BasicLinux

Thank you for the responses. WRT to the comment on using Knoppix for installing: I considered it but I am an old guy and used 5 place logarithms to solve physics problems when I was in school and so am inclined to do it the hard way. In any event I am tying to learn the sysem from the bottom up and thought this way would expose me to some of the problems one may encounter when finding one's way in the dark. I checked the lilo.conf file with the editor in BasicLinux and found it to be: #boot=-dev-hda image=-boot-zimage label=BL3 root=currenrt read-write

I buttumed the #boot=-dev-hda was somehow wrong and changed the file to boot=-dev-hda1 image=-boot-zimage label=linux root=-dev-hda1 read-write

The results were the same as before. I tried a number of variations as prescribed in "Linux in a Nutshell" but nothing worked. I apparently have made a basic error somewhere or the lilo file is corrupted. I still cannot get a listing of the diredtory indev-hda1 using the ls command. Haven't tried the sudo command yet but will pursue it in time. If you have any ideas they are appreciated. I have ordered a copy of Linux from Scratch and will try to build a system from that but I will keep trying to make BasicLinux work if I die trying. Again thank you for the help.