On 27/10/2007 12:15 AM, Lee Maschmeyer wrote: > Hi Daniel, Hi,
> > You cannot install Linux "over the top of Windows." Doing so would destroy > Windows and turn your computer into a Linux-only machine. If I did that could it break anything? Should a beginner do this? Will I have lots of trouble doing things? > > There are two ways to get Windows and Linux to coexist. One is to partition > your disk into Windows sections and Linux sections. This is free but rather > complicated and requires care in implementation. My computer here is done > this way but I wasn't the one who did the disk partitioning. I am told that is very hard to setup and lots of problems can occur. Is that the best thing to do? Or should I just remove windows and install linux? Is it possible to backup windows somehow? > > The other way is to add an additional hard disk. Most computers have space > for an extra disk and you can get them at computer stores. This requires > sighted help, if not in the installation then in the BIOS configuration. > It's the safest way to go but it's not free. So you still have a dual booting system? > > There is also something called a "live CD". The last time I used such a > beast you couldn't save any files, or had to do so on a floppy (presumably > nowadays you can use a thumb drive). In this method nothing gets installed > on your hard disk at all. You boot from a CD or DVD which contains the whole > Linux system. While Fedora has a live CD I don't think it has brltty. Some > other systems do have it; GRML and Ubuntu are the two most often mentioned. Is that just used for trying linux out? Before I go and install it? > > Back when I was getting started in Linux, 5 years ago, the Speakup site had > an excellent introduction to how to install the Red Hat systems. If you > don't choose Speakup for your speech you can ignore the Speakup-specific > parts, but it's still a really good introduction to concepts, at least if > it's anything like it used to be. Go to Linux-Speakup.org (note the hyphen > in that name). I think I saw it but will take another look. Thanks. > > One thing you could do if you've got a couple GB to spare on your Windows > machine is to install Cygwin. This is a Linux emulation that runs under > Windows. It's sponsored by Red Hat so it's fairly similar to Fedora. It's > much slower than real Linux but it's good enough to get your feet wet and > learn commands. Go to cygwin.com (it's free). The installer is difficult to > use but it's not impossible (at least with Jaws). I already have that. I am learning to program in c and wanted gcc. Also I needed a unix style system so I could compile the rockbox firmware. So I am using that now. But I have a lot to learn still. :-) I only know the basics like cd rm cp and so on. > > I'm a braille-only user but it's my impression that brltty's speech > capabilities probably won't be robust enough for fulltime speech use. But > it's a nice adjunct to braille and easy to get running. Well I will try that out and if I think I need more speech I might try speakup as well. > > Because I've been doing this for awhile and haven't kept up with the latest > developments I expect there are some errors in the above. That's one reason > I responded - to get the flames caused by my goofs. :-) Yes thanks for all the help. This is all great info. > > Rest assured you've got a fair amount of studying to do before you can > really get started. Even Cygwin, because of the peculiar installer, takes > some studying. The nice thing about Cygwin is you don't have to reboot to > use it; I use Cygwin all the time and for most purposes it's adequate > especially with brltty. I think your right a lot to learn. I am using cygwin here already and sort of found out the commands and am finding it not to hard. But I am sure linux is a lot harder. > > Good luck, and stay tuned; I'm sure there will be significant corrections > coming real soon now. > Ok thanks for the help. -- Daniel Dalton http://members.iinet.net.au/~ddalton/ [EMAIL PROTECTED] _______________________________________________ This message was sent via the BRLTTY mailing list. To post a message, send an e-mail to: [email protected] For general information, go to: http://mielke.cc/mailman/listinfo/brltty
