Baslinux mailing list

[Matrix Mole <matrixm AT sdf.lonestar.org>]

On Thu, 22 Apr 2004, Sindi Keesan wrote:

> We do this to all Win9x computers too.  I presume when you want to use
> Windows you hit F5 while booting to bypass autoexec.bat.

Exactly. Although, this happens so seldom. Right now, I don't even see the
console for my BL system right now. I only operate it through my telnet
windows from my main Win98 box.

> I had heard rumors of some way to run Windows from the DOS command line to
> avoid all the icons and the long wait to load everything.  Just type win
> and the name of whatever program you need to run.  I would like to be able
> to do that for wordview because WORD keeps coming up with ridiculos new
> features that antiword (and wvware and catdoc) can't keep up with.  The
> only other thing I might use Win98 for is to play realaudio as I have had
> no luck with linux sound yet.  (Perhaps it might help to use an SB16 card
> that is new enough not to use IRQ15?).  Or to burn CDs until I learn to do
> that in DOS or linux.  What were you thinking of using Windows for when
> you installed it?

I had never heard of being able to run windows from pure command line. I
know that you can execute shortcuts from command line, but you have to
have the full GUI running to be capable of doing so.

> Does anyone know how to stop the Windows bmp from coming onscreen while
> booting into non-gui mode?  (Is there some file I can just delete
> somewhere?).

Add the line "logo=0" into the msdos.sys file. This disables the bootup
splash screen. In the old Win95 days, the file logo.sys in the root c:\
directory was modified to do the same thing. As for the logow.sys and
logos.sys files that you discovered, they are the two shut down screens
that appear when you turn off the computer (logow= waiting to shut down,
logos= shut down). The bootup logo is a specialized bmp format with
animation capabilities. I've seen others do it, but I don't know exactly
how it was done. It is a bmp file though. If you wish to replace it, just
put a different logo.sys file into c:\ and it will load that splash screen
instead (provided logo=0 is changed to logo=1 in msdos.sys file of
course).

> I looked at my fstab and there is already a line
>
> /dev/hda3 / ext2 defaults 1 1
>
> with '/' instead of '/home' and 1 1 instead of 1 2.  I presume the '2'
> means 'second linux partition for this particular linux'.

The '2' position of the fstab file is the fsckcheck position, something
about the order in which linux checks the partitions as they are mounted.
If you put a '0' in that field then the partition is never checked
automatically at mount time (you'd have to use fsck manually instead).

> How would corrupted data affect anything else?  Do executables always go
> in the main linux partition?  I am thinking of putting all my compiled and
> downloaded packages in another partition.  I don't have anything else
> resembling data to put there yet.

Corrupted data is really only a problem if say the corruption is caused by
partition table failures (or hard drive failure, but if that's the case
then all partitions of the drive go bad). If you have for example three
hard drives in your system with root '/' mounted on hda1 and /home mounted
on hdb1 and /usr mounted on hdc1 and the hdb1 drive goes bad, then your
system can still operate, you just won't the /home directories (and will
probably have to log in as root to setup a new drive so may not need the
/home directories at that moment).

I'll let Steve answer the send/receive question, it was beyond my useage
:)

> I wonder if partition magic would also work to resize linux partitions
> without losing installed files. It works with DOS that way.  Anyway, it is
> nice to know that I can in theory resize my partitions when I outgrow them
> again.  (But really, 1G ought to be more than enough for linux unless I
> start writing my own programs, or collecting mp3 files.)

You know, when I bought my very first 1G drive, I swore at that time that
I'd never have enough data to fill it. Of course now, I have problems
keeping 2G free to operate Win98 with the stuff I've got installed.

> Thanks to everyone for the ideas and information.   It is great being the
> only really persistent beginner among a bunch of experienced linux users.

I think we're all beginners in our own ways. You are much better adept at
the programming aspect of the system than a lotof us on here at the
moment. What with building your own files for some of us and all. So, we
all have our beginner levels to compensate for our intermediate level
elsewhere. :)

-- 
Matrix Mole
matrixm AT sdf.lonestar.org
SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.lonestar.org