Dear Justin, My name is Saqib Shaikh. I am the author of the Zipspeak distribution. I also run Windows ME and actually created Zipspeak under that operating system. If you contact me off-list I would be more than happy to help you, but briefly under Windows ME you can't boot into DOS - you are correct. However I thought I also included that for Windows ME you can create a WinME boot disk, and then place certain files on that disk and therefore load Zipspeak. There are also two other ways of doing it under WinME - namely installing Lilo or another boot loader or modifying your config.sys to act as a boot loader. This probably sounds really complicated to you, so email me and I'll help you. I seriously think Zipspeak will be the quickest way to get up and running. Saqib Shaikh Email ss at sjaqibshaikh.com Web site www.saqibshaikh.com ----- Original Message ----- From: "Justin Ekis" <JEkis@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> To: <Speakup at braille.uwo.ca> Sent: Monday, April 01, 2002 9:21 AM Subject: Need help getting started with linux > Hi everyone, > > Ok, I'm very new to linux and I've got a ton of questions. Here goes. > Well, I'm ready to try installing linux. I'm kind of nervous because I've > been using windows since windows95 came out and it will be a big change. I > would like to set up the system so that if linux proves not to be for me I > can go back to windows without having to reinstall it. > I've heard that you can create a partition for linux separate from windows. > This sounds great, but how do you tell the system not to boot to windows? > Also the idea of buying a $50.00 or $60.00 partition program I'm only going > to use once and then forget about isn't very appealing. Are there any free > partition utilities out there? > > To help me get started I decided on the zipspeak distribution as my first > taste of linux. It sounded so easy to use because if I understood correctly > the readme says you can run it from the same drive as windows with no > partition needed. > I'm having lots of trouble though. I'm using windows ME right now and I > don't think it has a way to boot to the dos prompt. > The file says to restart the computer and press F8 for the boot menu and > choose the command prompt option and run the linux batch file from there. I > read somewhere that windows ME doesn't support dos like that any longer. If > it does I can't find the option for it in the boot menu, but then again it's > kind of hard to navigate around that menu without speech. > I know you can still run things in a dos window but that certainly won't > work for linux. I wouldn't think one opporating system would do very good > running under another. Lol. > Can I not do it that way with my version of windows? > > Sorry for asking so many questions on just my first day on the list. > Unfortunatly I get the feeling I'll have a lot more before I'm done with the > conversion to linux. > > Thanks in advance for any help. > > Justin Ekis > > > _______________________________________________ > Speakup mailing list > Speakup at braille.uwo.ca > http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
