New to Linux

[Wombatunder]

I'm looking at converting my fileserver/download machine to either dual boot or linux only. Having not used linux before I was wondering what problems I'm likely to encounter trying to use linux with ntfs filesystem and a Dynamic, striped raid type setup.
at the moment I have a 6GB hdd with win2000(NTFS)and other programs, a pair of 9.3GB hdd's for torrent use(in raid setup though win2000 didn't call it that, I'm trying to remember what it called it.NTFS) and a buggered 120GB hdd for file storage(NTFS, it has a slow transfer rate, somewhere between 2x and 4x dvd speed.)
I don't have enough spare room to put everything while I reformat to Fat32 or other(mainly the 120gb drive) except for burning to dvd using another machine, across a 100Mb network.
If you need any other info just ask.

[Icky_Thoomp]

G'day Wombatunder,

From my pathetically inadequate knowledge of Linux, I would advise that you try a bootable CD version of Linux, like Knoppix, to test to see if Linux is for you. How you would get it to see your RAID drives and stuff - NFI.... Sorry.

[Wombatunder]

I have an older copy of ubuntu but at the moment my filserver doesn't have a cd drive in it(too many hdd's) I'm trying to work out if I can make it boot over my network or not.

[~vjay~]

The drive size worries me, I wouldn't want to be setting up duel boot anything and use it on that size.(I'm confused about which drive you want this on, one of the small ones right?)

I don't know much about hardware as in raid/sata etc at all so I'm not much help there, I have Xp Pro on a C: drive and Linux on the D: drive, same harddrive and just partitioned.

I'm not using Fat32 for my XP, is set up in NTFS and works fine.

I can access all my windows drives in Suse fine, I play mp3's stored on my E drive in Suse.

You doing this for any particular reason or just because you want to try something different? ;)

[Spingo]

use linux with ntfs filesystem and a Dynamic, striped raid type setup.

If you're using "Software RAID" in Windows, your array is NOT going to be accessible from within Linux. The RAID information is stored in the Windows registry, and you're not going to be able to access that from within Linux. You need to use Hardware-based RAID for it to be accessible under both Windows and Linux.

(in raid setup though win2000 didn't call it that, I'm trying to remember what it called it.NTFS)

I think that you're referring to a "spanned set" here (which technically isn't RAID) and again it's not going to be accessable from within Linux since the "volume" data is stored in the Windows registry.

Once you convert anything to a Dynamic Volume under Windows, it's only accessible from within Windows.

[Wombatunder]

My big worry was the 120gb drive(and not having anywhere to put all of the stuff on it).
I'm happy to get rid of windows completely and use the 6GB drive to boot linux.
I think that you're referring to a "spanned set" here (which technically isn't RAID) and again it's not going to be accessable from within Linux since the "volume" data is stored in the Windows registry.
Yeah, that's what it did. Again I'm happy to reformat these two drives, is there a way to setup something similar to spanned set under linux? Or do I have to go down the Hardware-based raid setup?

The main drive I'm worried about is the 120gb which I would like to leave as NTFS and from what ~vjay~ says that's possible.

The next Q is how easy is it to network linux with winXP pro and Xbox? I need to be able to access the 120GB drive from all of the other computers and copy from the spanned(hopefully)drives to the 120GB drive.

[ewe2]

If you only intend to read the ntfs volume under linux, that's fine, but you cannot write to it from linux (well you can but only if you don't make any actual changes). Spanned drives are also known as raid 0 or JBOD and linux can software raid drives, but its probably not a good idea with windows filesystems. And you probably don't want to format 120gb in one fat32 partition anyway.

Use the samba suite to set up cifs access to your windows machines from linux. If you go the recommended route of first trying out a cd distro, this will be easier to work with at first.

[Spingo]

Spanned drives are also known as raid 0 or JBOD..

I'm actually going to pull you up on this. Spanned != Striped. A spanned disk is when you have disk 1 that gets filled up, so you add disk 2 later and expand the volume so that it goes across two disks. Striped is when you start with two disks and you write half of the data to disk 1 and the other half on disk 2, resulting in a good performance increase. The former is not RAID at all, while the latter is RAID-0.

If you're going to add and X-box into the equation, setting up your file server PC with Linux and Samba makes the most sense (I'm assuming that you're using something like XBMC to retrieve video and music from your File Server?). XMBC can pull things via SMB/CIFS shares or via FTP (although FTP is far from reliable, depending on your app. The FTP server/client in XBMC is OK, the one under EvoX just plain sucks)

Here's what's probably going to be the best performing solution while maximising your disk space.

6GB Drive - Set this up as your Linux OS disk, consisting of a 100MB /boot ext3 partition and the rest as / (root) (Use ext3 also). You can add other partitions if you wish, but this more often than not confuses Linux newbies.
2x9.3GB drives - Use the Logical volume Manager to set these up as a striped array. Create a 1GB swap partition on this volume. Create an ext3 partition on the rest of the drive for your torrects (use a mount point such as /mnt/torrents if you like)
120GB drive - Create a single 'massive' ext3 partition for your other schtuff (mount point such as /mnt/storage sould be adequate).

You'll only want to perform a minimal installation of Linux - I doubt that you need anything fancy installed. X-Windows with KDE should at least provide you with a GUI hich might make things easier until you get familiar with the command line. But there's no need to install OpenOffice, etc - Just make sure that you do install Samba.

Configure Samba so that it shares your /mnt/torrent and /mnt/storage directories and you should be swoit!

[Wombatunder]

Thanx zPeeps. I'll let you know how I go.

[Wombatunder]

You doing this for any particular reason or just because you want to try something different? ;)

Just for fun, I'm teaching myself dreamweaver/html and thought I'd try my hand at linux too

[ewe2]

I'm actually going to pull you up on this. Spanned != Striped


Fair nuff, i forgot there was that distinction! So JBOD is spanned, and RAID-0 is striped. Now the IBM serveRAID java app makes more sense now...

[Wombatunder]

HELP. My windows install on my main machine has shit itself so I am running ubuntu 6 off a boot disk and need to install java software for firefox and I don't understand the options available on the page that firefox sent me to.

This is where I ended up http://java.com/en/download/manual.jsp but I'm not sure what option to choose for Ubuntu 6.06 LTS- the Dapper Drake - released in June 2006. I'm running a intel PIII.

[ewe2]

just pick the straight linux one (self-extracting file) for now; you should be aware that ubuntu dappers packages work with version 1.4 not 1.5, so unless you dont need java for anything else you'd be better off with


apt-get install j2re1.4


it's annoying cos a lot of stuff is now working for 1.5 not 1.4 so your call.

[Wombatunder]

Sorry ewe2, I think I'm being a bit slow, but could you dumb it down a bit? this is the first time I've used linux and have NFI what I'm doing. At least this little emergancy will help me decide what I'm going to do with my fileserver:D

[Wombatunder]

Can I install this sort of stuff while running off a boot disc? I can't use the terminal because I have no idea what the default password is!!

[Icky]

Im trying Ubuntu right now.
Its kool, trouble is im on a share computer.
Also im so used to windows it will take a while to get used to.

[ewe2]

wombatunder why do you need java for firefox? if you're running off a boot disk you can't install anything. i was assuming you were running off a Linux partition on the hard disk. what are you trying to fix on the windows install btw?

[wolfpac181]

Can I install this sort of stuff while running off a boot disc? I can't use the terminal because I have no idea what the default password is!!


do a passwd change first on the bootdisc. then sudo all the stuff. Ubuntu security stuff.

[wolfpac181]

Forgot to tell ya guys.. openNAS is starting to take off in popularity. Opensource, based off of freeBSD, and it's all webgui for fileservices. Can set up multiple raid services, plus all file systems that freeBSD can do. It's also built for solid state storage, Flash drives. while the harddrives are the ones media is put on.

once refined more, I'm switching my TB of space to that.

[dogwomble]

Wombutunder,

I'm going to make one recommendation to you re: Linux. At the moment, I'm playing around with Linux on a server box I'm building myself. I know a little bit about Linux from what I covered in a TAFE course. While apparently there are some distros that make sysadmin type stuff easier, particularly if you run an X-Windows GUI, I've decided to do away with a graphical interface and use both WebMin and comand-line instead, just so I've got more RAM for file caching.

The one thing I'm realising by doing it this way is that I don't actually know that much about Linux and, if you don't know that much, it's very easy to get lost. There's been a huge learning curve going on while I've been building the machine, and I expect that to go on for a long time while I get used to the way Linux does things. It's helped that I know a reasonable amount about the concepts behind what's going on though.

So my recommendation? If you really want to start out on Linux, get one of the versions that have these easy-to-use GUI tools, but once you're comfortable with them consider learniong the more 'difficult' way of doing things. More work, and lots of late nights (I spent about 4 hours last night trying to work out why my DHCP server wasn't working....but I finally nailed it!) but if you're serious about it you'll do it...

[Wombatunder]

thanx for you help everyone. I worked out that I couldn't install anything because I didn't have anywhere for linux to write to. I'm waiting on a new hdd to create a dual boot system for my main putey then once I've backed up everything on my fileserver I will be switching to linux.

[Wombatunder]

I finally have I Dual boot system :D Now to find somewhere for 110gig of stuff so I can do my fileserver!!!