Need Help With Ubuntu.... I am a Linux NOOB :D

[Ripper3]

it's supposed to be /boot/grub/menu.lst or /menu.conf
I think it's the former

 

[Atech]

it's supposed to be /boot/grub/menu.lst or /menu.conf
I think it's the former

Ah, darn. It's grub.conf on Gentoo, and menu.lst (I've just noticed) is a symbolic link to grub.conf

So ignore what I said earlier, and instead type:
sudo nano /boot/grub/menu.lst

 

[Ripper3]

Tis funny, I should have noticed it when I posted earlier. I was changing mine this morning...

 

[acousticlemur]

Ah, darn. It's grub.conf on Gentoo, and menu.lst (I've just noticed) is a symbolic link to grub.conf

So ignore what I said earlier, and instead type:
sudo nano /boot/grub/menu.lst

after a whole lot of text, that i think is instruction for password and colors and stuff this is at the end. is this what i need to edit?

 

[acousticlemur]

Type in

ls /boot
and
ls /boot/grub

And post the results here please.

Edit: and add -l
so
ls /boot/grub -l

Just to show permissions. Are you sure you're adding sudo in front of the command?

yup i was using sudo and here are the results you wanted

josh@josh-desktop:~$ ls /boot/grub -l
total 200
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 197 2007-06-01 13:07 default
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 15 2007-06-01 13:07 device.map
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 7508 2007-06-01 13:07 e2fs_stage1_5
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 7332 2007-06-01 13:07 fat_stage1_5
-rw------- 1 root root 9 2007-06-01 20:08 grub.conf.save
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 16 2007-06-01 13:07 installed-version
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 8128 2007-06-01 13:07 jfs_stage1_5
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4597 2007-06-01 17:45 menu.lst
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4597 2007-06-01 17:45 menu.lst~
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 6804 2007-06-01 13:07 minix_stage1_5
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 9076 2007-06-01 13:07 reiserfs_stage1_5
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 512 2007-06-01 13:07 stage1
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 105652 2007-06-01 13:07 stage2
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 8764 2007-06-01 13:07 xfs_stage1_5
josh@josh-desktop:~$

 

[Atech]

after a whole lot of text, that i think is instruction for password and colors and stuff this is at the end. is this what i need to edit?

Yep. Count the number of entries, and put

# of entries-1

after default, so if there's 7 entries, and Windows XP is the last one, change it to
default 6.

Just fyi, arrays start with 0, so that's why it's # of entries - 1

Edit:
Example:

default 3
timeout 30

title=Gentoo Linux (2.6.22-rc3)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/kernel-genkernel-x86_64-2.6.22-rc3 root=/dev/ram0 init=/linuxrc ramdisk=25600 real_root=/dev/sda3 doscsi
initrd /boot/initramfs-genkernel-x86_64-2.6.22-rc3

title=Gentoo Linux (2.6.21-gentoo-r2)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/kernel-genkernel-x86_64-2.6.21-gentoo-r2 root=/dev/ram0 init=/linuxrc ramdisk=25600 real_root=/dev/sda3 doscsi
initrd /boot/initramfs-genkernel-x86_64-2.6.21-gentoo-r2

title=Gentoo Linux (2.6.21-gentoo-r1)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/kernel-genkernel-x86_64-2.6.21-gentoo-r1 root=/dev/ram0 init=/linuxrc ramdisk=25600 real_root=/dev/sda3 doscsi
initrd /boot/initramfs-genkernel-x86_64-2.6.21-gentoo-r1

title=Memtest86Plus
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/memtest86plus/memtest.bin

In this config to boot memtest by default.

 

[acousticlemur]

so far this is what i am changing



(was ture figured that since it is a computer that many people will be on less options is better so no one screws shit up )

## should update-grub create alternative automagic boot options
## e.g. alternative=true
## alternative=false
# alternative=false

## should update-grub lock alternative automagic boot options
## e.g. lockalternative=true
## lockalternative=false
# lockalternative=true



and should i change this one??

## should update-grub adjust the value of the default booted system
## can be true or false
# updatedefaultentry=false

 

[Atech]

so far this is what i am changing



(was ture figured that since it is a computer that many people will be on less options is better so no one screws shit up )

## should update-grub create alternative automagic boot options
## e.g. alternative=true
## alternative=false
# alternative=false

## should update-grub lock alternative automagic boot options
## e.g. lockalternative=true
## lockalternative=false
# lockalternative=true



and should i change this one??

## should update-grub adjust the value of the default booted system
## can be true or false
# updatedefaultentry=false

I've never changed that value. I just write my config when I install my system and if I compile a kernel manually.

As far as I'm aware though, that just means that it'll change the default to your last selection (but I'm not sure). All you need to do is add

default (number here) at the top. That's all.

If it doesn't count down when you're in the grub menu, then you need to add
timeout (time here in seconds)

Edit:
In configuration files, anything after a hash symbol is treated as a comment (until a new line). It's not read by the programme using it. (So you can add stuff after a hash symbol if you want to add something as a reminder, etc)

 

[acousticlemur]

## default num
# Set the default entry to the entry number NUM. Numbering starts from 0, and
# the entry number 0 is the default if the command is not used.
#
# You can specify 'saved' instead of a number. In this case, the default entry
# is the entry saved with the command 'savedefault'.
# WARNING: If you are using dmraid do not change this entry to 'saved' or your
# array will desync and will not let you boot your system.
default 7

is this it? since there are 7 choices and windows is the last one? if that is all i needed to do then i feel dumb!! i was making it way harder than it should have been!!!!! ME = NOOOOOB

 

[Atech]

If there's 7 choices and Windows is the last one, then it should be
default 6.

Remember, number one is zero

 

[acousticlemur]

If there's 7 choices and Windows is the last one, then it should be
default 6.

Remember, number one is zero

thanks, thanks, and thanks... i just didnt want to mess anything up and have to rewrite the whole shit!!!


rebooting now.............wish me luck

Edit: worked like a charm!!! much thanks!!!

 

[Atech]

thanks, thanks, and thanks... i just didnt want to mess anything up and have to rewrite the whole shit!!!


rebooting now.............wish me luck

Edit: worked like a charm!!! much thanks!!!

No problem

 

[acousticlemur]

im sure i will have more questions eventually, but i am just getting everything set up for now and i will mess with it later!!

 

[Jimmy 2004]

Wow... it's like a totally different language. Ubuntu worked 'out of the box' with my Belkin 54G card, but I guess yours might be USB?

 

[zekrahminator]

Yeah, USB cards don't work so good .

That's another reason I think Ubuntu is a bit lacking. Wifi support either works or doesn't.

Take my Gigabyte WPKG wireless card. Ubuntu supposedly has drivers pre-installed, but it can't connect to any networks. Reboot to Windows, and I get a four out of five bar connection.

On my dad's laptop, however, it picked up the network like a charm.

Just saying...wifi is on/off.

 

[acousticlemur]

that sucks!!

 

[acousticlemur]

being that i have a dual boot with XP and Ubuntu, is there a way that i can creat a folder in XP that can be accessed with Ubuntu? cause i cant get my belkin usb 54g to work with Ubuntu. so i want to download shit with xpa dn use it to try to get my USB dongle to work with ubuntu.

 

[acousticlemur]

Yeah, USB cards don't work so good .

That's another reason I think Ubuntu is a bit lacking. Wifi support either works or doesn't.

Take my Gigabyte WPKG wireless card. Ubuntu supposedly has drivers pre-installed, but it can't connect to any networks. Reboot to Windows, and I get a four out of five bar connection.

On my dad's laptop, however, it picked up the network like a charm.

Just saying...wifi is on/off.

the onboard network adapter works fine in ubuntu, but the computer is on the other end of the house from the router so i have to use wireless.

 

[Jimmy 2004]

being that i have a dual boot with XP and Ubuntu, is there a way that i can creat a folder in XP that can be accessed with Ubuntu? cause i cant get my belkin usb 54g to work with Ubuntu. so i want to download shit with xpa dn use it to try to get my USB dongle to work with ubuntu.

Not sure how good Ubuntu is with NTFS... it can definitely read FAT32 - I share my FAT32 partition between Linux and windows, but I can't remember how I set it up. Just looked about in the options I think, not sure if you can share a folder easily though. Perhaps burn it to a CR-RW?

 

[Atech]

being that i have a dual boot with XP and Ubuntu, is there a way that i can creat a folder in XP that can be accessed with Ubuntu? cause i cant get my belkin usb 54g to work with Ubuntu. so i want to download shit with xpa dn use it to try to get my USB dongle to work with ubuntu.

If it's the same computer, then ...

Make a mount point:
sudo mkdir /mnt/win

Add this to /etc/fstab:
/etc/sda[partition number] /mnt/win ntfs defaults,user,noatime,noexec,ro,noauto 0 0

Then when you want to fetch files from your Windows partition, mount it with
/mnt/win

If you want to write files to your Windows partition, then remove ro. Might be a bit risky though.

 

[zekrahminator]

Wait, hold the show, I got my Kubuntu 7 to read and write to my NTFS partition. Without even corrupting it .

Mmkay, first, install automatix through APT. Then, run it, and download all the fun stuff you want. Assuming you own a legal copy of Windows, you can even get DVD codecs (otherwise, you're breaking some laws ).

There's something there about reading/writing to NTFS, go search, I'm lazy .

 

[Jimmy 2004]

Wait, hold the show, I got my Kubuntu 7 to read and write to my NTFS partition. Without even corrupting it .

I haven't had Linux for about a year (only put Ubuntu back on yesterday) - being able to write to NTFS was only just coming in to distros then, I wasn't sure if Ubuntu/Kubuntu had got that far yet. Obviously they have, which makes life a little easier.

 

[zekrahminator]

Told ya

(the reason that it's in the "uninstall" folder is because I installed it already, and it DOES work).

 

[markitect]

Go to http://fs-driver.org they have a driver that lets you use your Linux partition from windows

 

[acousticlemur]

ok, so i have figured out a little bit of stuff on here, but not much. i ran into some problems trying to delete the linux partition and Grub was still loaded for the boot, but i fixed that and installed a 40GB WD hard drive to use with Ubuntu. anyway i have reinstalled it and all is well. but after doing some updates i cant install anything without having errors. and now i get the same error when trying to do more updates. it says i must manually run 'dpkg --configure -a' so i type in "sudo dpkg --configure -a" and it trys to install flash. and NEVER finishes, i have let it go over night and still nothing. i have tried the flash website and still the same effect. no matter what i try to install : games, programs, or updates i get the same message. any ideas?

here is a screenie

my version is 6.10 if that helps. i have tried to upgrade and it made it so that i couldnt even boot so that is why i moved to a dif disk and reinstalled. thanks guys!!