Some questions about Red Hat Linux

[TheBigBasicQ]

Hi Guys,
I am new to Linux. I had an old version of it(6.2). I installed it on a windows partition with 64Mb as swap file and 1024Mb(1GB) as root. It is a GNOME Workstation. I had a few questions.
1.How do I access my windows partition thru Linux(Fat32 not NTFS)?
2.I have WinXP and WinME and now Red Hat Linux 6.2. I am currently using WinXP’s boot loader since I have multiple OSs. But it does not show Linux as one of the OS in the OS choices menu. How do I put Linux in its list so I can just select linux to load instead of using a boot floppy everytime?
3.Where can I get Windows fonts for linux?

Thanx.

 

[Mellegem]

1) Install Samba, make a mount point (directory) and type
bash$>mount -t smbfs /dev/hda? /mountpoint?
2) I always install m$ products before linux so that GRUB/LILO takes control, I don't think you will make a M$ boot loader play nice but there is a small program included on all Redhat distros that loads Linux from dos. Read the docs on the CD, I can't think of it now.
3)Its called msttcorefonts in Debian. Google is you're friend...

 

[clonny2]

Actually to mount the windows partition:

1: mkdir /dos
2: mount /-t vfat /dev/hda1 /dos

Boot Loader, NT bootloader is not aware of linux, unless you modify the boot.ini. Or you can use a linux boot loader like lilo or grub that is windows aware.

>---------------------------------------Lawrence Feldman
SR. QA. Engineer SNAP Appliance
lfeldman@snapappliance.com

 

[wmg]

On using the NT boot loader to give you an option to boot into linux; you can use the 'dd' command (from in linux) to dump the boot sector of the linux partition to a file. You then copy that file to the root of the NT partition (put it on floppy and then boot back into NT - that's the easiest way) and edit boot.ini to include and entry for linux that points to the bootsector file you created.

The dd command is :

dd if=<root partition> of=~/bootsect.lin bs=512 count=1

Where <root partition> is the partition where linux is installed something like /dev/hda3 or something. The resultant output file will be in your home directory or in /root (depending on who you are running this as - you may need to run this as root). The other parameters specify the amount of data to dump from the disk.

The boot.ini line is as follows and should appear in the [Operating Systems] section:

C:\bootsect.lin=&quot;Red Hat Linux&quot;

The other questions have been answered already so I'll leave them alone!

HTH
wmg

We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true. [Robert Wilensky, 1997]

 

[AP81]

Just to add on to what the other guys said:

>1.How do I access my windows partition thru Linux(Fat32 not >NTFS)?

Make a directory and mount windows to it, e.g

mkdir /win

The command:

mount -t vfat /dev/hda1 /win

will mount your windows drive, however you can have it automatically mount on boot with full read/write access. To do this, open the file /etc/fstab and add the following:

/dev/hda1 /win vfat defaults,auto,user,umask=000 0 0

If you don't want it to mount automatically, change auto to noauto.

>2.I have WinXP and WinME and now Red Hat Linux 6.2. I am >currently using WinXP’s boot loader since I have multiple >OSs. But it does not show Linux as one of the OS in the OS >choices menu. How do I put Linux in its list so I can just >select linux to load instead of using a boot floppy >everytime?

Do what wmg suggested:

dd if=<root partition> of=~/bootsect.lin bs=512 count=1

For example if my linux partition is /dev/hda6 then I would do the following:

dd if=/dev/hda6 of=/tmp/bootsect.lin bs=512 count=1

This will put the file in the tmp directory. Copy that file to your C: drive and in Windows XP, right-click on My Computer > Advanced (i think) > then go to start up. Click on edit and add:

C:\bootsect.lin=&quot;Red Hat Linux&quot; to the end.

>3.Where can I get Windows fonts for linux?

You can use ttmkfontdir. I don't use Red Hat, but I can recall using it to get Windows fonts working on a friend PC with Red Hat on it. Search on google for it.

 

[TheBigBasicQ]

Thanx for all your help. But I am still having a little trouble. For example - I ran the mount command in the GNOME Terminal and it just gives me the description of it. Secondly, my Linux is on a secondary Hard disk where I happen to have WinXP(I have WinME on my primary HDD) and I need to boot it every time from the floppy i.e. LILO doesnt pop up at the time of booting. How do I configure LILO for this?

 

[jstreich]

As root:

# mkdir /win
# mount -t vfat /dev/hda1 /win
# cd /win

as AP81 suggested works for me and Win 98.
Instead of LILO, you may want to install GRUB (it's more powerful)... I take it XP handles the dual boot for ME and XP?
For LILO look at:

http://jaeger.morpheus.net/linux/ntldr.php

For XP boot loader look at:

http://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?spid=779&newpid=779&sqid=578652

Lastly, here is a good thing to read about how to set the boot loader:

http://sdb.suse.de/en/sdb/html/fhassel_grub_nt.html

 

[jstreich]

Oh, is the Fat32 on the first or second hard drive? You may want to:
# mount -t vfat /dev/hdb1 /win
Depending on where XP and ME are...

 

[manarth]

hda refers to hard disk a, hdb refers to hard disk b, etc...

hda1 refers to hard disk a, partition 1.

<marc> i wonder what will happen if i press this...[ul][li]please give feedback on what works / what doesn't[/li][li]need some help? how to get a better answer: faq581-3339[/li][/ul]

 

[TheBigBasicQ]

So if I want to mount my second partition of Hda I should use:
mount -t vfat /dev/hda2 /winXP

But this doesnt work. Linux just gives me an error that I am trying to mount an extended partition. Also XP and Red Hat are on the same partition(RedHat Linux 6.2 allows that)

 

[manarth]

you may find that the second partition is a logical drive in an extended section:
e.g.[tt]
[ part1 ][<part3><part4><part5>]
<- pri -><-------- ext -------->[/tt]

If this were the case part2 would refer to the extended partition, which is a container for the logical drives i.e. <part3>

the other thing I've noticed is that all the posts above refer to the FAT format ([tt]mount -t vfat[/tt] etc)

Some people install windows using the NTFS format, in which case you want [tt]mount -t ntfs /dev/hda2 /winXP[/tt]

Make sure you have created the [tt]/winXP[/tt] directory for the file system to be mounted into.

Or, as AP81 said, to have it auto-mount on logon, add this line to /etc/fstab:
[tt]/dev/hda1 /winXP ntfs defaults,auto,user,umask=000 0 0[/tt]

<marc> i wonder what will happen if i press this...[ul][li]please give feedback on what works / what doesn't[/li][li]need some help? how to get a better answer: faq581-3339[/li][/ul]

 

[jwenting]

And of course make sure the modules for the filesystem you want to use are compiled and enabled in the Linux kernel or a mount will fail too.