Quote Originally Posted by fullmetalcoder
Thanks all of you! I'll try to do it!
Let me add two recommendations.

1) Don't use ext2. When it comes time to reformat the new partition on which you will install Linux select the ReiserFS. It is a journaling filing system that recovers from all sorts of errors without hardly a moments notice. I call it "self healing". I've been using it exclusively since it first appeared in SUSE 6.4. I used SUSE 6.4 in production for 18 months running a BBS system where taxpayers could download the status of their refunds. it preserved the file structure and data during several incidents of lightening, power failures, and UPS failures, even when those failures occured over the weekend when no one was around to "recover" the system. It would just restart, heal any file problems and continue on, unlike the Windows based WildCat BBS system it replaced. That system was so unreliable it was turned off after 5pm and on week ends because IT staff got tired of coming in after hours or on week ends to reboot, rebuild or reinstall. They tried replacing the the video cards, the HDs, even different versions of the OS and Wildcat, but they couldn't keep the BBS running reliably. SUSE 6.4 with the ReiserFS and KDE 1.0 ran for 18 months without unschedules downtimes, which was once a week for ghosting. The clerk who was responsible for it had no prior experience with Linux but said that using KDE 1.0 was no different than using Win95.

Unlike ext2 or its newer cousin, ext3, ReiserFS will not force an fsck if it encounters problems, it fixes them! What's the point of ext3 if it is going to throw you into an fsck when it encounters problems? YOU DON'T WANT to be fscking 30GB or larger HDs. You've got more important things to do with the rest of your WEEK.


2) My I suggest that you download SimplyMepis-3.4.3-rc4.iso and burn it onto a CD.
ftp://ftp-linux.cc.gatech.edu/pub/li...mepis/testing/

Don't let its "testing" status put you off. It's a solid release which I've already installed on 5 PCs, and upgraded them all to 3D accelereation and KDE 3.5.0.

MEPIS is a LiveCD that also allows for installation. It uses Synaptic as a front end to apt-get, which is a terrific tool for adding and removing files. Synaptic connects to several Debian repositories where the number of available files is now over 18,000 and climbing.