Hello everyone!
I've been wanting gradually move to linux for years, but was afraid because, due to academic requierements (specific applications I *must* use), I still need to have winXP installed on my computer for some time to come. I tried dual boot with Suse and it was more or less ok, but I preferred two independent hard drives. One reason is that Debian was the distribution I most looked forward to trying, but I had heard that partitions, dual boot and several other issues could be tricky. I've recently bought a new computer, and decided it was the time to put my scheme into practice. I felt adventurous, so I also decided to move from intel and give amd a try :D
My computer:
processor: AMD Athlon 3500
motherboard: DFI NF4 infinity
graphics card: ATI Radeon X300 SE
I Can give more details about the following, if needed:
Two hard disks mounted on mobile racks
cd/dvd reader
cd/dvd writer
floppy disk unit
My problems:
I've downloaded both the unofficial Debian net installation cd iso image for AMD64 and the official Debian 3.1 (Sarge) net installation for i386 (I've read it works also on AMD64) and I've burnt the cd's.
I had no major problems to istall Debian for amd64, except that some packages were missing and the like, but some crucial features fail to work (at least under the Gnome GUI). For instance I can't add users (that is, I can do it from bash but not from Gnome). I'm totally new to linux, so I'm lost if I must use the command line for everything.
So I decided to try the official Debian Sarge for i386, to see if it works on my amd computer. The problem is that my BIOS won't boot from the CD (but it DID boot from the unofficial cd !!). I've read that the reason may be that some old BIOS (old?? Ha! :P ) can't read isolinux files. The sollution, if I got it right, is to open the iso image, find the "sbm.bin" file and copy it to a floppy disk, then boot with both the floppy disk and the cd in my computer.
The file is there, I can see it, BUT when I sellect this file and clik "extract" a message appears saying that I have no permission to extract the file... but hey, I've entered as root, how come I have no permission to do that? (I have a screenshot if anyone wants to see it)
My questions:
1) Why don't I have permission to extract the "sbm. bin" file? How can I solve that?
2) I there another way to install Sarge for i-386 that works in my computer, apart from booting from the installation cd?
3) How can I use kde instead of Gnome as a GUI? (some say it works better)
Again, my kindest greetings to everyone, sorry for every pi ece of missing information or dumb questions.
Regards,
Martin O.B.