitions to remove the Linux partitions. After the partitions have been removed you can start the installer to put Mandriva on your hard disk. If you decide to put Mandriva in a VirtualBox vm, you can simply remove the Linux partitions from your hard drive using MCC on the Live CD, then either resize your Windows partition to fill the drive, or create a new Windows partition in the space the Linux partition(s) used to occupy. If you decide to install Mandriva Linux as a dual boot to your hard drive, simply boot your computer from the Mandriva One Live CD, use MCC to remove Linux partitions if needed, then install Mandriva using the live install icon on the desktop. HTH, Ernie Registered Linux User 247790 ICQ 41060744