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Re: [Sheflug] Changing Distributions - Complete Linux Newbiequestion

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Subject: Re: [Sheflug] Changing Distributions - Complete Linux Newbiequestion
From: Alex Hudson <home [at] xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 20:20:59 +0100
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On Wed, 2004-09-29 at 20:06 +0100, Linux [at] glead.demon.co.uk wrote:
> A short while ago I decided that I would take a look at Linux as an
> Alternative to M$. My computer normally runs XP, but I have installed
> a new HDD and installed the Mepis distro onto it. Unfortunately when I
> run Mepis Linux my mouse behaves very oddly. After posting on the
> Mepis list I couldn't get it sorted. Recently I have downloaded the
> SuSE Live distro which seems to work well for me. How do I go about
> switching from Mepis to SuSE on my HDD? I haven't got any valuable
> data on the Linux drive, but do have rather a lot on the other drives.
> (I did try searching the list archive, so apologize if this has been
> dealt with before)

You have to be pretty careful at the moment, unfortunately. There is a
problem in a number of current GNU/Linux distributions where if you
install GNU/Linux after Windows, you stop Windows from being able to
boot. This also prevents the FIX(Boot/MBR) tools from working, and re-
installation of Window also doesn't work :D

The issue at hand is conflicting tables on the hard drive which store
the "geometry" - where things are located on the disk. You don't
actually lose any data; you can easily fix the problem if you know what
you're doing, but it's easier to not have the problem in the first
place. As far as I know, current SuSE, Fedora, Ubuntu and others all
have this issue - I think it's a Linux 2.6 thing.

So, how technical are you? If you don't want to risk upsetting Windows,
unplugging the Windows drives when you install is a good idea. If you
*do* somehow run into the problem, don't panic, and don't try to fix it
unless you know what you're doing - especially don't run third-party
tools to "fix" the partitions.

Cheers,

Alex.

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Follow-Ups:
- Re: [Sheflug] Changing Distributions - Complete Linux Newbie question
  - From: Pete Collier

References:
- [Sheflug] Changing Distributions - Complete Linux Newbie question
  - From: Linux

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