[Sheflug] How To

[Alec Melling <alec [at] xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Martin, John,

The list does not seem to be working at the moment, but I would like to thank 
you for the advice.

It seems to me that the nature of my problem, and the advice you have given me 
illustrates the problem of the Windows user trying to use Linux effectively.

John advises me to use fdisk and gets me started. He adds some really 
informative advice about Linux partitions. However I am told to follow the 
on-screen instructions once I am in Fdisk... These are far from intuitive (oh 
for DOS) and using it is solving one puzzle after another. Not got to the end 
yet, need to buy a book to understand it... Cost of which is likely to rival 
the cost of buying Partitionmagic. (I have found reading Man Pages as helpful 
as reading the bible through a screen of ditch-water. Everyone assumes prior 
knowledge)

Martins gives me two options. Samba, the idea of which does not match the sort 
of solution I am looking for, and Qtparted the idea of which made my heart 
sing after playing about with Fdisk for three hours.

So I install qparted and flash it up. It picked up the disc no problem and 
teased me by telling me all the things it could do for me. Who needs 
partitionmagic. However, I am using Kubuntu!!! The distribution without a 
root account. Qparted will tell me what it can do but won't do it outside of 
root. So now I am off to the Ubuntu forums to find out how to use qparted in 
Kubuntu... Or to PC World to buy partitionmagic and get the job done.

Anyway thanks for the help it is useful and I will use qparted to do the job - 
in the end. I just though I would try and illustrate the type of journey that 
'non IT professionals' have to go through to do a typical non-desktop task in 
Linux. To me the diversity of solutions are the strength of Linux, the lack 
of clarity in instructions its weakness. A simple task can take up days of 
your time because there is not an intuitive rout that you can follow.
-- 
Alec Melling
+44 (0)114 2343612
<alec [at] amelling>co.uk>
___________________________________________________________________

Sheffield Linux User's Group -
http://www.sheflug.co.uk/mailfaq.html

  GNU the choice of a complete generation.