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SIDUX -NOW 'moros', KDE & XFCE. - JUST TRY IT (JANUARY 21, 2010)

Sidux
is Debian Unstable (sid), made stable. It is a rolling Distro, no re-installation needed when a new version comes out. It is supposed to be stable, bleeding edge OS. Sidux installs fast, It boots real fast, it runs fast and shuts down fast

For an OS that is just 3+ year old, Sidux is very, very, impressive. Sidux recognized every piece of hardware, it is supposed to be good at hardware detection. And it has an excellent manual,one of the finest manuals I have ever seen. In addition to the nice manual, Sidux has very well maintained WIKI pages. The Sidux forums are very friendly and supportive.

The Lite versions (500+ MB in 32 bit and 64-bit) do not include Open Office or Gimp (image editor), but you can always add packages by using apt-get.

Installation and removal of packages is done by apt-get in the Terminal (or Konsole), and you are supposed to use the Debian Unstable repository that is enabled by default.

They have CENI for both WIRED and WIFI network setup.
They also have Kppp GUI dialer for modems

Installation is pretty simple once you have your partitions ready, you can use the partition editor built into the Live CD. You run the Live-CD and you click on the installation icon on desktop to install' Choose your partition for /, enable mounting of other partitions that you want to mount at boot, and after the final 'go' it is just a matter of few (about 2-5) minutes.

If you have a working Grub, you do not have to burn CD or DVD. Do a 'fromiso' installation first. You can use it to full-install in HDD.

sidux is not for absolute beginners in Linux, it needs just a little bit of experience. My few months of experience with Ubuntu helped me a lot, after all Ubuntu too is Debian based. You can choose other Desktop Managers at time of Log-in, but Sidux with KDE is fast enough.

Sidux is one of the finest Distros. Some say that sidux is seductive, sidux is not only seductive, it is very addictive.

website: sidux.com
You will find all the information you need at their website.

Please go through their excellent Manual before you install.

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Following has been taken from the sidux manual, and is as I have installed.

EDIT: SEPTEMBER 26, 2008 : PLEASE LOOK AT THE SIDUX MANUAL TOO FOR fromiso INSTALLATION
http://manual.sidux.com/

fromiso Installation

For normal use we recommend the ext3 file system. It is the default file system for sidux and well maintained.

fromiso' is much faster then from the CD- /DVD-drive and keeps the drive available.

'fromiso' installation occupies just a bit more space than your iso file and boots from the iso just like the from Live CD. Booting is faster and if you do a HDD install, it is faster. No worry about bad burns, as no CD/DVD is used. You just need a working Grub.

Requirements:

* a functioning grub (on a floppy, a HD-Installation or the Live-CD)
* a sidux ISO Image e.g.: sidux.iso and a linux file system like ext2/3

First we choose a place for the iso and 2 files we need, so we get shorter names. Therefore we create a base-directory: for example in "/media/sdax" (sda1 or, 2, or 5, or 6, or whatever, for example) create the directory "sidux" and copy the iso into it:

$ sux
mkdir -p /media/sdax/sidux
mv sidux.iso /media/sdax/sidux

now we move to that directory and mount the ISO image:
Here we assume that the name of iso image is sidux.iso. Either use your iso name in place of sidux.iso or rename the iso file to sidux.iso. Please note that file names are case sensitive in Linux.

mkdir -p /mnt/test
mount -t iso9660 -o loop,ro /media/sdax/sidux/sidux.iso /mnt/test

After mounting the iso have a look at /mnt/test/boot/

code:
ls /mnt/test/boot/

and use the names for vmlinuz-... and initrd.img-... instead of the ones shown below or in the sidux manual.

Now copy the vmlinuz and initrd.img files from the mounted iso image to the directory (where X for the kernel and HD are known variables::

cp /mnt/test/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.23.9-rc1-slh-smp-1 /media/sdax/sidux/
cp /mnt/test/boot/initrd.img-2.6.23.9-rc1-slh-smp-1 /media/sdax/sidux/


Next you have to customise grub. Therefore edit the file /boot/grub/menu.lst and add the following lines AFTER the ### END DEBIAN AUTOMAGIC KERNELS LIST: NOTE no wildcards on grub line for filenames allowed!

Here in sdxn put a value for y (y = n-1). For sda3, use 2 (sd0,2), for sda1 use 0 (sd0,0)and so on.
x = 0 for a drive a, x = 1 for b drive and so on.
If you are using 64-bit NYX, you can change the title below to sidux 64bit NYX from ISO or whatever you like.


### ISO boot
title sidux 32bit from ISO
kernel (hd0,y)/sidux/vmlinuz-2.6.23.9-rc1-slh-smp-1 boot=fll quiet vga=791 fromiso=/sidux/sidux.iso
initrd (hd0,y)/sidux/initrd.img-2.6.23.9-rc1-slh-smp-1


With next boot you have a new menu item in grub to start the iso image.

Bootsector overwritten by Windows MBR and /or to recover grub
To rewrite the grub to the MBR and/or to recover grub in general, you will first need boot up a sidux live-cd.
root partition is /dev/sdb1 and your MBR goes on sda
code:
mkdir -p /media/sdb1
mount /dev/sdb1 /media/sdb1
/usr/sbin/grub-install --recheck --no-floppy --root-directory=/media/sdb1 /dev/sda

UNDERSTANDING DPI SETTINGS FOR FONTS
Most users are confused with DPI settings of fonts, I too often wondered why font size increases as we we increase the DPI setting.
The DPI specified is actually the DPI of the monitor.
DPI is Dots(Pixels) per Inch
DPI = No. of horizontal pixels / Horizontal Screen Width in inches.
As dots get smaller, for same no of dots(or pixels) the fonts get smaller. So if you tell the system that you got higher DPI, it increases the font size (no of dots).
The Horizontal Screen width is calculated from the Diagonal and the ratio of horizontal pixels and vertical pixels assuming that the dots are square and dots are spaced equally in both horizontal and vertical directions.
There is a simpler way, just use the calculator on this page
.
dpi calculator

CHAINLOADING: CASE: You have sidux. When you boot, you use Grub of sidux.
Now you want to add another Linux OS, say, Mint. But you want sidux Grub to be in control.

Don't install grub from Mint in MBR!
Install Mint's grub to the rootpartition of Mint and start Mint with chainload from the sidux-grub.

Add this to menu.lst of sidux
title Mint
root (sd1,0)
chainloader +1
Assumes /partition of Mint is (sd1,0)
With every update of the Mint-kernel, you must edit the menu.lst in sidux.


ENABLING NTFS READ/WRITE

I had found NTFS access (read) enabled after I installed sidux- Moros.
But you can always get ntfs-3g. To enable WRITE to any partition, you can use the follwing steps in a shell.

sux
apt-get update && apt-get install ntfs-3g
umount /media/xdxx
mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/disk/by-uuid/xxyyzz[etc] /media/xdxx


To get out of the konsole type: exit In my case with Grub2 in sidux-Moros I had partitions as disk1part1...
Substitute xdxx with what you see in /etc/fstab..
For the uuid, check /etc/fstab.

Looking at your mounted/unmounted partitions.
No need to be 'root'.
ls -l /dev/disk/by-uuid