The H8ers Club

I like PCLinuxOS and use it on a daily basis, I am no guru and I only think of a computer as an electronic filing system that has certain files that make things happen (programs). Every once in a while I run into a snag and trial and error is how I learn. I will always write what has worked for me and hopefully it will help those that run into the same problems. If there are better solutions please leave a comment.

This solution I used required that I had a remasterme dvd. It is pretty easy to make one. Log in as root and type in the console (Terminal) and type remasterme and an iso file will be made in your root folder. Since you logged in as root you can burn the newly created iso file to a dvd. You can use brasero or k3b whichever your preference, personally I like using brasero. Either flavor make sure you verify the data. Now you have a remasterme of your file system on dvd(a.k.a. a backup of your file system). You should always do this when your OS is set up up beautifully to your liking.

My system partitions are set up swap, /, /home, windows ( for Rome: Total War only).

Now I only had to use this method because my X server wouldn’t startx. I tried every suggestion from the PCLinuxOS forum. But nothing was working and I was glad to have a remasterme dvd hanging around. O.K. let’s start the show eh.

Be sure your BIOS is set to boot from cd-rom. Pop in your PCLinuxOS remasterme cd. Login as root, I find this easier than using su all the time, I recommend only logging in as root for repairs only and do not do it on a daily basis. Now click install, select use existing partitions. Now when it comes to the install screen, which should show your two partitions top one blank and the bottom one home. Change the top one to “/” minus quotes and change the home one to blank and install. I entered my same password for root when I was prompted and didn’t add any users. Restart the computer.

The computer should start up as normal. Login as root again. Go into your file manager and delete your home folder, You’ll understand why later. Go into the control panel and and click mount points, you will notice that your old /home partition is renamed to /dev/hda6, or whatever you set as your /home partition to, click on the partition. Click on toggle expert mode you will see the list in the partiton manager has more options. Now click options and uncheck everything and then click mount point and change it to /home. Now click mount and then done and save the fstab file.

Now go into the boot menu and click setup how system boots and click next and then finish. You might have to modify the boot options to “resume=/dev/hda6″ or to your /home partition i.e. /dev/hda3,/dev/hda4 and what not. Now restart your computer and your PCLinuxOS is back on track.

I also found I had to reconfigure my internet connection, which is easily done from the control panel. Well I hope this helps someone with keeping this great OS.

Editors Note: You might want to backup your file system once a week.

You installed PCLinuxOS, because windows was giving you major headaches. Everything is perfectly setup in PCLinuxOS, all your setting for thunderbird, favorites, LAMP, all the different browsers, bookmarks and what not. Now your itching!! Computers shouldn’t work this good, I need to dual boot windows xp and PCLinuxOS. Break up the monotony of one operating system. Plus You have to get your fix of Rome: Total War.

Problem: Windows XP installation Master Boot Record (MBR) masks your PCLinuxOS GRand Unified Bootloader (GRUB).
Solution: rebuild grub and then add Windows XP to the boot menu.lst.

Here is how I did it.

NOTE: this is based on a 40 gb hard drive, with a swap as the first partition followed by root, /home, windows. see pic below. sloppy pic I know.

First we fix grub so we can boot into PCLOS.

You will need your original PCLinuxOS live-cd I used the 2007 version of PCLinuxOS.

After you have booted windows xp, did all your updates and windows xp is working properly. Pop in the PCLinuxOS cd and restart your computer, of course making sure your BIOS has a cd-rom as the first boot device.

I logged in as guest and used the terminal program- super user mode under System -> Terminals, but I am sure you can log in as root. First you have to enter grub find the partition your PCLinuxOS grub is on.

code:
grub
find /boot/grub/stage1

it should spit out (hd0,*) with * being the partition number your grub is on, mine is (hd0,4).
so after you get that information and you are still in the grub prompt.

code:
root (hd0,4)
setup (hd0)
quit

now restart computer taking the PCLinuxOS disk out of your cd-rom drive and pressing <enter>. Your computer should boot the familiar PCLinuxOS boot menu.

Now go into File Manager - Super User Mode, That would be under System->File Tools. Go Into your root Folder and then into boot, then grub, and open the menu.lst file with an editor..

at the end of the file press <enter> twice. All boot menu items must be seperated by a newline. Here is my menu.lst for example.

code:
timeout 10
color black/cyan yellow/cyan
gfxmenu (hd0,4)/usr/share/gfxboot/themes/pclinuxos/boot/message
default 0

title linux
kernel (hd0,4)/boot/vmlinuz
BOOT_IMAGE=linux root=/dev/hda5 acpi=on splash=verbose vga=788
initrd (hd0,4)/boot/initrd.img

title linux-nonfb
kernel (hd0,4)/boot/vmlinuz
BOOT_IMAGE=linux-nonfb root=/dev/hda5 acpi=on splash=verbose
initrd (hd0,4)/boot/initrd.img

title failsafe
kernel (hd0,4)/boot/vmlinuz
BOOT_IMAGE=failsafe root=/dev/hda5 failsafe acpi=on
initrd (hd0,4)/boot/initrd.img

title Windows XP
rootnoverify (hd0,2)
makeactive
chainloader +1

as windows is located on the (hd0,2) partition. you can find this by opening a terminal and typing in
code:
fdisk -l
It’s the partition with the file system NTFS or FAT32 depending on the filesystem you chose when you installed windows xp.
Hard drives are like multi-dimensional arrays with (hd0,1) being hda2, with hda equaling hd0 and 1 being the partition labeled /dev/hda2, if it where (hd1,2) hd1 would be hdb and 2 would be the third partition and so on, So my (hd0,2) is actually the partition labeled /dev/hda3.
Well I hope this helps some people from banging their heads againt the electronic filing system (computer).