Linux Community Magazine

Hi everybody

Complete process is mostly done automatically. That doesn't imply that you just watch the computer do all work for you from start to finish.

At certain stages of the process, you are prompted to choose some options the system presents. Most questions you can answer easily, but there are some options which needs careful consideration to pick.

The options above are critical and can make the installation a total failure.

How do I know it?????

I tried it many times, and I found out the big difference. There are only two outcome of installing Linux and Windows XP on the same computer: Success or failure. No other choices.

If you want to ensure successful installations, here are 4 simple basic steps that will help you tremendously, and will make a huge difference in making the installation run smooth and produce the desired result:

1rst - MUST partition your hard disk in to 2 partitions using Windows XP.

This should be done, because in most cases each operating system should be on a separate partition.

There are some exceptions that two operating systems can work in the same partition, but it is not the proper method..

It is possible two have two Microsoft operating system on the same partition depending on their versions, but this will never work if one operating system is Linux.

So, if you need to install Linux and Windows XP on the same computer hard disk, you must use separate partition for each.

2nd -Install Windows XP First on a partition of at least 3Gigs. This is because Linux will recognize the NTFS file system used by Windows XP. So, Linux will prompted you to leave the NTFS file system intact or format it..

Once prompted if you need to format the whole drive, you will choose the option that keeps Windows XP installed.

3rd -Install Linux after you are done totally with Windows XP installation.

When you are done installing Windows XP, you will install Linux an another partition. Up until now, you have installed Windows XP and Linux on different partitions.

This will enable you to have a computer ready to be rendered a dual boot system that will give you the options of loading either operating systems: Windows XP or Linux.

However, you still have to complete one step to ensure a successful dual boot set up on your computer. In step four, I will explain what completes your successful dual boot installation.

4th -Edit lilo.conf file. After you are done installing both operating system, Linux and Windows XP, your computer will reboot. You will be amazed to find out that your computer is loading Linux without giving you the choice of loading Windows XP..

This situation is tricky and makes you think that the installation of the dual boot did not take place. This problem is resolved by editing a Linux file called lilo.conf.

Once lilo.conf is edited properly by adding a line of code that points to Windows XP operating system, you will be able to resolve the problem in order to be able to have a choice of two operating systems. Linux or Windows XP.

In Summary, don't spend countless hours installing two operating systems unless you take into account the 4 simple steps above. Hope it helped you.

In most cases, your email server is hosted by the same company that your website is hosted with. However, some companies prefer internal email servers. This ensures the ability to have permanent mail storage as well as having the ability to customise the size limits without incurring extra costs. Linux email servers are stable, feature rich and completely scalable.

Web-based Email

Linux email servers support POP3, IMAP, and Webmail access. These are universal standards that need to be available for flexible email access. With web-based email access you can access your emails in the office, or on the go.

Spam filtering

Spam has become a major issue on the net today and consumes costs and time. Linux email servers are robust enough to supply customizable features such as spam filtering.

Virus scanning

No business should go without fully-integrated virus scanning software and this is easily done within a Linux email server. With options such AmaViS and Clam AV your networked computers will stay safe from those nasty viruses.

Security

Linux email servers offer SMTP SSL Authentication and domain keys which help keep your server and emails secure. It is very difficult to exploit the Linux operating system, therefore your emails are safe and secure at all times.

Speed and Stability

Linux is a one of the most stable operating systems known today. Linux email servers are well known for their amazing up-time statistics and when it comes to efficiency you cannot go wrong as Linux boasts amazing speeds.

Scalability

With the Linux email servers using MySQL or Postgres as their back end storage, you can ensure that you will have enough room to keep expanding. Storage space is definitely not a problem when choosing Linux. With current common technology, your Linux email server can reach sizes of up to 16TB (terabytes).

Let CCS Africa help you set up your Linux email server today and enjoy the peace of mind that comes with the stability, speed and scalability of your new email server. Contact us on 0861 22 77 29 or email to get a quote today!

There is no doubt you have already realized that your PS3 is one of the best gaming consoles on the market today. However, it has the potential to be more than a gaming console. It can be turned into a very capable, fully functioning home computer. All you have to do is install a Linux distribution. Doing so is not has difficult as it sounds and it is perfectly legal and it will not void your warranty.

Installing Linux on your PS3 will create two partitions on your PS3's hard drive. Do not worry about this as it is perfectly normal and it is the only way to do it. You also should not worry about installing Linux on your PS3 negatively effecting your PS3's native gaming capabilities because it will not. You should realize that when Sony developed your PS3, Sony intended for you to be able to turn the gaming console into a desktop computer by installing Linux. You read that right. Sony even released a PS2 Linux kit back in 2002.

Once you install Linux on your PS3, there will be two operating systems on your gaming console: the native GameOS and the Linux OS. The native operating system allows you to play all the games by creating a channel of communication between you and the system's hardware. So when you are playing a game, scrolling through the cross menu bar (XMB), listening to music or watching movies, the GameOS allows for this to happen. Linux will run on top of the GameOS which will then provide the link between Linux and the PS3 hardware.

You do not have to know the technical details of how installing Linux on your PS3 will effect or will not effect your gaming console, but it is a good idea to know that the GameOS is the gateway as it provides you access to Linux and creates a sense of continuity. This means that you can enjoy a high quality desktop environment with your Linux OS.

Getting the most out of your PlayStation 3 is possible and it does not have to take a computer programmer to do it. It is not that complex and you will have aa powerful multimedia entertainment center. Visit geekedout.tumblr.com for more information.

The hard drives can be divided in one or more parts, known as partitions. The division of hard drive is described in partition table, stored in sector 0 of hard drive. Linux operating system requires at least one hard drive partition, namely for the root file system. It may use the swap files and swap partitions, however the latter are quite efficient. Thus, generally you may want second Linux hard drive partition devoted as the swap partitions. In some cases, improper use of hard drive management tools can cause data loss and need Linux Data Recovery to be sorted out.

On the Intel hardware, the BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) that boots up your system and can generally only access first 1024 cylinders of hard drive. Due to the same, you may need to create third hard drive partitions if your hard drive is large in size. This partitions is generally mounted on the /boot, for storing kernel image and some auxiliary files required at boot time, so that BIOS can access them.

You can create the manipulate the partition table in Linux using a menu drive program, known as fdisk. However, this tool can not understand the GPT (GUID Partition Table) and is not work with large partitions. Fdisk understands DOS partition table and BSD/SUN disklabels.

The Fdisk automatically obtains the hard drive geometry, if possible. It is not inevitably physical disk geometry (as modern hard drive don't actually have physical geometry), but is disk geometry that is used for DOS type partition tables.

Generally everything works fine if only the Linux operating system is installed on your drive. But, in dual-boot configuration, you should let the Fdisk from other operating system create at least one partitions. While booting the Linux operating system, it considers partition table and attempts to derive what geometry is needed for effective cooperation with another operating system.

Before you proceed for any operation on your hard drive, it is recommended to create complete backup of your significant data. When you backup data using dd command, you need to be careful. A minor mistake may cause severe data loss and need Data Recovery Linux to be handled.

Linux Data Recovery is possible with the help of powerful third-party tools, known as Linux Recovery Software. The applications are particularly designed to carry out thorough scan of the drive and extract lost, missing, and inaccessible data from it.

Stellar Phoenix Linux Data Recovery is the most advanced tool for absolute recovery. The software recovers data from Ext4, Ext3, Ext2, FAT32, FAT16, and FAT12 file system volumes. It is compatible with all major distributions of Linux operating system including Red Hat, Debian, SUSE, and Fedora.

In Linux operating system, the hard drive volumes are mounted by the disk labels, in place of the device paths. It is a quite effective approach because the disk path and name can get changed when you boot your system and so can create a number of complications for your system. Therefore, the labels are assigned to Linux volumes so that they can mount at correct place. But in some situations, the disks can not be mounted and accessed due to disk label corruption and you come across critical data loss situations. In order to extract lost data in such situations, Linux Data Recovery is required.

The disk label is a quite significant data structure for accessing a Linux hard drive volume. All the entires for volumes to be mounted during boot time are stored in /etc/fstab file. When disk labels get damaged, Linux volumes can not be mounted and thus all your critical data becomes inaccessible.

This issue may occur during boot time. In case of unexpected system shutdown, when you reboot the system, fsck runs automatically at startup. This command-line utility checks integrity of hard drive and file system to detect and repair errors. However, incomplete or improper processing of this tool may increase the chances of file system corruption and data loss. This behavior of Linux operating system needs Data Recovery Linux to be handled.

When you run the fdisk command to manipulate hard drive partition table, following error message may occur and the process gets terminated:

"Warning: invalid flag 0x0000 of partition table 4 will be corrected by w(rite)"

The above error indicates that the label of particular volume is corrupted and due to the same, volume can not be either seen or accessed. In such cases, backup proves as real help to restore your data from affected storage media. But in case if the backup is not available, Linux Recovery Software are needed for extracting lost data.

These applications are particularly designed to thoroughly scan the whole hard drive and extract all lost, missing, and inaccessible data from it. The Linux Data Recovery applications are completely easy to use as they have simple and rich graphical user interface. With read-only and non-destructive conduct, such tools perform safe recovery without altering original data on the drive.

Stellar Phoenix Linux Data Recovery is the most efficient and powerful application for assured recovery. It recovers lost data from Ext4, Ext3, Ext2, FAT32, FAT16, and FAT12 file system volumes. The software is compatible with all major distributions of Linux such as SUSE, Debian, Fedora, and Red Hat.