i just bit the bullet and defected over to the linux(dark) side. i'm useing mandrake 8.2 with gnome, looks really nice and really easy to setup so far, however i can't seem to find where to set the screen resolution so i have really big icons and windows with portions of the text missing. i've had a look in the help files and on the net but can't find anything so far, is this something i have to do in root or in the consol or something similar, or is it painfully obvious and i just haven't noticed it?

cheers, dub.

go into the control center, go to hardware, and go to display.

sweet, it worked thx.

another quick query, i have 2 hard drives, i took the windows 2k one out when i instaled linux, i've now put it back in and it doesn't show up, i figured this would happen, but i don't know any of the terminology so i can't really search for a solution.
what keywords would i need to search under? i.e. mount, install, etc. whats the name of what i'm trying to do?
also could anyone point me in the right direction to somewhere i could find insructions on how to set up a dual boot between the two drives? all i've found so far is how to set it up between partitions on the same drive.

cheers, dub.

try going into the control center, going to mount points, and selecting a mount point for it.

win 2k uses a wierd boot system so i think it had to be installed before linux to use them in a dual boot. just go to the mandrake users org BBS and ask them there or search their documentation for the answer. mandrake has the best comunity so i feel its one of the best distros.

Mandrake does have the best community, for linux newbies that is. It is helpful when you are just unsure about this command or forget where the settings for this program are. They are pretty damn good there and help solve many of the more complicated problems.

I do however believe that community does not make a distro. Thats me, and im mostly saying that because i really dont like mandrake at all and now im forcing you to read my bitching.

for the boot problem: what you do is install the second harddrive making sure that it is installed as the slave because if you mess up where linux is located on the IDE bus, things will be bitched.

Now that you have the second HD installed, get a linux boot disk that will let you use the file system on the HDD as the root file system. Most floopy distros/rescue disks provide this option. When booting the computer with the disk, you will mostlikely get a lilo prompt. Use the kernel label that you are instructed to but pass the option:

root=/dev/hdaX

to to kernel by placing that statement right after the kernel label. X represents your root partition number. hda because that is your first hard drive.

This in effect will boot your system and you will be able to install lilo or grub or whatever from there, providing an option for windows boot as well.

I think mandrake even has a graphic tool that you can use to set this all up so all you need is to be able to boot your linux system with the second hard drive installed and configure the settings you want.

That is some serious rambling.

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cEnsE