Well, I finally dropped about $200 for that new hard drive and I’m ready to install redhat 7.0. I don’t know how much info you guys need, but I have an HP PentiumIII, with 128 ram, a 30gig masterHD, and now a 60gig slave HD. I also have an nVida(?) Geforce video card.
Problem the first:
When I try to GUI install, it says the GUI couldn’t be loaded and to shoots me over to a text-based installation. I don’t have a problem doing a text-based install, but I don’t want this to be the beginning of a bigger problem.
Problem the second:
I want redhat to automatically partition my hard drive for me when I install it, but it doesn’t give me an option on which on to format/partition/install. I really would hate to lose the first 30HD when I went out and got a 60gigger just so I could put redhat on it. Anyways, so I tried to manually partition it, first with the redhat installation progi, and then with the western digital disk.
Some how, I saw 4 partitions (boot, root, and swap), then I didn’t like that, and now I’m back to 1? (I thought once you partitioned a HD, you couldn’t go back.
Anyways, I hope I’ve provided enough info. to get you guys started. If you need more, I’ll see what I can find. Thanks!
[sub]Please don’t let this turn into an OS battle![/sub]
It’s been a while since I’ve insalled Red Hat on my system (it’s no longer there) so I’m not sure how much help I’ll be but since nobody else has answered I’ll give it a shot.
Video: Sounds like Red Hat isn’t recognizing your NVidia card and is dropping into text mode. If this is the case you’ll probably need to download Nvidia drivers after you get everything installed and running. From what I’ve heard Nvidia is pretty good about linux drivers so you shouldn’t have a long term problem there but you’ll be stuck in text mode (i.e. command line) or maybe generic VGA mode which will not be pretty.
The drive issue: I assume you’re wanting to dual boot with Windows? It should let you pick where you want to install linux. Your first drive is gonna be /dev/HDA and the second will be /dev/HDB. If you’re not seeing a choice for HDB, linux isn’t seeing your second drive. If that’s the case, I’d abort installation and go see if Windows can see it (You’ll have to format it fat32 in windows for that to happen). As to partitioning in linux, you can probably get by with one big partition but it’s not optimal. If I remember correctly, partition the linux drive for 128 meg swap partition (equal amount to your RAM), 500 meg root, and split the rest of the drive between a /usr and /home partitions. After you’ve set them up, let it format them and you’re on your way. To enable dual boot you’ll want to let it install LiLO on your MBR - that’ll bring up a menu each time you turn the system on that allows you to chose which OS to boot.
If you have access to the net (from Windows) I would recommend downloading Mandrake Linux (http://www.linux-mandrake.com/en/). In my experience it’s got a much better setup than Red Hat as far as detecting hardware goes.