danleff

I have the exact same motherboard. Try this. Change the Windows boot lines in grub to read something like; title Windows XP map (hd0) (hd1) map (hd1) (hd0) chainloader (hd,0)+1 You can do this from the grub boot screen, by pressing the "e" key on the keyboard after highlighting the Windows title line. You should see the total lines for Windows. You can add the map lines and edit the others by following the underscored directions. Push the return key to accept your changes on any given line. When you finish making the alterations that you need, hit the "b" key, which should try to boot the changes that you made. This way, you make the changes temporary to see how they work. Once you get the correct sequence that works, then you can add them to the /boot/grub/menu.lst file.

Allow me to ask some questions. I don't know much about raid arrays, but what I do know, is that Linux and Windows handle things a bit differently. Quote: I did do the install with my bios set to boot order of cdrom then ide drive then serial drive and did not change that order and no improvement. What was the bios boot order when you had the pure raid array booting on the sata drives for Windows? Why do I ask? You noted; Quote: don't like this option as in the past it has corrupted my windows boot and I have not been able to repair the mbr if I want to go back to normal booting? Let me explain where I am going. In my bios, I have two settings for boot orders. One for the actual boot order of hardware (cdrom, floppy, hdo, hd1...) The other setting is what drives should be detected first, sata (scsi) or ide drives. The settings are; scsi, ide,raid (they are listed in order). If I pick scsi, then the sata drives are detected first. If I pick ide, then the primary master ide drive is detected first, as the boot drive. If you change any of these setings, then the logical boot order of the drives changes. Therefore, the Windows boot.ini file fails, as it was set up (when you installed Windows) to look for the Windows system files in a certain place, relative to the bios settings when Windows was originally installed. If I am totally wrong here with your setup, then I would think the issue is with the raid array and how grub sees it. If your system uses pure hardware raid, then the problem is handled one way. If the raid array is soft raid (as per the software provided by your motherboard company), then this is another issue. Quote: I have also read multiple posts about using the windows bootloader to boot linux and have copied the bootsect.lnx file on to windows boot.ini file and have been unable to boot windows. The same rules apply. If you use this method, you can't change the way that the bios detects the boot drive between installations. BTW, i think you mean that you copied the bootsect.lnx file to the root of the Windows drive and referenced it in the boot.ini, correct? Hopefully a raid user will be able to comment on this and give more useful information. BTW, what motherboard make and model is this?

Quote: I had winxp already running. Then I installed Mandrake 10 (with Grub)on a 8 gb partition.It is working fine. Now I want to install fedora core 4 on another partition on the same hard drive. I have 8 gb of unpartitioned free space kept reserve for this. But The problem is that when I do install fedora, the new boot loader does not detect my previous linux installation (that is mandrake). And I don't know how to add it manually to the new grub menu . So, did you actually do the Fedora Core 4 installation, or did you abort the installation?

What steps did you follow? From where? zenarcher's referenced article, or the ndiswrapper wiki? Let me clarify the problem as I see it. Each distro of Linux has some basic differences in how they are set up when installed. This is why the ndiswrapper wiki has distibution specific instructions for setting up ndiswrapper in each major distro (flavor of linux). The general instructions may or may not work. To use an example, zenarcher's referenced article recommends specific instructions for installing ndiswrapper. That article recommends getting rid of the natively installed ndiswrapper and installing the4 source package. This is because users have noted some problems with the package that comes installed with SuSE. So, are you using the package that is already installed by SuSE, or did you install the source package? From your earlier post, you said; Quote: @zenarcher: Thanks! but I already used that guide to no avail If you did not follow all the directions, including using the source package, then these directions may or may not work. In SuSE, you do not use the ndiswrapper -m step, as this has been shown not to work. Instead, you try to configure the card via Yast. All the directions that I have seen relative to SuSE recommend this method. Re-installing SuSE will not change a thing, unless you use the specific directions for SuSE. I know that it can be frustrating, but a lot of people think that a re-installation will solve problems. Best to work on the issue, rather then do a re-installation right off. Most of these problems are related to issues with the settings, not the basic installation. When you configure the wireless card in yast, you need to know the essid of the router, WEP or WPA password, or if there is none, set it up as an open system. All these variables are in the network configuration dialog boxes in Yast. A lot of folks get confused about these settings, as they are usually set up by the routers Windows based software and most users do not think of writing these settings down. Back to the issues. Did you do the following; 1. Use the ndiswrapper package that came with SuSE pre-installed, or the source package? 2. Did you look and see if ndiswrapper was really loaded, via the lsmod command that I told you about? 3. Do you know the essid name set in the router? 4. Is you internet connection DSL, or Broadband? If the latter, does you ISP assign it's IP address dynamically, or statically? The real problem here, is that most ISP's don't support Linux, so you need to gleen the information from them about how they assign ISP addresses. I ran into this with my DSL provider, who refused to give me the informatiuon, as they don't support Linux. Well, I had to figure this out myself when I started my subscription.

Quote: Am I supposed to get a message after doing modprobe ndiswrapper? No, only errors would show up if there was a problem. A clean return to the command line indicates that the module loaded OK. I remember reading that SuSE's configuration is a little different with the ndiswrapper -m command. I believe that either it does not work as it should, or the file actually ends up in /etc/modprobe.d/ndiswrapper. You can check to see if the module is actually loaded, by running the lsmod command, as root user. Ndiswrapper should be listed near the top, if it is loading at boot.

Take a look at this faq for xorg.

zenarcher, nice article! verrami ; You should have receied a more detailed message when checking ndiswrapper -l Did the message say something like; Installed ndis drivers: bcmwl5 driver present, hardware present One thing that most instructions don't always clearly say, is that you need both the .inf file and .sys file to install the drivers properly. Did you have both these files available in a common directory when you did the ndiswrapper -i command? Look in Yast and make sure that the Wireless-tools package is installed.

Ahh...loads of questions. What name and brand (with the exact revision of the card) are you using. It sounds like the driver got loaded OK. What driver did you use, the XP driver, or otherwise? Where did you get the driver? I assume you have no WEP or WPA key that is attached to the router? There are specific instructions for SuSE, as I remember. See the ndiswrapper wiki. The directions may be a little outdated, but generally still apply. Quote: 5. did ndiswrapper -m..first time got message like:"alias wlan0 something" but on reinstalling driver and doing this i get "alias directive already exists". 6. modprobe ndiswarapper Do you mean that you re-installed the driver using ndiswrapper -i? You only need to do this once. If you got the hardware and driver loaded message, you are 1/2 done. Ditto for the ndiswrapper -m command. once it is done, the system is set with the driver to load at boot time. If you have a specific essid set up on the router, you probably need to use it, not "any." This does not always work. Is the system totally open, or do you need a WEP or WPA key? What is the output of iwconfig once the module is loaded? You may want not to post your essid, just be sure that the output shows your specific essid, not an arbitrary one. If there is no WEP or WPA key, and the system is open, is there an option in Yast for open? Managed refers to a specific setup.

Intersting site! nice work - glad it is up and running.

OK, let's be clear on what is happening. You can currently boot into FC4, but not Windows? Always start out with a plan. What you did is start out with a plan and changed it several times. When something does not work right off, folks panic and start changing things randomly. As you can probably tell, Fedora has been a problem, as there are several posts on the subject of dual booting. In my opinion, it's related to folks not sticking to a plan and not knowing how to set up a dual boot system properly. Not good for newbies. Fedora, by default, makes a boot partition on your hard drive, if you allow the installation to handle to partitioning for you. it assumes that you are installing Fedora as the only OS on your system, or on a seperate hard drive (waits for flames from Fedora users). This is a problem and also a feature. Fedora, I believe, is a Linux OS meant for moderate to expert users of Linux. My opinion. I wish we had more experienced Fedora users here to respond. First, you don't need a /boot partition when installing Grub to the MBR. My opinion. this complicates things and frustrates new users. That said; Quote: but in the end no matter where I install grub, mbr or the first sector of the /boot partition (i've tried the solution with dual-booting by using boot.ini) the same stupid thing happens: First issue. Do not randomly change where Grub is installed, or how the sysem boots. Better to figure out what the problem is if Fedora is booting OK. Most of the time, I believe is that folks pick the wrong options during the Fedora install as the default OS to boot. It should always be Fedora. Quote: Second situation: Everything is the same, but I moved the Windows system partition 350 M to the right and I created the /boot partition there, thinking it might have been because of the location outside the first 1024 cylinder boundary.. the same result: no matter how I try to dual boot I just get the grub prompt. Now what you did is change the order of the partitions. Was this change done as a re-installation of Fedora, or how did you change the actual location of the /boot partition? Does Fedora still boot? What you have now done is change the physical logical location of the partitions, so if the Windows boot.ini is found at all, it points to the wrong system files location for Windows. Quote: Third situation: I burned the Fedora core 5 beta iso and installed it. Grub menu showed with the two options:FC4 and Win XP, after installing it on the mbr. So although the system didn't boot properly (I wasn't interested to) the loader installed itself on the mbr perfectly with no "extra" options as some would say... So, what does this mean? Are you able to boot Fedora at all, or neither Fedora or Windows? And...I assume this is the last thing that you tried? Where is the /boot partition now?

Posting how-to's is generally too long for a forum like this. Your situation prompts me to ask several questions. Bear with me. First of all, have a plan. What make amd model PC is this? Yes, it does make a difference. Do you have a full installation CD of windows XP? Not pre-installed, correct? Do you know how to jumper hard drives correctly? Why you ask? Your quote; Quote: now i can run XP and ME from the main hdd and FC3 from the second and if i try connect both hdd's only windows laucher starts. Grub installed in fc3 hdd. Of course! Your main 80 gig drive is jumpered as the primary master, so it is the boot drive. When you added the second drive, did you jumper it to slave? I assume that it was master on the old system? Just adding the second drive will not get you to grub, unless you changed how the hard drives were jumpered and cabled. Or, if you changed the boot order in the bios, then you could boot (in theory) from that drive and get grub. But, since Windows is not conmfigured in Grub on the FC3 drive for this system and how it is set up, you will not be able to boot Windows. That would have to be added through Fedora. However, personally, I would not trust an old 8 gig drive as reliable. I assume that you had it for some time. Realize that drives do have life spans. Say on average 5 years, depending on the amount of usage. Is there any reason that you need Windows ME? It is outdated and no longer supported by Microsoft. if you do, move on. I would buy another hard drive and install Fedora Core 4 on that drive. Why? You have a new computer and it is very likely that hardware support with FC4 is probably much better for the new system (as I don't know what the new system is, I can't comment on support through Fedora Core 3). This is one good reason to post what your current system is. Also, I assume that your XP installation is on an NTFS partiton and earlier versions of Fedora had problems with this during the partitioning phase of installation. So, if you decided to get rid of Win ME and use that space to re-install Fedora (and get grub on the MBR of the primary master drive), use Fedora Core 4. Better to be safe. You can always add the old 8 gig drive with FC3 to the system to recover and old data files from that drive. By reading these forums, you may have noticed that a lot of folks are having trouble with FC4 and dual booting there systems. Most of the issues, I believe are do to making a mistake when installing Fedora's grub, partioning there drives correctly, or trying to mess with there partitions after an installation. This is one reason to install Fedora on a seperate hard drive to assure that you have XP intact and booting. Of course, I would say get rid of XP and just use Fedora! But aI realize that this is not always feasible, or folks don't think it is feasible. That's another argument. So, have a plan and assure a backup to recover from any mistakes! A full install cd of XP. A full set of Fedora CD disks. Know what you are going to do before you install your OS' - don't try to change things later on.

Quote: I haven't changed the boot sequence in the bios, no. Good. Resist attempts to do so, if you are comfortable booting from hda, the pata (ide) drive. Quote: This is actually the second attempt and getting a dual boot to work. Originally I did have Windows and Linux or completely seperate hard drives, there was no /boot on the windows hard drive. This may explain some things. The thing that I did not like about the article that you referenced, is that maybe it was not totally clear. This usually opens up a can of worms, but there are two schools of thought on dual booting. I always install Grub onto the MBR. The second technique is to make a Linux /boot partition on the same hard drive as Linux is being installed on, not another physical hard drive that has Windows installed on it. If you make a universal dual boot partition, then it should be fat32, I believe, not Linux. It should always be on the first partition of the main drive where Windows is installed to. This is so Windows and Linux can see both. Quote: I had booted up in Knoppix before hand, looked at hda5 and couldn't find the boot.ini file... so it is possible that got deleted somewhere along the lines when I installed fedora core. This is where it gets complicated. Fedora should not touch the Windows partition. however, depending what you did with partitioning, you may have trashed the real Windows partition, assuming the partitioning scheme did not change (except the /boot partition). If you used Fedora to partition the Linux drive and inserted the additional /boot partition on the Windows drive, this would explain some things. Rules of thumb. Never attempt to add a partition to the beginning of an intact partitioned drive. Only add logical or primary partitons after...to the end of the drive. Secondly, only use one partitoning method/program, either a third party utility, like (but not limited to) PartitionMagic, or Fedora's utility only on free space at the end of a drive already holding previous partitions, or on a seperate hard drive that you want to dedicate to Linux. Quote: I cannot view ntfs file systems with fedora, unfortunately. I tried to update the kernel using an rpm from http://www.linux-ntfs.org/ but that made things turn for the worse. If you already did not realize this, you need to use the ntfs rpm that exactly matches your kernel version, as per the installation instructions on the site. As per the instructions Quote: It is important to install exactly the same version of NTFS kernel module as the kernel you have installed. Below are some simple instructions to help you find the file you need.

Yes, it would hang. Did you change the boot order in the bios to boot from sata vs. pata at any point during the process of installing Fedora or Windows? Either the boot.ini file is not on hda5, or the boot.ini file is looking for the Windows system files in the wrong place. If you switched the bios boot order at some point during this process (say after installing Windows), then this would explain one possibility. Is the boot.ini file on hda5? The way that you set up the system is not correct (in my opinion), as you have the Linux /boot directory on the opposite drive from the Linux installation. This is why it is important to know where the boot.ini file is relative to the way that Windows sees it and points to the correct Windows system files on hda5. The usual senario is to install Windows on one drive (such as the primary master), then Linux on another drive, when using a two drive setup. I can't remember in Fedora, but in Mandriva, you can view the NTFS filesystems out of the box with the Linux file manager. And just to clarify, did you install Windows before or after Fedora?

Did you post this question on the Gentoo forums? I am not using Gentoo, so will be of little help. But, note that the real memory requiement is more than 128 mb of RAM fore a graphical interface. See this reference. If this is a laptop system, then some of your RAM may be "borrowed" by the video card. How much swap space is on this installation?

LinNewb never posted back. Hopefully he/she solved the issue and read the directions on the Macromedia site. I could not tell if he/she knew that the Linux version was needed, as the directions are right there. It's always nice to know how someone made out with an issue, but they don't always post back.

Change the Windows XP designation to; title WinXP rootnoverify (hd0,4) chainloader +1 boot Where the Windows partition is at hda5, which is (hd0,4). Grub starts at hd0,0 so that. hdai = hd0,0 hda2 = hd0,1 hda3 = hd0,2 hda4 = hd0,3 hda5 = hd0,4

Unforunately, not. My experience is nil in this regard. I never really played with these compiler programs, except to use them to install Linux source packages. It sounds that you have been able to make significant progress with installing packages. Nice work!

Interestingly, I just had one of my sata drives go south, so i had to change my setup. This may have shown me a thing or two about the issue. this is why I had a delay in responding to this post. What happens when you change the Windows entry to; title Windows XP map (hd0) (hd1) map (hd1) (hd0) rootnoverify (hd0,0) chainloader +1 or; title Windows XP map (hd0) (hd1) map (hd1) (hd0) rootnoverify (hd1,0) chainloader +1 If it still fails, you need to alter your boot,ini file for Windows. To do this, you need to have administrator rights to your Windows installation. Right click on My Computer, Advanced tab, Startup and Recovery--settings. under Default OS,==> edit. what is the boot.ini designation for Windows? multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP... Specifically, what is the rdisk value?

Well, the problem is the same as others, with a hitch. Your Grub file says that Fedora is on the first partition of the primary master drive, or hd0,0. You also have Windows on hd0,5. This is either incorrect, or you installed Windows after Fedora on a logical partition on the primary master drive, or overwrote Windows, which should be on hd0,0, if it was the primary OS that you installed on your system. Did you install Windows after Fedora? If not, you have an unusual scheme, or grub is trying to point to a fat32 partition (hd0,5) that has reminents of Windows on it. What would really help is if you could post the output of ther command in Fedora; /sbin/fdisk -l Quote: All boot info (i.e. /boot and windows' boot.ini) is held on the hd0/hda hard drive. Yet, Windows refuses to boot, or GRUB isn't doing things correctly. If this is truely the case, there is a problem. Did you manually put the boot.ini file there, or is this a small boot partiton on the system? Were you using a third party boot utility for Windows, like bootmagic? If you manually put the boot.ini file there, then is the boot.ini file pointing to where the Windows system files really are? Do this as root user. Also note that the -l tail of the fdisk command is the small letter "L" not the number 1. Or, if you know what the partitions are on the drives, post this. I am also curious what is on sdb2.

These packages, as well as the compilers needed to compile programs in Linux are on the Mandriva cd set. Out of rote memory (I am not in Mandriva at the moment), go to start-->I think Configuration (or system -->configuration) -->Configure My Computer-->add/remove software. Type in flex or whatever you want to install and a package should show up. Mandriva will then install it for you. How to compile applications from source (which is what you are apparently trying to do) requires that compilers and development packages (applications) be installed on the system, which are not in a typical installation. It is much easier for a beginner to use the Mandriva rpm packages through the Mandiva installer, which is easier and cleaner. If you type in C++ or GCC in the Mandriva software Control Panel, you will see the available compilers. If you plan to use your installation to actually install source packages (they end in .gz or .bz2 file extentions), then it's more complicated. These are compressed files and must be extracted first. How you do that depends on if you are using KDE or Gnome as your GUI. In terms of C compilers, see the Bloodshed faq page to get an idea of what is out there for Linux. I'll try to look up some resources that may help. Personally, I would not try the Windows version of Bloodshed with Wine, as this version probably does not natively run in Wine, at leat not w/o some work.

Did you try installing flex via the Mandriva CD set or web repository, rather than installing from source? Wine should also be included in Mandriva, but I guess the question is, what exact program are you looking to install via Wine?

Try the solution noted on this forum. Are you installing the new kernel from source, or a RedHat repository?

Are you trying to install the 32 bit version of SuSE, or the 64 bit version?

If you manually added an entry of a repository to the /etc/apt/sources.lst file, or though synaptic, you mis-spelled the prefix deb. Your prefix entry says ded not deb. This needs to be corrected. An example is; deb http://smarden.org/pape/Debian not; ded http://smarden.org/pape/Debian

This article should be of some help.