On Saturday 02 February 2002 08:22 pm, Bruce Burhans wrote: > Ben. Thanks. I've seriously looked into the dual-boot approach and > concluded that I'm very likely to end up with two non-working OSs. If I > had more experience or a pro like you for a neighbor, sure. But I'm > basically on my own and a true newbie. > I'll just set the BIOS for standard VGA, no sound, no > winmodem (have external, controller-based one) and boot order- > CD-floppy-HD. Put the boot partition on the first part of the disk and > let Linux have its way with the MBR and format and partition table. Turn > off PnP in LILO config, etc. I'm getting it, and I *really* want to be > firmly in the Linux world. Looked into them all, and Debian is where the > action is, so here I am. > > Bruce<+> [EMAIL PROTECTED] >
then maybe the first thing you need to set up is a solid backup and retrieval system, so that you can feel assured of being able to restore what you had before you started. i see you standing at the precipice, having read all the maps and knowing there's something to land on on the other side, but confounded by the fog, doubting you can do it. once again, if an honest count were made, you'd find a lot of company. the fact that you know where you're at, right here, tells me it's just a matter of time. debian, if you'll pardon the *, is the sh*t. i've had a lot of varied experience with linux, from first downloading 13 floppies to run the umsdos version (unix[like] on a pc--no way. yes, way) that i'd read about way back in a tiny article in computer currents, the sears catalog for tech junkies, then finding slackware (solid but troublesome, as oxymoronic as that may seem) and on through redhat--the nearest thing to what you're using now that linux gets to--into suse, which has, sadly, long since gone the same way. i can' remember when it was that i became aware of debian, but it piqued my curiosity from the start, but had the rep of being hardcore, like forget everything else you thought you knew. as my resentment of suse's dive into corporate market share reached it's zenith, i thought, okay, the only thing between me and the sh*t is mandrake. got it, did it, got real bored real soon. mandrake, sweet as it is, is just like the one that you know who will, like going to macdonald's and pretending it's food. after a while, you know that what you really want takes a bit more effort, but it is really what you want. that's why i'm here, and it sounds to me like that's why you and everybody else are here. do whatever it takes because i know that you'll feel the same satisfaction that i do, as i imagine does everyone else here, when you know for sure that you're in a good place where the quality of your experience depends only on the quality you want to see in yourself, where the same rules of honor, decency, compassion, and truth that we all wish the world ran on actually happen here, however silently it sometimes seems. mistakes are made, toes are stepped on, words are written that are often regretted, but nobody with any sense challenges anybody else's right to be here because all of us benefit from all of us being here. for example, i get the chance, right now, to try to find words for all of that. i ain't no pro, and there are many more here who are all just trying to do the right thing and find that this is a great place to do it. do it, bruce. jump. flying has its own rules that still have a lot to do with gravity, and it sounds like you know that. it's like going to a foreign country--they might speak funny, but they still eat dinner and put their pants on the same old way. i guess that's not really true--it's a bit more like going to live in that foreign country and hoping to assimilate as soon as possible. the thing that you have to keep in mind is that the same divisions--here, in terms of expertise--exist as in the place you come from. the deal here is that this is the language you want to speak, the food you want to eat, the weather you want to wake to, the revolution you might imagine that will make the world more like the place you want to live in. secure the life critical stuff--backup/retrieval--so that you can do what you need to do, and make the jump. you have nothing to lose but your chains, because--though i fashion a dialect--the chains of bill g(r)ates. ben
