Greetings from a complete Linux newbie.

cenzo188 · 2013-01-26 20:35:29

Hello people. Well, a day ago I got it into my head that I wanted to start learning about linux. So, after much deliberation, I burned myself a live CD of Crunchbang, and ended up liking it. So I went ahead and installed it on a partition of my hard drive with the intention of dual-booting it with Windows.
Somewhere along the line I messed something up and I can't boot windows anymore (That's a can of worms for another thread...) and at the moment, #! is my primary and only operating system. Not that I'm particularly upset about this: So far I think it's really a great OS. Problem is, having never even touched any linux distro before, I have no idea how to use it. I've been a windows user ever since I first pressed the power button on my first windows 95 machine, and now I've been thrown headfirst into a completely new operating system. Simple things like installing programs evade me, and the bash shell is certainly no windows command prompt. So, that's why I've registered here.
I hope to learn a lot here (and eventually, contribute).

el_koraco · 2013-01-26 20:42:55

Open a terminal window (you can find it in the menu when you right click on the desktop), and type in s

sudo update-grub

It will then tell you to input your password. You won't be able to see asterisks when you're typing, or any other kind of feedback. Don't worry, just type in the password and press enter. You'll get some text. When it's done, you should be able to get Windows among the options in your boot menu.

schwim · 2013-01-26 20:50:09

el_koraco wrote:

Open a terminal window (you can find it in the menu when you right click on the desktop), and type in s
sudo update-grub
It will then tell you to input your password. You won't be able to see asterisks when you're typing, or any other kind of feedback. Don't worry, just type in the password and press enter. You'll get some text. When it's done, you should be able to get Windows among the options in your boot menu.

The man speaks the truth. Every single #! install I've put on as dual-boot has required this step to get my Windows booting again.

cenzo188 · 2013-01-26 20:54:28

el_koraco wrote:

Open a terminal window (you can find it in the menu when you right click on the desktop), and type in s
sudo update-grub
It will then tell you to input your password. You won't be able to see asterisks when you're typing, or any other kind of feedback. Don't worry, just type in the password and press enter. You'll get some text. When it's done, you should be able to get Windows among the options in your boot menu.

This is the first thing I tried to do, it still doesn't seem to work. And yeah, the password thing really confused me at first until I figured out what was going on.

VDP76 · 2013-01-26 22:30:28

I think once it happened that to convince grub to recognize Win I had to fire up thunar and mount windowz partition (being prompted for root psw) before issuing

sudo update-grub

it might be worth to give it a try...

intoCB · 2013-01-26 22:50:19

VDP76 wrote:

I think once it happened that to convince grub to recognize Win I had to fire up thunar and mount windowz partition (being prompted for root psw) before issuing
sudo update-grub
it might be worth to give it a try...

Yeah - go to File Manager aka Thunar and click on your Windows partition to mount it if it's not mounted already. Mounted partitions have what look like CD/DVD player ejector buttons. Then do sudo update-grub.

cenzo188 · 2013-01-26 23:05:28

I've done the update-grub, and to make sure, I tried it again just now. And yes, that windows partition was indeed mounted. But I'm convinced it's not a problem with Grub-- see, windows starts to boot. It informs me that it didn't boot correctly, and offers me the option to boot in safe mode. No matter which option I pick, it gets as far as the "starting windows" screen, and then bluescreens and crashes.

VDP76 · 2013-01-26 23:20:01

cenzo188 wrote:

I can't boot windows anymore

I have read this as

windows do not show up in grub menu

..that's what update-grub can fix..if you have BSOD there might not be much you can do from the Linux side...

well...you could use gparted to format your win partition and then you're left with some choices...

reinstall windows and chroot into #! to reinstall grub
use your new fresh partition for data, storage, backup, whatever...
use your new fresh partition for distro-hopping

big_smile

schwim · 2013-01-26 23:41:56

Depending on your version of Windows, there are built-in repair features that might get you back into your Win install.

VastOne · 2013-01-28 16:35:57

Welcome to CrunchBang and the Community cenzo188, we are glad to have you!

douglas · 2013-01-28 17:36:50

Welcome. to #!

fatmac · 2013-01-28 18:25:20

Welcome aboard cenzo188.

You might find this thread of interest :-
http://crunchbang.org/forums/viewtopic.php?id=23168

CrunchBang Linux

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#1 2013-01-26 20:35:29

Greetings from a complete Linux newbie.

#2 2013-01-26 20:42:55

Re: Greetings from a complete Linux newbie.

#3 2013-01-26 20:50:09

Re: Greetings from a complete Linux newbie.

#4 2013-01-26 20:54:28

Re: Greetings from a complete Linux newbie.

#5 2013-01-26 22:30:28

Re: Greetings from a complete Linux newbie.

#6 2013-01-26 22:50:19

Re: Greetings from a complete Linux newbie.

#7 2013-01-26 23:05:28

Re: Greetings from a complete Linux newbie.

#8 2013-01-26 23:20:01

Re: Greetings from a complete Linux newbie.

#9 2013-01-26 23:41:56

Re: Greetings from a complete Linux newbie.

#10 2013-01-28 16:35:57

Re: Greetings from a complete Linux newbie.

#11 2013-01-28 17:36:50

Re: Greetings from a complete Linux newbie.

#12 2013-01-28 18:25:20

Re: Greetings from a complete Linux newbie.

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