Newbie Question

[Brian Densmore]

> oooook, that looks all Greek to me
Sorry! Ok let me try again.
 
> Hopefully your CD was detected during install and this has 
> already been
> added for you. I haven't heard good things about all Phillips drives.
> 
> Once you have that in hand. open up /etc/lilo.conf in an editor
Open a file manager
open the "root" directory (that is "/" not "/root"). 
You can get there from your home directory by clicking on the ".."
directory twice.
then change to the "etc" directory. right click on the "lilo.conf" file 
and choose to open it in a text editor. It should be associated with at
least one. 
Look for a line that reads something like the one below:
> add the line:
> append="hdb=ide-scsi" for each "image" group you see

If it's there you have nothing to worry about. If not then you need to
explore why.

> 
> Ah! That I can help with. 
> 
> Find out what letter it is assigned in Linux.
All devices are found in the directory named "dev" (for the most part).
The harddrives are hd? for the most part.

> Something like "/dev/hdb". One way to find out is to open up 
> a terminal
> and type cat dmesg | less
option 1) 
  Oops typo (don't need cat for this). You run KDE? Gnome? Open up a
terminal 
  (an icon on your "taskbar" that looks like a computer monitor)
  at the prompt type "dmesg | less"
  don't use the quotes. 

  Attempted explanation of above cryptic line:
  cat is a text reader/writer (intentional oversimplification: don't
flame me)
  dmesg is a file that is recorded when the computer comes up. 
  It lists all the detected hardware. Very useful in troubleshooting.
  the "|" is a pipe the   vertical bar above the "" on the keyboard. 
  It feeds the output of the left side into the right side. 
  "less" is a scrollable viewer. 
  dmesg is also a program, to make it more confusing. 

option 2)
  The location of the file is in the /var/log subdirectory. 

  To find it from a file manager like konqueror you need to 
  go to the root directory (that is "/", not "/root"). 
  Then to the var directory then the log directory.

  The "/" is like the dos "" directory separator.

> or cat /etc/fstab.
You run KDE? Gnome? Open up a file manager. (file manager, Konqueror, or
Nautilus)
open up the root directory, then the etc directory, click on fstab.
This is the File System TABle, it lists all of the "known" mountable
"disk" devices.
(This is an oversimplification, but so what)

> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Rankin, James - KC [mailto:James.Rankin-KC at Gateway.com]
> > Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2002 12:06 PM
> > To: Brian Densmore
> > Subject: RE: Newbie Question
> > 
> > 
> > It's ok.  I'm not even sure if my Philips CD/RW will even be 
> > supported.
> > I've been reading linuxdoc.org and I guess I have to get my 
> > IDE drive to be
> > recognized as SCSI(?), so I don't know.  If nothing else, I'll be
> > triple-bootint it with Windows 98SE, and XP so if I can't get 
> > it to work
> > under Linux, I can still boot into Windows.
> > 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Brian Densmore [mailto:DensmoreB at ctbsonline.com]
> > Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2002 11:58 AM
> > To: Rankin, James - KC
> > Subject: RE: Newbie Question
> > 
> > 
> > I'm sorry. I hope I didn't offend you. Your question was really to
> > generic to give any useful response. Depending on what 
> > hardware you are
> > using, and what software you intend to use; you may need to 
> > do different
> > things to make it work. Some are easy some are not. I set mine up
> > several years ago and wound up writing my own scripts initially, but
> > later switched to Gnome's GUI CD writing interface 
> (gnome-toaster). I
> > seem to have broken my setup in my last upgrade and haven't 
> > reconfigured
> > it. I believe I need to separate my CD player from the 
> > current IDE bus.
> > 
> > Brian
> > 
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: Rankin, James - KC [mailto:James.Rankin-KC at Gateway.com]
> > > Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2002 11:40 AM
> > > To: Brian Densmore
> > > Subject: RE: Newbie Question
> > > 
> > > 
> > > Ok, great
> > > 
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: Brian Densmore [mailto:DensmoreB at ctbsonline.com]
> > > Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2002 11:30 AM
> > > To: Rankin, James - KC
> > > Subject: RE: Newbie Question
> > > 
> > > 
> > > > How does Linux handle writing CD's, or can it?
> > > Better than Windows. Yes.
> > > 
> > > Sorry, couldn't resist. 
> > > I haven't had any troubles. It can be difficult to set up 
> initially.
> > > 
> > > There are many tools out there to set it up. Text and 
> > > graphical. If you
> > > run into trouble, give a shout.
> > > 
> > > Brian
> > > 
> > 
>