Small help and recommendations

[Lisa]

On Fri, 13 Jul 2007 19:23:25 +1000, Trias <aussietrias at gmail.com> wrote:

> 4) When i type ls which is one of the very few commands i remember from  
> unix
> i get coloured file names.  Is there a place to find out what these  
> colour
> codes mean?

There isn't really a standard to this, so it could well change on the next  
release, and does vary from distro to distro.

> 5) When i try to access my windows partition it asks for a password and  
> it's
> mostly hunky dory except that it doesn't remember it and later on i have  
> to
> do it again to see the 'disk' (eg in 'places' and the file browser) and  
> it's
> contents.  It is also set to read only.  Can that be changed or is  
> writing
> to a windows partition from linux error prone?

If you install ntfs-3g and ntfs-config you will be able to set up the  
mounting of your windoze drive so you have full read write access without  
the need for a password.

> 6) How do i safely change the partition so the windows one shrinks and  
> linux
> one grows?

It's tricky, as you can adjust the end point of a partition without  
problems, but if you move the start point of the partition you will lose  
the data on it.
I take it you have just the 2 partitions on your hard drive? first one is  
windows and the second one is Linux?
If this is the case then you will need to reinstall linux after resizing  
the partitions.
1. backup your files on Linux.
2. boot into windows and defrag it 2 or 3 times
3. boot the live cd and use the installer to delete the current Linux  
partition and resize the windows one.
4. Create a new Linux partition and install there.

If Linux is first and windows is second.
1. backup the files on your windows partition.
2. boot the live cd and use gparted to modify the partion sizes.
3. open a terminal and run: sudo grow2fs /dev/hda1 (or whatever the  
partition is - you may need to install grow2fs before you can run this)
4. boot into your Linux install and make a boot floppy:
     cd /usr/share/grub/i386-pc
     dd if=stage1 of=/dev/fd0 bs=512 count=1
     dd if=stage2 of=/dev/fd0 bs=512 seek=1
5. re-install windows
6. boot into your Linux install and run: sudo grub-install (so you don't  
need to use the boot floppy in future)

if you don't have a floppy drive it can be gotten around by using the live  
cd.


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