I've been playing around with **** Small Linux and would like to know
if I can access downloaded Linux apps stored on my Windows hard
drive. I don't want to do a HD install because my wife relies on
Windows for Yahoo messenger to communicate with her family and friends
who are scattered all over the globe. I tried using YM in Linux, but
with no luck. Further, I don't have the Windows disc to do a
reinstall if (when) I screw up the repartitioning.

I've successfully mounted my hard drive and downloaded apps to it from
DSL. I've then unpacked them. After that, however, I'm lost. When I
click "install", I usually get error messages mentioning syslink and/
or permission denied. I'm doing all of this as superuser, by the way.

Is what I'm attempting possible? If so, I'd appreciate any
suggestions on how to get it to work.

gerry.casadei******.com wrote:
> I've been playing around with **** Small Linux and would like to know
> if I can access downloaded Linux apps stored on my Windows hard
> drive.

If I'm understanding you correctly, you are wanting to execute linux
apps which are not installed.

Does your computer have a USB port? You should consider DSL-N on a USB
stick.

> I don't want to do a HD install because my wife relies on
> Windows for Yahoo messenger to communicate with her family and friends
> who are scattered all over the globe.

You mean that you (think you) need to keep your Win install function for
Yahoo messenger, but that you need to keep your win install for no other
reason. That problem should be easily solvable. If that is all you
need win for, then you don't really need win.

> I tried using YM in Linux, but
> with no luck. Further, I don't have the Windows disc to do a
> reinstall if (when) I screw up the repartitioning.

I understand your fear of screwing up the partitioning if you don't have
a Win install disk. That is a very very fragile position to be in. It
is a good thing you don't really need win for anything, because anything
can happen to a win install and commonly does. Win installs can go
bye-bye unrecoverably for various reasons.

> I've successfully mounted my hard drive and downloaded apps to it from
> DSL. I've then unpacked them. After that, however, I'm lost.

DSL runs in ram. So does DSL-N. The business of adding apps to those
distros is about making custom versions of DSL or DSL-N. I still think
you would be better off installing one of them on a USB drive.

> Is what I'm attempting possible? If so, I'd appreciate any
> suggestions on how to get it to work.

What is an example of an app you would like to add to DSL and do you
have a USB port?

--
Mike Easter

On Sun, 29 Jul 2007 06:42:39 -0700, gerry.casadei wrote:

> I've been playing around with **** Small Linux and would like to know
> if I can access downloaded Linux apps stored on my Windows hard
> drive. I don't want to do a HD install because my wife relies on
> Windows for Yahoo messenger to communicate with her family and friends
> who are scattered all over the globe. I tried using YM in Linux, but
> with no luck. Further, I don't have the Windows disc to do a
> reinstall if (when) I screw up the repartitioning.

yes.
why not do a dual boot?
what is YM?
You can repartition first using e.g. Gparted Live CD.

>
> I've successfully mounted my hard drive and downloaded apps to it from
> DSL. I've then unpacked them. After that, however, I'm lost. When I
> click "install", I usually get error messages mentioning syslink and/
> or permission denied. I'm doing all of this as superuser, by the way.
>

Best way to install software is use your package management tool which,
implies you've done a real install to make it permanent.
If, instead, you've downloaded a tar.gz form, then after unpacking, you
look for instructions - because they can vary. Typically, it is 1)
../configure 2) make 3) make install.


> Is what I'm attempting possible? If so, I'd appreciate any
> suggestions on how to get it to work.

gerry.casadei******.com wrote:
> I've been playing around with **** Small Linux and would like to know
> if I can access downloaded Linux apps stored on my Windows hard
> drive.

In theory you could do that, with some exceptions as some programs require
special privileges bit set on the files and has to be owned by the right user.
You could instead use a USB as Mike Easter recommends, but I may think CygWin
is a better option for you, of course you will continue to have the poor
security and stability that microsoft provides.


> I don't want to do a HD install because my wife relies on
> Windows for Yahoo messenger to communicate with her family and friends
> who are scattered all over the globe. I tried using YM in Linux, but
> with no luck.

Kopete has good support for YM and most other IMs and you only need one
application to run all the IMs at the same time.


> Further, I don't have the Windows disc to do a
> reinstall if (when) I screw up the repartitioning.

That sounds quite dangerous, what will you do when the microsoft has got so
corrupted that it won't boot (this will come in a somewhat near future)? Buy a
new computer?


> I've successfully mounted my hard drive and downloaded apps to it from
> DSL. I've then unpacked them. After that, however, I'm lost. When I
> click "install", I usually get error messages mentioning syslink and/
> or permission denied. I'm doing all of this as superuser, by the way.

It's quite difficult to install something to a CD-media after that the
burning-session has been closed (no further burning is possible).


--

//Aho

gerry.casadei******.com wrote:

> Further, I don't have the Windows disc to do a
> reinstall if (when) I screw up the repartitioning.

If I didn't have a Win install disk, I would be immediately planning for
disaster -- in case tomorrow you can't boot into Win you are going to be
dead in the water except for your DSL disk which doesn't have a CD
burner. I just checked and DSL-N also doesn't have a burner, but it has
a lot more than DSL.

I would download some other linux distro that is a live CD that you
could bootup and install so that you would have an operating system to
go wherever you needed to go. If you don't have something to start
with, you are going to feel very helpless -- unless you have some
alternate computer and connectivity around the house.


--
Mike Easter

On Sun, 29 Jul 2007 06:42:39 -0700, gerry.casadei wrote:

> I've been playing around with **** Small Linux and would like to know
> if I can access downloaded Linux apps stored on my Windows hard
> drive. I don't want to do a HD install because my wife relies on
> Windows for Yahoo messenger to communicate with her family and friends
> who are scattered all over the globe. I tried using YM in Linux, but
> with no luck. Further, I don't have the Windows disc to do a
> reinstall if (when) I screw up the repartitioning.
>
> I've successfully mounted my hard drive and downloaded apps to it from
> DSL. I've then unpacked them. After that, however, I'm lost. When I
> click "install", I usually get error messages mentioning syslink and/
> or permission denied. I'm doing all of this as superuser, by the way.
>
> Is what I'm attempting possible? If so, I'd appreciate any
> suggestions on how to get it to work.

I would suggest adding an inexpensive hard drive. Then you can play all
you want, without screwing with the windows drive. You can get a drive
for under $50. Then just stick it in the box. You can always use your
bios when booting to choose the linux drive, or set your linux drive to the
default boot device, and use grub to select which OS to use.

This should protect your love life, and still let you explore linuxland.
After you get linux up, install gaim. Let here try that out as her YM
client. She may like this system better.

stonerfish

<gerry.casadei******.com> wrote in message
news:1185716559.007833.140790@j4g2000prf.googlegro ups.com...
> I've been playing around with **** Small Linux and would like to know
> if I can access downloaded Linux apps stored on my Windows hard
> drive. I don't want to do a HD install because my wife relies on
> Windows for Yahoo messenger to communicate with her family and friends
> who are scattered all over the globe. I tried using YM in Linux, but
> with no luck. Further, I don't have the Windows disc to do a
> reinstall if (when) I screw up the repartitioning.
>
> I've successfully mounted my hard drive and downloaded apps to it from
> DSL. I've then unpacked them. After that, however, I'm lost. When I
> click "install", I usually get error messages mentioning syslink and/
> or permission denied. I'm doing all of this as superuser, by the way.
>
> Is what I'm attempting possible? If so, I'd appreciate any
> suggestions on how to get it to work.
>

Lets put DSL aside for a minute

Method 1
If you want to run a full linux version, all you need is about 4 gigs on the
back end of you hard drive. At this point, I will reference Mandriva, but
others do the same kind of thing.
First, it can move the files on the back end of the hard drive and shrink
the partition. This will not affect windoze.
Then it will format the root partition in a 'real' filesystem like ext3, not
fat32 or ntfs.
Then it installs itself and a boot loader which lets you choose windoze or
linux.
( a number of steps not listed here for brevity )
All versions of linux can read and write fat32, most can read and some can
write ntfs.
Just about everything you will need comes with the linux install, including
yahoo compatible chat clients
(webcams are a bit problematic still)

Method 2
Obtain a live cd like Knoppix, burn it, and boot from it
mount the fat32 filesystem, create a \linux\home folder to save your
settings and data to.

Method 3
Install DSL or other distro on a usb memory stick, and boot from that
make /home on that drive to keep your settings

You didn't say which version of windoze, and you didn't say what ( if any)
windoze only application you need to run, so I can't help you with the idea
of eliminating windoze.

Also, it is unclear exactly what steps you have taken to make linux work
properly and what success you have had so far.
'install' is a windoze thing, rpm's are linux things

In any case, IMMEDIATELY prepare proper backups of your system.
It is not a question of 'if windoze will fail', it is a question of when and
how badly it will mess things up. It is very common to have the whole hard
drive unreadable.

Stuart

On 2007-07-29 15:42, gerry.casadei******.com wrote:
> I've been playing around with **** Small Linux and would like to know
> if I can access downloaded Linux apps stored on my Windows hard
> drive. I don't want to do a HD install because my wife relies on
> Windows for Yahoo messenger to communicate with her family and friends
> who are scattered all over the globe. I tried using YM in Linux, but
> with no luck. Further, I don't have the Windows disc to do a
> reinstall if (when) I screw up the repartitioning.
>
> I've successfully mounted my hard drive and downloaded apps to it from
> DSL. I've then unpacked them. After that, however, I'm lost. When I
> click "install", I usually get error messages mentioning syslink and/
> or permission denied. I'm doing all of this as superuser, by the way.
>
> Is what I'm attempting possible? If so, I'd appreciate any
> suggestions on how to get it to work.
>

VFAT has no support for linux permissions, so if you will run
linux executable files on vfat, you must mount it so everything
has the x bit set, and that is very bad.

The best is to mount it noexec, and if you have any unix/linux filer
on vfat, keep them in an archive (zip/tar/rar/7z for example) , and unpack
it to a linux filesystem first.

Better your wife upgrade her husband first, so she get one that can buy
her a new hard disk, or she can wait until her friends run Linux, and learn her
how to ditch windows :-)

/bb

On Jul 30, 10:44 pm, birre <spamt...@norsborg.net> wrote:
>
> The best is to mount it noexec, and if you have any unix/linux filer
> on vfat, keep them in an archive (zip/tar/rar/7z for example) , and unpack
> it to a linux filesystem first.

What's a unix/linux filer? Example?

> Better your wife upgrade her husband first, so she get one that can buy
> her a new hard disk.

Ha ha! Truer words were never spoken!

Thanks for the help.

On 2007-08-02 05:36, gerry.casadei******.com wrote:
> On Jul 30, 10:44 pm, birre <spamt...@norsborg.net> wrote:
>> The best is to mount it noexec, and if you have any unix/linux filer
>> on vfat, keep them in an archive (zip/tar/rar/7z for example) , and unpack
>> it to a linux filesystem first.
>
> What's a unix/linux filer? Example?
>

It was a spelling error, I'm terrible good at this :-)

It should be unix/linux files

They have information about owner , group, and time in a format
that make it possible to know when a file was modified, and accessed
and when the permissions where changed last.

Windows also have some time flags, but are in local time, without
info about where on the earth that localtime is , so you can't compare
2 files from different timezones.
Not usable for Enterprise networking in large projects.

Windows is NOT a multiuser OS , so there is no owner to a file.

And you have a bit telling if this is data/text, or an executable.

Mounting a vfat so all files is 777 will make you execute random text with fatal
errors, and you can download trojans in your browser that can be executed
by misstake.

So, will you make linux as windows, and get blasted/owned the first day,
or adopt to a better designed system, and ONLY use vfat as a transfer
area for files ?

Windows can very well read and write ext filesystems to with additional
software, but you must know what you are doing when using it, or you
will mess up linux with it.

/bb

On Jul 29, 9:42 am, gerry.casa...******.com wrote:
> I've been playing around with **** Small Linux and would like to know
> if I can access downloaded Linux apps stored on my Windows hard
> drive. I don't want to do a HD install because my wife relies on
> Windows for Yahoo messenger to communicate with her family and friends
> who are scattered all over the globe. I tried using YM in Linux, but
> with no luck. Further, I don't have the Windows disc to do a
> reinstall if (when) I screw up the repartitioning.
>
> I've successfully mounted my hard drive and downloaded apps to it from
> DSL. I've then unpacked them. After that, however, I'm lost. When I
> click "install", I usually get error messages mentioning syslink and/
> or permission denied. I'm doing all of this as superuser, by the way.
>
> Is what I'm attempting possible? If so, I'd appreciate any
> suggestions on how to get it to work.

As you have now found out, the Microsoft FATxx and NTFS filesystems do
not provide proper support for Linux file attributes, and you will
have some difficulties if you store your Linux files on one of these
filesystems.

However, there is a way around all this. What you need is a loopback
filesystem.

Only a unixish filesystem (ext2, ext3, reiserfs, etc.) can handle the
file metadata that Linux needs. You can create a file (yes, a file) on
your FATxx filesystem that will act as a separate filesystem to Linux.
You format this file as an ext2 fs (for instance), and mount it to
Linux. Once mounted, the file on FATxx becomes a fully functioning
ext2 "partition", capable of storing Linux files with full linux file
metadata support.

For example:

# Show that /mnt/hd is a vfat/FATxx filesystem
root@merlin:/mnt/hd# mount | grep /mnt/hd
/dev/hda6 on /mnt/hd type vfat (rw)

# create a file on the FATxx filesystem, fill it with binary zero
# NB: this file can be any size - the only restriction is that its
size
# must be fixed apon allocation (i.e. touch won't do it)
root@merlin:/mnt/hd# dd if=/dev/zero of=ext2.fs bs=1024 count=2000
2000+0 records in
2000+0 records out
2048000 bytes (2.0 MB) copied, 0.032994 seconds, 62.1 MB/s

# reformat the contents of the file as an ext2 filesystem
# NB: I could have formatted it as any other unixish fs
root@merlin:/mnt/hd# mke2fs ext2.fs
mke2fs 1.38 (30-Jun-2005)
ext2.fs is not a block special device.
Proceed anyway? (y,n) y
Filesystem label=
OS type: Linux
Block size=1024 (log=0)
Fragment size=1024 (log=0)
256 inodes, 2000 blocks
100 blocks (5.00%) reserved for the super user
First data block=1
1 block group
8192 blocks per group, 8192 fragments per group
256 inodes per group

Writing inode tables: done
Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done

This filesystem will be automatically checked every 33 mounts or
180 days, whichever comes first. Use tune2fs -c or -i to override.

# Now, mount the file as an ext2 filesystem
root@merlin:/mnt/hd# mkdir newmount
root@merlin:/mnt/hd# mount -o loop -t ext2 ext2.fs newmount
root@merlin:/mnt/hd# mount | grep ext2.fs
/mnt/hd/ext2.fs on /mnt/hd/newmount type ext2 (rw,loop=/dev/loop0)

# Let's do some stuff in the new fs that FATxx doesn't support
# just to prove that we actually do have unix file metadata support
# this way
root@merlin:/mnt/hd# cd newmount
root@merlin:/mnt/hd/newmount# ls -la
total 45
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 1024 2007-08-02 08:21 ./
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 16384 2007-08-02 08:21 ../
drwx------ 2 root root 12288 2007-08-02 08:21 lost+found/

root@merlin:/mnt/hd/newmount# touch a.b.c
root@merlin:/mnt/hd/newmount# ls -l
total 12
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 2007-08-02 08:21 a.b.c
drwx------ 2 root root 12288 2007-08-02 08:21 lost+found/

root@merlin:/mnt/hd/newmount# chown bin:bin a.b.c
root@merlin:/mnt/hd/newmount# ls -l
total 12
-rw-r--r-- 1 bin bin 0 2007-08-02 08:21 a.b.c
drwx------ 2 root root 12288 2007-08-02 08:21 lost+found/

root@merlin:/mnt/hd/newmount# chmod go-r a.b.c
root@merlin:/mnt/hd/newmount# ls -l
total 12
-rw------- 1 bin bin 0 2007-08-02 08:21 a.b.c
drwx------ 2 root root 12288 2007-08-02 08:21 lost+found/

root@merlin:/mnt/hd/newmount# ln -s a.b.c c.d.e
root@merlin:/mnt/hd/newmount# ls -l
total 12
-rw------- 1 bin bin 0 2007-08-02 08:21 a.b.c
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 5 2007-08-02 08:23 c.d.e -> a.b.c
drwx------ 2 root root 12288 2007-08-02 08:21 lost+found/

Will that solve your problem?

HTH
--
Lew

On Jul 29, 9:42 am, gerry.casa...******.com wrote:
> I've been playing around with **** Small Linux and would like to know
> if I can access downloaded Linux apps stored on my Windows hard
> drive.
[snip]
> Is what I'm attempting possible? If so, I'd appreciate any
> suggestions on how to get it to work.

Another option would be to run your DSL in a "virtual" system. A QEMU
or VMWare "virtual machine" will run on Windows, and give you a
"virtual disk drive" implemented as a Windows file. You could run DSL
Linux within a virtual machine, and format the virtual disk drive as
an EXT2 (or other Unixish) filesystem. No disruption to your wife's
setup would result, and you'd have a fully functioning (while a little
bit slow) Linux system at your command.

FWIW, I use Slackware linux (running off of a DVD-ROM) within a QEMU
virtual machine on my Windows XP machine at work. This way, I have my
unix tools ready at hand, and only a single file (my "virtual hard
drive") on my employer's computer.

HTH
--
Lew

On Aug 2, 11:44 am, Lew Pitcher <lpitc...@teksavvy.com> wrote:
> Another option would be to run your DSL in a "virtual" system. A QEMU
> or VMWare "virtual machine" will run on Windows, and give you a
> "virtual disk drive" implemented as a Windows file. You could run DSL
> Linux within a virtual machine, and format the virtual disk drive as
> an EXT2 (or other Unixish) filesystem. No disruption to your wife's
> setup would result, and you'd have a fully functioning (while a little
> bit slow) Linux system at your command.

An excellent suggestion! But I'd suggest VirtualBox, a quality
program that's free for non-commercial use.
http://www.virtualbox.org/

Rick Carter

On Aug 5, 12:19 am, carte...@despammed.com wrote:
> On Aug 2, 11:44 am, Lew Pitcher <lpitc...@teksavvy.com> wrote:
>
> > Another option would be to run your DSL in a "virtual" system. A QEMU
> > or VMWare "virtual machine" will run on Windows, and give you a
> > "virtual disk drive" implemented as a Windows file.
[snip]
> An excellent suggestion! But I'd suggest VirtualBox, a quality
> program that's free for non-commercial use.http://www.virtualbox.org/

It looks like VirtualBox has been built with parts from QEMU.

Unlike VirtualBox, QEMU is free for both non-commercial /and/
commercial use.