Computer Nerd

Hi everyone.

I am new to Linux...trying to break away from Windows. :guns:

A little while ago, I made the decision to do this, and I chose to go with RedHat Linux.

I have just learned that they will no longer be offering support or updates for RedHat after April 30th, 2004. This leaves me with a few problems to figure out, and I am hoping for a little advice here.

1) I heard that there was another company that was going to offer support for Redhat Linux - atleast for a couple of years or so.

Does anyone else know about this, and can you tell me anything about it?

2) Any suggestions re alternatives to RedHat Linux for new guys like me would be greatly appreciated.

dduardo

What Redhat has done is segment their market into two pieces - Business and Home.

For home users you want to download /upgrade to fedora:

fedora.redhat.com

For businesses you want to use redhat's workstation or server edition.

You'll be able to get automatic updates with fedora through yum.

If you want to stay with redhat 9, I think IBM has extended support, but be prepared to unload some cash.

If you want to leave redhat then you have gentoo (Thats what I run), debian, slackware, suse, mandrake, sun linux, lycoris, etc.

gentoo, debain and slackware are good for people that have some good linux years under their belt and feel conforable at tweaking stuff.

suse, mandrake, sun linux, lycoris, etc are more geared towards the common folk.

__________________
One day the child went east.
The next, west.
Then north.
And south.
Not everyone
realized he was there,
Not everyone recognized his power.
He spoke every language.
He just seemed to fit in.

Linux is everywhere
The future is open
IBM

Computer Nerd

Thankyou dduardo for your response. Linux is definitely a whole new world, compared to Windows...but one thing I have noticed since going with Linux, is that I never get virus infestations anymore. it is great!

I have tried downloading a couple of different Linux systems. Would you or anyone else have ideas on why these downloads always seem to turn out corrupted? I have high speed cable internet; but everytime I download something big such as an operating system; it seems as though one of the disks always ends up corrupted. Any suggestions on that would be most welcome!!

I am also wondering if anyone knows what software, in Linux, will do flash animation??

- David

dduardo

I always get my linux iso from here:

http://www.linuxiso.org/

Before burning the CD, make sure to check the MD5 Checksum.

As for flash animation, Macromedia is working on a linux port to Flash MX. There are 3rd party apps, but they really aren't that good (Alpha Stage stuff). If you already have Flash for windows you can use Wine to run it. I heard it runs fine under emulation. The other option is to use vmware's software to run a virtual machine.

__________________
One day the child went east.
The next, west.
Then north.
And south.
Not everyone
realized he was there,
Not everyone recognized his power.
He spoke every language.
He just seemed to fit in.

Linux is everywhere
The future is open
IBM

Computer Nerd

Sorry if my questions seem really elementary to some here; but it's the only way I will learn I guess. What is "MD5Checksum?"

I appreciate your tips; and I was not previously aware of the site you just suggested. I will try it tonight.

Attached Images

madcow2.gif (33.6 KB, 58 views)

dduardo

Here is an md5 checksum program:

http://www.fastsum.com/download/fsum-setup.exe

All it does is generate a unique number based on the file

If the above program doesn't work for you just do a google search for md5 checksum tand there are plenty of applications out there to do it.

If you click on one of the distros on linuxiso.org and look next to the download, there is an md5 checksum link. Click on it and you see a number. Once you finish downloading the ISO image, run the md5 checksum on the file and compare the number to the one on the website. They have to match exactly.

Here is an example of an md5 checksum:

http://www.linuxiso.org/md5sum.php/5...2004.0.iso.md5

__________________
One day the child went east.
The next, west.
Then north.
And south.
Not everyone
realized he was there,
Not everyone recognized his power.
He spoke every language.
He just seemed to fit in.

Linux is everywhere
The future is open
IBM

Computer Nerd

Your info has been very helpful! I have successfully dowloaded and installed Fedora, using the info you suggested above. I would like to come back here, to this topic, to ask more questions as they arise, if that is OK. Linux is like trying to ask for lunch in German; and only being able to speak English...but I am very impressed with it anyways, so far.

Computer Nerd

Hello Again

There are two things I would like to accomplish with Linux; but I am not sure where to go for info.

1) I am interested in setting up a web server in my house; and then being able to access that webserver from my regular computer that is connected to the internet. I do not want, at this time to have the server machine connected to the internet; my purposes for the server is for various self-training items in web design that I am interested in...can anyone tell me where to go and study step by step materials that will have this how to info? Am I correct in calling this an "intranet server," that I want?

2) I would also like to find out about the "Wine" program that someone mentioned above as a way to use certain Windows software, through my Linux OS. Is there a place to download this Wine software? Is there any other similar software that I could consider for personal use?

dduardo

1) You'll need to install apache as your webserver. It should be on your redhat cd. Here is the website if you need more information:

http://httpd.apache.org/

Here is the documentation for apache:

http://httpd.apache.org/docs-2.0/

To limit apache to only intranet, you'll want to install the netfilter/iptables firewall. With this piece of software you'll be able to ACCEPT and DENY domains. I'm pretty sure when you installed redhat, it automatically installed this. Also redhat has some pretty good tools for setting this up. You can learn about these tools here:

http://fedora.redhat.com/projects/config-tools/

And here is the netfilter/iptables firewall website:

http://www.netfilter.org/

Here are some howto's and tutorials on iptables:

http://www.netfilter.org/documentati...entation-howto

2) Here is the wine site:

http://www.winehq.com/

This is the file you probable want to download:

http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/w...6.rpm?download

__________________
One day the child went east.
The next, west.
Then north.
And south.
Not everyone
realized he was there,
Not everyone recognized his power.
He spoke every language.
He just seemed to fit in.

Linux is everywhere
The future is open
IBM

Computer Nerd

Thankyou so much! I really appreciate all the helpful info. I am going to do some study for a week or two, using the above links; and then I will give this a try. I am sure there will be another question or two here soon.

BTW, is there a forum/topic here where Web Design/Programming things can be studied/discussed? I have some questions re XHTML and the like.

dduardo

What about here:

http://www.talkroot.com/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=13

__________________
One day the child went east.
The next, west.
Then north.
And south.
Not everyone
realized he was there,
Not everyone recognized his power.
He spoke every language.
He just seemed to fit in.

Linux is everywhere
The future is open
IBM