PureBasic Forums - English

I am very clueless when it comes to Linux, but would like to know more about it. I am hoping maybe a few of the Linux Guru's around here might like to use this as a thread to offer tips, suggestions etc for those of us Windows people's who might like to have a closer look at Linux but get confused with the 300+ active distro's that seem to be floating about.

In the last couple of weeks I have with reasonable success set up Debian etch both as a dedicated install & currently as dual boot with WinXp on an old Dell 433Mhz machine running 320MB ram & I must say this Debian seems quite alright to use.

Over the weekend I set up a memory stick with an embedded version of Linux call DamnSmallLinux which I am now able to boot directly into on my main dual processor 3Ghz machine & am having a ball with it. If anybody has an old memory stick laying around & might like to have a play with this, here is a link with intructions on the easiest way to do it.
http://www.pendrivelinux.com/2007/01/02 ... ne-usb-dsl
As for those instructions though, I wouldnt bother with the Hp format tool, just use windows right click on your drive & select Format.....

So, as a question to the Guru's, have any of you used an embedded version such as this? and if so, how hard would it be to do something like say setup PB to run on this if possible at all?

I am also got thoughts about getting my system with linux

so that USB thingie can be a nice start for me, thanks .

Ubuntu Japanese Team

"USB Flashmemory + CD" and "USB Flashmemory Boot"
http://www.ubuntulinux.jp/wiki/InstallingOnUSBFlash

"USB HDD Boot CD Making" (grub run under CD-boot)
http://forum.ubuntulinux.jp/viewtopic.php?id=223

"USB Flashmemory Boot CD Making"
http://forum.ubuntulinux.jp/viewtopic.php?id=180

"USB HDD lauch guide" (My document)
http://forum.ubuntulinux.jp/viewtopic.php?id=10

Please Use translate service(from japanese)
http://www.google.com/language_tools

I have a question about the USB stick install thing. When you install it on a USB stick, is there anything at all installed on any physical hard drive in the machine its self?

@SFSx0I
No othing, the same goes for running from a LiveCD you can actually run bot on computers without a hard drive at all.

SFSxOI wrote:I have a question about the USB stick install thing. When you install it on a USB stick, is there anything at all installed on any physical hard drive in the machine its self?

No, it is totally independant of the internal HDD. You do need to have a computer with BIOS that supports booting from USB device though. ( I am booting mine as a USBZip drive. )
With this 1 I made up over the weekend, it is allowing me to mount my HDD for file access so I can play all my music files, etc, but I wouldnt try writing to my HDD as it is formatted using NTFS & apparently Linux & NTFS just do not like each other...
As I say I am clueless with Linux, so this is just a bit of experimenting I am doing atm & as such I have formatted my memory stick using FAT32 which Linux can read & write ok, but as far as I am aware is still not the best format for it.

Yay!

I am now under DSL system from my USB

this is really nice

hmmm

needs to install Purebasic here!

P.S

if your USB drive is U3 drive then update the U3 launch pad
then goto settings and then UnInstall
cuz in the USB drive i got i didnt have that option and i had to update the U3 Pad.

Ahhh how do i install purebasic for linux?

any quick guide ?

I actually installed a full debian distro on my USB stick. Who needs a cut-down version in this era of 2 or 4 or 8gb usb sticks =)

For testing a VMware Image also can be good. I have an Ubuntu 7.04 Image running her, which works perfect! So I also can play around with Copy&Paste between Linux+Windows and can test PB-Sources, what is very important!

Pantcho!! wrote:Ahhh how do i install purebasic for linux?

Look into the Linux-Subforum. There are several threads about this.

EDIT: Look in the Announcements - I made a tutorial with screenshots.

@DSL Users just remeber that DSL is strapped down realy hard, it also uses a 2.4.x Kernel which is an old series of Kernels since 4 years so DSL isn't the state of the art of Linux it's an attempt to do a distro which needs as few ressources as possible and fits on a 64 mb Business Card CD. If you want to try a state of the art Linux, try one of the major distros like Fedora, Suse, Debian or Ubuntu most of them have LiveCDs available and there are also howtos on how to get them on an USB Stick. Another nice Dstro for USB Sticks is Slax it is prity up to date too.
As mentioned before Virtualisation is another nice way to try Linux out.

Btw: Since about 1/4 year NTFS works pefectly together with Linux including write access, the tool you need is called ntfs-3g and it is a userspace driver (though also OpenSource) that plugs into the Fuse (Filesystem in Userspace) interface. There should also be many HowTos in the Web on how to use it with your distro.

Pantcho!! wrote:Yay!

I am now under DSL system from my USB

this is really nice

hmmm

needs to install Purebasic here!

P.S

if your USB drive is U3 drive then update the U3 launch pad
then goto settings and then UnInstall
cuz in the USB drive i got i didnt have that option and i had to update the U3 Pad.

You know that you can do away with the U3 launch pad on the U3 drive.

You may also look into the Anouncement section and look at Bembulak's Tutorial on installing Purebasic on Ubuntu 7.04 withing VMWare

If you are ever in a bookstore, you might want to browse the linux magazines section.
There are many useful tips in those and the accompanying DVDs usually have the most current editions of linux.
NTFS partitions are also explained and many new distros of linux have those NTFS compatibility problems reconciled.

I lashed out on the weekend & bought myself a little 80GB external USB HDD which I have now managed to do a full install of Ubuntu to. I have it set up with its own grub bootloader & is totally indendent of my internal IDE HDD.
By using my BIOS option of boot from USB HDD, I can choose to plug in my usb drive & boot into Ubuntu or if I dont have my usb disc plugged in at startup my computer just boots straight to WinXp.
With the Ubuntu on usb drive I have got PB 4.01 running faultlessly as well as wine which I have been experimenting with on some of my own little windows apps with limited success. ( Basicly it works well with stuff I have not written too much Win32 API into )
If anybody is interested in looking seriously at Linux as an alternative OS to Windows, I think this might be the way to go until you get really familiar with Linux.
The link I based my install on:
http://www.ubuntuswitch.com/2006/08/01/ ... hard-drive

A couple of things I might add to that webpage though is:
1. I used a terminal to get my usb hdd info prior to starting the install 2. to make sure my usb hdd was not mounted before starting the install I had a few problems getting the Grub bootloader set up. To get this working I selected the advanced button in the grub section of the Ubuntu wizard and in my case altered the default setting of (hd0) to /dev/sda without the brackets. - transpose the sda to whatever your usb hdd name is of course.
The last problem I had was on 1st boot, the grub bootloader was a default setting of (hd1,0) & wouldnt boot, so I had to follow the prompts in the bootloader to temporarily edit this until I got it to work. - In my case (hd0,0) worked. after this I got a successfull startup of Ubuntu at which point I used a terminal to start sudo gedit & used that to edit the bootmenu list properly & havent had a problem since.