[LUAU] Relative Newbie Questions

Eric Hattemer hattenator at imapmail.org
Thu Mar 31 01:09:31 PST 2005


Jacques L. Yerby wrote:

>Aloha Y'all,
>
>Years ago I installed a Slackware by hand on a PC so I thought I knew
>what I was doing.  That was back when X-Windows was relatively new and I
>was pretty much running command line only.
>  
>
Is this the same old computer?  How old is it?  Possibly KDE is just too 
intense for it. 

>Q1: What utility can I use to find out where the bulk of my files are?
>I'm running out of room and have created some bigger ext2 partitions and
>want to map the larger stuff over there.
>  
>
Tim is right on, but be careful not to include "..".  For that you would 
probably want to "du -sk * .[^.]*|sort -n >usage" or something like that. 

>Q3: I'm having some startup problems with KDE.  It's a real slow
>startup.  I don't have this problem with Gnome.  (I have multiple
>windowing systems installed.)
>  
>
You might try starting with no WM, then typing "startkde".  See whether 
its hanging somewhere and timing out eventually.  You may also want to 
upgrade to a newer version of KDE if the system can handle it. 

>Q4: Is an NTFS partition WRITEABLE from Linux?  All of my Win partitions
>are automatically mounted as RO.  I don't want to screw around with this
>until I know more.  (I'd like the capability of copying back & forth.)
>  
>
There are at least three NTFS modules for Linux.  You need the module to 
be compiled with rw support, then you need to edit the fstab to mount 
the partition without the -ro.  People say that it is always dangerous 
no matter what.  The two open source modules come with kernel 
2.something and 2.6.  Neither of the two open source modules will write 
to a winXP NTFS drive, but both should write to 2000 NTFS.  Supposedly 
the 2.6 version was rewritten or something and won't allow you to create 
new files, or significantly change the size of an existing file.  The 
two open source modules have a possibility to write to the FS 
incorrectly and completely ruin the FS to the point where windows can't 
read it and scandisk can't fix it.  The third module is called 
CaptiveNTFS, and it uses the windows ntfs.sys file to do its job.  This 
makes some people angry, so they refuse to use it, but supposedly it can 
read and write to NTFS perfectly. 

That being said, it may be safer to go the other way around: 
http://uranus.it.swin.edu.au/~jn/linux/explore2fs.htm .

Safest is fat32/vfat, which is supported in just about all windows and 
linux with no scary "You may ruin your computer if you use this" 
warnings.  

>P.S. Once again, at the mercy of my landlord I have to move.  I'd prefer
>to stay out here on the N. Shore but if anybody sees anything nice
><$1000 I'd appreciate knowing about it.  I'm a retiree and can't really
>afford much more than that.
>  
>
I hear its getting a lot harder to rent on Oahu.  One of the biggest 
house rental landlords is liquidating.  Maybe look for appartments on 
the West coast. 

-Eric Hattemer





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