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[jfm2@club-internet.fr]

> From: Roger Dingledine <arma@mit.edu>
> Date: Tue, 6 Apr 1999 07:11:09 -0400 (EDT)
> Content-Type: text
> Sender: owner-independence-l@independence.seul.org
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> Forwarded message:
> >From seul@cran.mit.edu  Mon Apr  5 17:47:50 1999
> Resent-Message-Id: <199904052147.RAA21524@cran.mit.edu>
> Message-ID: <37092F5A.4891@bellsouth.net>
> Date: Mon, 05 Apr 1999 16:47:06 -0500
> From: Cliff White <cwhite56@bellsouth.net>
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> To: seul@seul.org
> Subject: simple end user
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> Resent-to: seul-sysarchs@seul.org
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> Resent-Date: Mon, 05 Apr 1999 17:47:06 -0400
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> 
> I have read your  complete site with interest.  I am a DOSWIN98 user and
> have over 30 years of data processing, main-frame, and PC experience.  I
> was a Windows troubleshooter for a local ISP.  I can read and I can turn
> the thing on.  I want to install LINUX and have 7 different
> distributions and a video card (SiS 3D PRO - 8 meg) which X 3.3.2 does
> not recognize.  I have ordered a new card that should solve that
> problem.  It only took me a week to decipher the install info from the
> books and finally the XFree86 site to figure this out.  
> 

Perhaps simpler would have been to try upgrading to XFree 3.3.3.  Not
sure it would have worked.

> So--I was encouraged to find your site.  
> 
> After reading the whole site, I went to the download page last and what
> do I get but what I call (MORE LINUX GOBBEL-DE GOOK).  For the Disk
> installs section on the download.html page I read that I am to download
> the boot image and the supplemental floppy image, and grap the contents
> of the Independance.tzg file and put it into an empty directory.  
> 

Problem is I expected installs from people already running Linux or
people applying the contents of the differential directory to upgrade
an existing RedHat 5.2.  I didn't expect Win98 users installing
without CDs.  In part because I considered that installing without
printed doc nor CDs was not a good idea for a Win95 user.  In part
because in my country for 99% people downloading a distrib is more
expensive than buying a book with CD or an "official" distrib so I
forgot other countries.  This shortsighteedness motivated the download
page tells nothing about what a Windows user has to do: copying the
floppy images to floppies using RAWRITE and shrinking the DOS partition
with FIPS (both are in the ftp site).  And the fact I should have
provided in the FTP site the DOS software for handling tgz files.

> OK.  Click on the boot image and all I get is a very long page of code. 
> What do I do with this.  REMEMBER, I am a Win98 user and have no idea
> what this is.  REALLY!!  Also the same for supplemental floppy image.
> AS a simply end user, emphasis on simple, what do I do the page of code
> and how?
> 


> When I click on the Independence. tzg file, it starts downloading into
> the WinZip program and when it gets through, I say to extract it to my D
> drive and nothings there.  Do I put it into a DOS partition or a LINUX
> partition.  Do I need an 83 and an 82 linux partition or what.  
> 

If you are using a modem then only choice is to download to a Windows
95 directory and make a disk install.  In a LAN then you can do an
install over the network (you download only the floppy images, reboot
with them and answer questions)

Or install with a CD and then upgrade.  Another reason I didn't
foresee people jumping directly from Windows 95 to Indy is because
Indy at this stage provides nothing new in the install part.  The only
plus at install time is the fact that the use of XFree 3.3.3.1 allows
supporting more cards.  The differences begin at use time: you get a
better user interface (KDE), some attention is given to typical user
problems like "I need to ask for help and I have unadequate tools", or
"How could I read the info when I don't know where it is nor how to
read it", in addition the additional software is selected aiming at
people whose idea of fun is _not_ programming and whenever possible it
installs cleanly without any user post-install work.

> This is the kind of trouble I am having with linux.  Everything
> downloads different,  Linux and  DOS do not recognize the others
> partitions, and I can't download linux files (except using win95/98
> programs) because I can't get linux installed and the language and
> procedures are different.  
> 
> I might as well be trying to follow the instruction in russian.
> 
> Thanks
> Can you help?
> 
> Cliff White
> 318-991-9968
> Lafayette, La
> 
> PS!!  It does sound like I wrote part of this site!
> 
> 


Oh no if you had wrote it it would be a lot better.  Problem is those
parts you are ahving trouble with were written by me.

-- 
			Jean Francois Martinez

Project Independence: Linux for the Masses
http://www.independence.seul.org