[Glastonbury] Fw: hello all

[Andrew M.A. Cater]

On Sun, Nov 02, 2003 at 05:44:30AM +0000, tim hall wrote:
> On Saturday 01 November 2003 18:13, Martin WHEELER wrote:
> > (Dual-booting would seem to be in order for this week -- just a
> > thought. ?Steve? ?Tim?)
> 
> It would certainly bear discussion. Although I am glad to say I am clear of 
> immediate problems thanks to Andy's help :-) It would be worth covering the 
> salient points of LILO and other boot systems if others are used. I would 
> like to be able to be more confident when people ask me 'Yes, but can I keep 
> my windows as well'. At present I can tell them 'yes' in theory - As I've 
> never double booted with Windows I am unclear as to the process.
Cue multiple Multiboot HOWTO's for the various versions of Windows which 
may essentially boil down to the following :)

1.) Install Windows _first_ on the primary hard disk :)

2.) Defrag/scandisk Windows to remove files at the end of the disk.

3.) Use parted or some other disk resizer to give you a blank partition
at the end of the disk.

4.) Install Linux.

5.) Intall Lilo and tell it to boot /dev/hda1 under "other" :)

> 
> Some kind of discussion of general approaches to system configuration might 
> be in order. My main issues are around Printing/Fonts and Sound, personally, 
> but they may involve a review of core configurations. I've never got round to 
> understanding how to set, for example, the DISPLAY variable, or indeed worked 
> out how it is used. The system complains frequently enough about it not being 
> there.

You need to know which distribution. DISPLAY should now be fairly 
irrelevant - I tend to use ssh to export my display between machines and 
that sets it up for itself (ssh -X aardvark.wombat.net ; xterm from 
echidna.wombat.net will bring up an xterm from aardvark directly to 
echidna provided you're running under the X Windows system, for 
example). Send me an example off list, I'll try to sort it out for you, 
and then post the response to the list :)

> While I'm at it - Advanced Monitor tweaking. I don't have a manual for my 
> monitor and the range of output it will accept from my video card - the 
> onboard i810 - is limited. I would like my video output to be 'square' to 
> itself at least and as close to 1:1 as possible or at least dot for dot. I'm 
> probably not using the correct terms here so I hope that made some sense.
i810 can be problematic, because it has relatively small amounts of 
memory.  If using Debian Stable, be aware that Unstable may support it 
better.  A cheap "real" video card may be a godsend, however, to 
substitute for the i810 which robs system memory.

What make is the monitor?

> I'd like to know how to write a good modeline and how to make my machine use 
> it in preference to anything else.

Order in XFree86 config file?  If you run xf86config under Debian, you 
can specify the preferred modes.  I tend to use 1024x768,800x600,640x480
such that each Ctrl-Alt-Grey+ steps me up/down one real resolution.

HTH,

Andy