Mandrake or Red Hat?

kastro68 · 14th March 2003, 17:45

I'm planning on switching OS from Windows to Linux.

I would like to know which is better for a newbie, Mandrake or Redhat... KDE3 or gnome? I'll be using the system mainly for watching xvid videos, mp3/ogg music, net surfing and spreadsheets.

any help would be appreciated.

cheers.

spankmeister7 · 14th March 2003, 18:59

That's a dangerous question. People have a tendency to feverishly support one distro over the next for good reasons, but just as tenaciously support another for reasons of simple bias. I use three different systems at home - One using gentoo, one using RedHat 8.1 beta, and one using SuSE 8.1.

RedHat is often maligned for being too bloated with all of the additional and unneccesary packakes it comes with. Similarly, because of RedHat's status as the most commonly used distro it has a small tendency to play by its own rules - but I think both of these are crappy arguments because 1) It's still open source and you can SEE what has happened and why. 2) The bloat is only as bloated as what you've decided to install in the beginning. Example: I recently built up a qmail/apachce server for a friend using RedHat w/KDE and a few toys and the whole installation is about 550 megs. Good points to RedHat include massive package availability and very good support from RedHat themselves.

I found Mandrake to be something of a red herring. Sold for its incredibly simple installation and unified look and feel, Mandrake was often billed as the easiest distro for beginners. This is partially true. As long as you don't deviate much from really standard tools things are fine, but I find (much more so than redhat) that Mandrake's tendency to put beta software that may not be ready into production releases and goofy structure for various simple tasks made it in the end more difficult to use. If you want to use Mandrake, but sure to get the right version and ask around. Everyone is going to say, "Oh, Mandrake 8.1 was totally buggy but 8.2 rocked. YAdda yadda." Of course, your mileage may vary. I was super interested in Mandrake until I *had* to embark on projects like terminal services and sendmail that I found to be a nightmare to configure in Mandrake when it was much easier to do with Gentoo or Debian or RedHat. Of course, these are things that you wouldn't normally do with a "beginner" distro. I have friends that swear by Mandrake, but that number is dwindling.

If I were you I would take a good look at SuSE. SuSE has a wonderful tool - YaST2 - that makes hardware and software config much easier than other distros is one of SuSE's claims to fame. Where RedHat is focusing more and more on the server and especially enterprise server market they are focusing less on the desktop market - a place that SuSE is really coming in to be known in many circles as the best desktop user distro. I have several customers who swear by it. I have one machine using it now and I'm thoroughly impressed with it, as I am equally impressed with the fan base. Getting help with SuSE either on usenet or web resources has never been difficult.

My roommate, another Debian fanatic, will tell you that the best thing to do is to begin with Gentoo or Linux From Scratch because, over the course of a week of pulling your hair our and learning to swear like a a sailor - you'll understand the guts of linux much better and be much less confused in the long run instead of running a distro. I like the idea myself (and have done so), but I must tell you that that isn't always the best idea for beginners. If you're really interested in how an operating system works or if you're just really, really into computers that you should - at some time in your life - do this. But if you just have work to do then wait a year or two and install a more friendly disto in the meantime.

Gnome vs KDE? Yikes. That's a religious question these days. It's just like asking which is better - Hindu or Buddhism? To play it safe, especially for media applications - just install both or make sure you have the libraries for both installed. Most of the time you can run gnome apps in KDE and vice versa. I myself really dig nautilus under Gnome, but I almost always use KDE 3.1 on all of my boxes. That's not to say KDE is better, it just so happens that I took the Pepsi challenge for a few weeks with Gnome on my RedHat box and KDE 3.1 on my SuSE box and ended up liking the feel and ease of use of tools that I use with KDE. Really you're going to have to take the Pepsi challenge, too. I recommend that you install a distro with both as well as a smaller, faster windows manager / desktop like IceWM. You can choose between the three at startup and you can then decide for yourself.

** NOTE **
Anyone who reads this: don't flame me. This is all just opinion from a guy who spends all day in linux systems doing networking projects. Of course any disto fan is going to their THEIR disto is better. Just try to think outside of that framework for just a second.
** END NOTE **

As far as your wish to use media projects: If you use RedHat, the first thing you should after installation is to run up2date to get all the new updates for your system. Then go the XMMS.org website and get a package that enables mp3 encoding. YOu don't need to do this with SuSE or Mandrake. I would use XMMS as a sound player (its a clone-like being of winamp), and either Xine or MPlayer to play video. Xine is very customizable but can be a bear to install because of something called "dependency hell" that you'll soon learn to get used to. Mplayer, with the right additional packages, will play just about any media file you can think of.

Good luck... ask questions.

SoulKlekta · 14th March 2003, 20:47

Well answered spankmeister7.

kastro68,fyi,I have been using mandrake since version 7.2 and am now on v9.0,I think 9.1Final is being released today and formally announced on or around the 20th.

Mandrake,imho is a good distro for newcomers to linux or for win32 converts and probably one of the easiest to install.On the other hand RedHat is also very good and the later releases seem to be much more user-friendly than some of the earlier versions such as RH v.5.x or the 6.x release.
This is only my experience remember,and just because I had a little difficulty with RedHat doesn't mean you will.

I have actually been considering giving RH another bash (no pun intended),maybe v8.1 as spankmeister7 is using.

kastro68 · 15th March 2003, 02:33

Thanks,

Especially SoulKlekta.

You have confirmed some of the things I have read. I decided to give Mandrake a try because it got a good review in APC ( a computer magazine). I already started downloading mandrake 9.1 beta. However, SoulKlekta said that "I think 9.1Final is being released today and formally announced on or around the 20th," I think I'll have to go look for SuSe instead and wait for Mandrake 9.1 final to be released.

I think I'll better stick to more user friendly Linux distros like SuSe or Mandrake until I get the hang of linux.

I tried Redhat 6.XXX once and found it pretty difficult to use... but at that time I had very little knowledge of linux, I have read up on linux since, that's why I decided to give it another try.

Thanks again.

PS: Does linux have a picture viewer similar to ACDSee? Can Gimp be used as a picture viewer? It would make reading manga more efficient.

kastro68 · 15th March 2003, 02:46

Just another quick question, I was wondering if it is possible to network two different Operating systems like windows and linux for say internet connection sharing or file sharing.

Cheers,

thanks in advance.

spankmeister7 · 15th March 2003, 04:54

RedHat has come a long, long way since 6.x. RedHat 8.0 is interesting in that its as easy or as difficult as you want it to be - but its a world away from 6.x. RedHat 8.1 will be out soon, and it uses KDE 3.1, which I really love. SuSE 8.2 is also due to arrive any day now and also includes Gnome 2.2 KDE 3.1. But for absolute beginners, I would recommend SuSE.

Networking can be done between operating systems. TCP/IP for internet is not OS-specific, despite how much M$ wants to change things around in the protocol stack. Really you're asking two questions:

1. Can you use the network neighborhood (aka, NetBIOS over TCP/IP) between Linux and Windows?

Absolutely. Linux uses (if you install it) a program called Samba (www.samba.org) to give it the capability of not only working in windows networking environments, but also serving as highly efficient windows servers - even domain controllers and advanced servers. There is a fantastic web-based tool used to configure Samba called Swat (Samba Web Admin Tool), or if you don't need advanced functions both RedHat 8.0 and SuSE 8.1 have very easy-to-use gui tools to 'share' linux directories and participate on windows networks.

2. Can you use Linux to serve as an internet gateway, or make linux use a Windows-based internet gateway, what M$ calls "Internet Connection Sharing?" I know that you can use Linux to serve as a gateway and is often used to do just this as its primary task. I've never connected a linux box to a Windows gateway, but it should probably work since your client linux box is probably seeking a natted DHCP address and gateway, but you never know what new ways M$ will hinder even simple services.

SoulKlekta · 15th March 2003, 15:40

Quote:

RedHat has come a long, long way since 6.x.

I hear that spankmeister7!,can I ask you what 'favour' of RedHat are you using?,I know it's RedHat 8.1 beta but I think I'm correct in saying there are different distros?

I've been looking at ftp://ftp.sunet.se/pub/os/Linux/distributions/redhat/ ,the CD1 in ISO format is called 'psyche-i386-disc1.iso' is this the release you have?(RH8.0 Psyche).

I see there is also another i386 version which consists of 4 or 5 discs the CD1 iso file is called 'phoebe-i386-disc1.iso',ie;(RH8.0 Phoebe).

I am curious as to the i386 folder they are in?,I use an AMD T-Bird 1400@1608Gb/Asus A7A266DDR/512Mb PC2100/GF4 Ti4200 128MbDDR so I usually need the i586 version(at least).
What's the situ here spankmeister9? ,if poss I feel I should try and install a i586-i686 release yes?

I don't want to d/l 3-5 discs only to find I have a release built for a lesser spec PC lol

kastro68 · 15th March 2003, 15:46

You have cleared up a lot of uncertainty I had about networking. I am seriously considering the the move to linux, but for the time being I think I'll try mandrake since I already downloaded a substantial proportion of 9.1 beta. I am too impatient to wait for 9.1 final.

I don't want to throw myself in the shallow end with SuSe just in case I grow too attached to it, I don't want to make life too easy. The other issue is that they didn't have Iso's on the SuSe download page, it mentioned something about needing to be installed over a network.

I recall seeing something called Samba on the RedHat download page. Now I know what it is used for, thanks.

I think i have pretty much everything I need to make the transition to linux. I just need to read up on which file system to use and the best way to partition a hard drive for linux.

Would you know if linux can run on NTFS? I can't remember clearly, but I think there was an option for NTFS the last time I installed RedHat, but I'm not certain.

Thanks again.

spankmeister7 · 15th March 2003, 18:08

Not really. NTFS can be read by linux if you recompile the kernel (in the filesystems section of make xconfig) but only READ_ONLY. Technically you can write to an NTFS partition also, but only if you want to screw up your data on that partition.

One popular option is to install Win2K on the first partition of the drive, and then have either a seperate drive or partitions for linux so you can dual-boot your system. Then have either another partition or drive formatted with FAT32 so you can exchange files, mail, documents, ogg/mp3, whatever between the two. I've seen many people do this so they can learn linux and slowly make it their primary OS as they slowly wean themselves off of windows as they find more tools to replace the ones they had in windows.

This is especially easy if you're using Mozilla and OpenOffice, because they work on both linux and windows, and you can share all the data without losing a heartbeat if the mail folders and documents are on the FAT32 partition.

kastro68 · 15th March 2003, 20:53

Thanks, I just read 160 pages of a linux pocket book 2003... the more I read the better linux started to sound.

It said that the Reiser file system was better than Ext2.

My question is: If I were to share an Mp3 file on a system running a Wind*ws OS, would a different system running linux be able to read the Mp3 file over the network [and vice versa] if I used a file system other than fat32?

To answer one of the questions I asked earlier, "GQView" is an image viewing application similar to ACDSee. Linux also has LICQ which is the linux version of ICQ.

SoulKlekta · 15th March 2003, 21:58

Yes,as spankmeister7 said TCP/IP protocol isn't OS descriminative and you will be able to access an mp3 file,good example,on your win32 box across a network (or the other way around),and play it on one of Linux's many media players.

I would have the linux box as the firewall/gateway if you are planning ICS as the security levels on linux boxes make them ideal for such purposes.
If you are planning to have linux and win32 on the same pc though,follow spankmeister7's post above.
There are hundreds of well written Linux How-To's covering pretty much every problem or procedure ever witnessed on a linux box easily available on the web though.
spankmeister7 do you have any url's for some good How-To's on 2 OS linux dual-boot or linux networking to hand?

SoulKlekta · 15th March 2003, 22:00

Sorry,I forgot to mention,a linux version of ICQ is called LICQ ,funnily enough

mtc · 19th March 2003, 09:48

Just thought I'd add my (late) 2c to this topic.

I agree that Mandrake 9.0 would have to be the easiest version of linux for people new to linux to start with, it's installation process is incredibly easy to use....in many ways even easier than windows

As far as networking and internet connection sharing go, Mandrake 9.0 has a lovely graphical utility for setting up internet connection sharing so that should't be a problem. It is also to set it up to use a shared connection on a windows box on your network (just put in the ip of the windows box in the gateway section when installing Mandrake, or in the networking settings later on).

The Linux Documentation Project has heaps of guides for setting up networking/SAMBA etc but they do tend to go about it the hard way (alhtough it won't hurt to learn) they can be found at http://www.tldp.org

Also the windows emulator Wine allows you to run a lot of windows applications under linux, for example Kazaa runs perfectly under linux, as do many other apps.

Good luck

....and enjoy

omol · 19th March 2003, 22:49

Quote:

Originally posted by kastro68
It said that the Reiser file system was better than Ext2.

Yes, Reiserfs is better. Even ext3 is better than ext2. Both ext3 and Reiserfs are journalized filesystem that could ensure data integrety when encoutering a bad crash. ext2 is not. Both ext3 and Reiserfs could be configured to journal only metadata, and both come with the official kernel source. Performance wise, Reiserfs is a tad better probably due to their btree implementation. Very obvious when you have lots of small file on the filesystem, say, /var/spool/mail or /tmp. There is also xfs and jfs journalized filesystem that come with official kernel source, but I wouldn't count on them, NOT on my server.

Quote:

My question is: If I were to share an Mp3 file on a system running a Wind*ws OS, would a different system running linux be able to read the Mp3 file over the network [and vice versa] if I used a file system other than fat32?

Filesystem type on remote machine basically does not have any effect in resource sharing over the network BUT there is a few rare exceptions. If your combination is only a Winbox + linux, I don't think you will hit any of them.

regards,
omol

Stampede · 6th April 2003, 14:57

Well I see some recommending SuSE but I'd have to recommend STRONGLY against it. Maybe the distribution itself has improved since the 6.1 version I purchased way back when but I'm certain their customer service hasn't.

This is a company who makes compatibility claims on their website and in their documentation with hardware their distribution doesn't even work with. In my case I just purchased an Adaptec 29160N SCSI host controller for my computer. A couple months later SuSE had a new version of their distribution they claimed provided full support for this card and that it should install out of box. However it could never boot up to the drive after installation and kept giving kernel errors. It worked fine on my IDE hard drive so I knew it was an issue with compatibility with the SCSI card. Several calls to their installation support and several hours of fighting with it never did correct the situation and the SuSE representatives said there was nothing more they could do for me.

I'm pretty sure the driver wasn't correctly compiled into the kernel but I didn't know how to compile my own kernel and that was something evidently outside of what their support could help me with. I thought this was rediculous that they would claim full support for this hardware and claim to fully support the installation of their distribution but then not follow through with these promises and say "well sorry we can't pursue it any further". And they wouldn't even offer a refund either.

At least they didn't waste much of my time. Between the 5 tech support reps I spoke with they spent maybe 30 minutes with me total. Each one gave up pretty quickly without offering much help.

I switched to Red Hat which installed fine and never looked back since.

spankmeister7 · 6th April 2003, 18:40

Gee, I wouldn't recommend a three-year-old distro, either.

SoulKlekta · 6th April 2003, 19:37

Well FYI,I have installed v9.1 from scratch as opposed to upgrading (I know I could have but didn't),anyway 9.1 installed without a hitch,recognised all my h/ware including the GF4

and the whole installation process was completed in less than 1/2 an hour.

I can fully recomend Mandrake 9.1 Final to anyone.

jggimi · 7th April 2003, 03:29

I installed SuSE 8.1 based on a 3rd party recommendation, and first tested before installing by booting their evaluation CD. This sample Linux system, on boot, discovered and had drivers for 1) my VIA chipset, 2) my ATI video card, 3) my BT878 video capture card, 4) my Linksys network card, 5) my Lexmark printer .. all of it hardware that Windows doesn't know (or care) about.

The network install went very smoothly, and the defaults gave me most everything I needed. Since the install, I've only added Mozilla (as I prefer it to the Konqueror browser), pure-ftp, and Samba and the associated LinNeighborhood (for Windows networking).

I can't talk to their support, since I'm a download-only user. But I've found most of my questions answered, in English, either in their support database or the mailing list archive searches. SuSE 8.2 has been announced and will be released mid-month, I expect to upgrade to be able to go from KDE 3.0 to 3.1; this release was also announced with GNOME 2.2.

SoulKlekta · 7th April 2003, 17:48

jggimi if you don't mind me asking,what was the name format of the SuSe 8.1 distro you have?
ie;suse-sparc-7.3-CD1.iso (I know this example is for CD1 of v7.3 of the SuSe sparc release but you get my drift I hope?)

Basically,what were the names of the files you d/l'd should I want to d/l SuSe v8.1 myself?,an ftp address would be excellent

.

I just liike experimenting with different distros on different boxes,such as the M/drake 9.1 Final I have dualbooting with XP Pro on this pc,I also have the 399Mb iso version of Peanut Linux v9.5 which is a complete OS on one CD.

I have an ancient P2-400 with 128Mb PC133 RAM & 30GbHD which at the moment is just another client on my small homenet being used to process Seti@Home WU's.This would probably be the pc I installed SuSe on to give it a looksee.

jggimi · 7th April 2003, 18:44

I used the mirror at ftp://mirror.mcs.anl.gov/pub/ftp.suse.com/i386 but as you're in Scotland, a closer one would be ftp://ftp.mirror.ac.uk/sites/ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386 -- the 8.2 release will be available very soon, check at www.suse.com for more info and more mirrors. The links I've provided are the top level for Intel binaries; you'll find the "LiveEval" demo .iso files there, 8.1 is 661MB, and you'll find the install-boot .iso file also, which is only about 18MB.

Note: It was a little confusing getting the install boot started, as, while DHCP comes up, DNS does not, and you have to put the mirror's IP address into your install ftp url. The error message is less-than-obvious, and, after re-reading a README, I slapped my forehead and changed the command.

14th March 2003, 17:45	#1 \| Link
kastro68 Dai Suki Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: 2543 miles S.E. of Osaka Posts: 381	Mandrake or Red Hat? I'm planning on switching OS from Windows to Linux. I would like to know which is better for a newbie, Mandrake or Redhat... KDE3 or gnome? I'll be using the system mainly for watching xvid videos, mp3/ogg music, net surfing and spreadsheets. any help would be appreciated. cheers. __________________ Always choose the path that leaves you with the most degrees of freedom.

14th March 2003, 18:59	#2 \| Link
spankmeister7 Registered User Join Date: Oct 2001 Posts: 17	distro That's a dangerous question. People have a tendency to feverishly support one distro over the next for good reasons, but just as tenaciously support another for reasons of simple bias. I use three different systems at home - One using gentoo, one using RedHat 8.1 beta, and one using SuSE 8.1. RedHat is often maligned for being too bloated with all of the additional and unneccesary packakes it comes with. Similarly, because of RedHat's status as the most commonly used distro it has a small tendency to play by its own rules - but I think both of these are crappy arguments because 1) It's still open source and you can SEE what has happened and why. 2) The bloat is only as bloated as what you've decided to install in the beginning. Example: I recently built up a qmail/apachce server for a friend using RedHat w/KDE and a few toys and the whole installation is about 550 megs. Good points to RedHat include massive package availability and very good support from RedHat themselves. I found Mandrake to be something of a red herring. Sold for its incredibly simple installation and unified look and feel, Mandrake was often billed as the easiest distro for beginners. This is partially true. As long as you don't deviate much from really standard tools things are fine, but I find (much more so than redhat) that Mandrake's tendency to put beta software that may not be ready into production releases and goofy structure for various simple tasks made it in the end more difficult to use. If you want to use Mandrake, but sure to get the right version and ask around. Everyone is going to say, "Oh, Mandrake 8.1 was totally buggy but 8.2 rocked. YAdda yadda." Of course, your mileage may vary. I was super interested in Mandrake until I had to embark on projects like terminal services and sendmail that I found to be a nightmare to configure in Mandrake when it was much easier to do with Gentoo or Debian or RedHat. Of course, these are things that you wouldn't normally do with a "beginner" distro. I have friends that swear by Mandrake, but that number is dwindling. If I were you I would take a good look at SuSE. SuSE has a wonderful tool - YaST2 - that makes hardware and software config much easier than other distros is one of SuSE's claims to fame. Where RedHat is focusing more and more on the server and especially enterprise server market they are focusing less on the desktop market - a place that SuSE is really coming in to be known in many circles as the best desktop user distro. I have several customers who swear by it. I have one machine using it now and I'm thoroughly impressed with it, as I am equally impressed with the fan base. Getting help with SuSE either on usenet or web resources has never been difficult. My roommate, another Debian fanatic, will tell you that the best thing to do is to begin with Gentoo or Linux From Scratch because, over the course of a week of pulling your hair our and learning to swear like a a sailor - you'll understand the guts of linux much better and be much less confused in the long run instead of running a distro. I like the idea myself (and have done so), but I must tell you that that isn't always the best idea for beginners. If you're really interested in how an operating system works or if you're just really, really into computers that you should - at some time in your life - do this. But if you just have work to do then wait a year or two and install a more friendly disto in the meantime. Gnome vs KDE? Yikes. That's a religious question these days. It's just like asking which is better - Hindu or Buddhism? To play it safe, especially for media applications - just install both or make sure you have the libraries for both installed. Most of the time you can run gnome apps in KDE and vice versa. I myself really dig nautilus under Gnome, but I almost always use KDE 3.1 on all of my boxes. That's not to say KDE is better, it just so happens that I took the Pepsi challenge for a few weeks with Gnome on my RedHat box and KDE 3.1 on my SuSE box and ended up liking the feel and ease of use of tools that I use with KDE. Really you're going to have to take the Pepsi challenge, too. I recommend that you install a distro with both as well as a smaller, faster windows manager / desktop like IceWM. You can choose between the three at startup and you can then decide for yourself. NOTE Anyone who reads this: don't flame me. This is all just opinion from a guy who spends all day in linux systems doing networking projects. Of course any disto fan is going to their THEIR disto is better. Just try to think outside of that framework for just a second. END NOTE As far as your wish to use media projects: If you use RedHat, the first thing you should after installation is to run up2date to get all the new updates for your system. Then go the XMMS.org website and get a package that enables mp3 encoding. YOu don't need to do this with SuSE or Mandrake. I would use XMMS as a sound player (its a clone-like being of winamp), and either Xine or MPlayer to play video. Xine is very customizable but can be a bear to install because of something called "dependency hell" that you'll soon learn to get used to. Mplayer, with the right additional packages, will play just about any media file you can think of. Good luck... ask questions.

14th March 2003, 20:47	#3 \| Link
SoulKlekta Registered User Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: Edinburgh ,Scotland. Posts: 18	Well answered spankmeister7. kastro68,fyi,I have been using mandrake since version 7.2 and am now on v9.0,I think 9.1Final is being released today and formally announced on or around the 20th. Mandrake,imho is a good distro for newcomers to linux or for win32 converts and probably one of the easiest to install.On the other hand RedHat is also very good and the later releases seem to be much more user-friendly than some of the earlier versions such as RH v.5.x or the 6.x release. This is only my experience remember,and just because I had a little difficulty with RedHat doesn't mean you will. I have actually been considering giving RH another bash (no pun intended),maybe v8.1 as spankmeister7 is using. __________________ http://www.soulklekta.vgamer.co.uk/images/linuxnum.gif

15th March 2003, 02:33	#4 \| Link
kastro68 Dai Suki Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: 2543 miles S.E. of Osaka Posts: 381	Thanks spankmeister7 and SoulKlekta Thanks, Especially SoulKlekta. You have confirmed some of the things I have read. I decided to give Mandrake a try because it got a good review in APC ( a computer magazine). I already started downloading mandrake 9.1 beta. However, SoulKlekta said that "I think 9.1Final is being released today and formally announced on or around the 20th," I think I'll have to go look for SuSe instead and wait for Mandrake 9.1 final to be released. I think I'll better stick to more user friendly Linux distros like SuSe or Mandrake until I get the hang of linux. I tried Redhat 6.XXX once and found it pretty difficult to use... but at that time I had very little knowledge of linux, I have read up on linux since, that's why I decided to give it another try. Thanks again. PS: Does linux have a picture viewer similar to ACDSee? Can Gimp be used as a picture viewer? It would make reading manga more efficient. __________________ Always choose the path that leaves you with the most degrees of freedom.

15th March 2003, 02:46	#5 \| Link
kastro68 Dai Suki Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: 2543 miles S.E. of Osaka Posts: 381	Networking different OSs' Just another quick question, I was wondering if it is possible to network two different Operating systems like windows and linux for say internet connection sharing or file sharing. Cheers, thanks in advance. __________________ Always choose the path that leaves you with the most degrees of freedom.

15th March 2003, 04:54	#6 \| Link
spankmeister7 Registered User Join Date: Oct 2001 Posts: 17	certainly RedHat has come a long, long way since 6.x. RedHat 8.0 is interesting in that its as easy or as difficult as you want it to be - but its a world away from 6.x. RedHat 8.1 will be out soon, and it uses KDE 3.1, which I really love. SuSE 8.2 is also due to arrive any day now and also includes Gnome 2.2 KDE 3.1. But for absolute beginners, I would recommend SuSE. Networking can be done between operating systems. TCP/IP for internet is not OS-specific, despite how much M$ wants to change things around in the protocol stack. Really you're asking two questions: 1. Can you use the network neighborhood (aka, NetBIOS over TCP/IP) between Linux and Windows? Absolutely. Linux uses (if you install it) a program called Samba (www.samba.org) to give it the capability of not only working in windows networking environments, but also serving as highly efficient windows servers - even domain controllers and advanced servers. There is a fantastic web-based tool used to configure Samba called Swat (Samba Web Admin Tool), or if you don't need advanced functions both RedHat 8.0 and SuSE 8.1 have very easy-to-use gui tools to 'share' linux directories and participate on windows networks. 2. Can you use Linux to serve as an internet gateway, or make linux use a Windows-based internet gateway, what M$ calls "Internet Connection Sharing?" I know that you can use Linux to serve as a gateway and is often used to do just this as its primary task. I've never connected a linux box to a Windows gateway, but it should probably work since your client linux box is probably seeking a natted DHCP address and gateway, but you never know what new ways M$ will hinder even simple services.

15th March 2003, 15:46	#8 \| Link
kastro68 Dai Suki Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: 2543 miles S.E. of Osaka Posts: 381	Thanks a bunch You have cleared up a lot of uncertainty I had about networking. I am seriously considering the the move to linux, but for the time being I think I'll try mandrake since I already downloaded a substantial proportion of 9.1 beta. I am too impatient to wait for 9.1 final. I don't want to throw myself in the shallow end with SuSe just in case I grow too attached to it, I don't want to make life too easy. The other issue is that they didn't have Iso's on the SuSe download page, it mentioned something about needing to be installed over a network. I recall seeing something called Samba on the RedHat download page. Now I know what it is used for, thanks. I think i have pretty much everything I need to make the transition to linux. I just need to read up on which file system to use and the best way to partition a hard drive for linux. Would you know if linux can run on NTFS? I can't remember clearly, but I think there was an option for NTFS the last time I installed RedHat, but I'm not certain. Thanks again. __________________ Always choose the path that leaves you with the most degrees of freedom.

15th March 2003, 18:08	#9 \| Link
spankmeister7 Registered User Join Date: Oct 2001 Posts: 17	NTFS Not really. NTFS can be read by linux if you recompile the kernel (in the filesystems section of make xconfig) but only READ_ONLY. Technically you can write to an NTFS partition also, but only if you want to screw up your data on that partition. One popular option is to install Win2K on the first partition of the drive, and then have either a seperate drive or partitions for linux so you can dual-boot your system. Then have either another partition or drive formatted with FAT32 so you can exchange files, mail, documents, ogg/mp3, whatever between the two. I've seen many people do this so they can learn linux and slowly make it their primary OS as they slowly wean themselves off of windows as they find more tools to replace the ones they had in windows. This is especially easy if you're using Mozilla and OpenOffice, because they work on both linux and windows, and you can share all the data without losing a heartbeat if the mail folders and documents are on the FAT32 partition.

15th March 2003, 20:53	#10 \| Link
kastro68 Dai Suki Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: 2543 miles S.E. of Osaka Posts: 381	Thanks, I just read 160 pages of a linux pocket book 2003... the more I read the better linux started to sound. It said that the Reiser file system was better than Ext2. My question is: If I were to share an Mp3 file on a system running a Wind*ws OS, would a different system running linux be able to read the Mp3 file over the network [and vice versa] if I used a file system other than fat32? To answer one of the questions I asked earlier, "GQView" is an image viewing application similar to ACDSee. Linux also has LICQ which is the linux version of ICQ. __________________ Always choose the path that leaves you with the most degrees of freedom.

15th March 2003, 21:58	#11 \| Link
SoulKlekta Registered User Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: Edinburgh ,Scotland. Posts: 18	Yes,as spankmeister7 said TCP/IP protocol isn't OS descriminative and you will be able to access an mp3 file,good example,on your win32 box across a network (or the other way around),and play it on one of Linux's many media players. I would have the linux box as the firewall/gateway if you are planning ICS as the security levels on linux boxes make them ideal for such purposes. If you are planning to have linux and win32 on the same pc though,follow spankmeister7's post above. There are hundreds of well written Linux How-To's covering pretty much every problem or procedure ever witnessed on a linux box easily available on the web though. spankmeister7 do you have any url's for some good How-To's on 2 OS linux dual-boot or linux networking to hand? __________________ http://www.soulklekta.vgamer.co.uk/images/linuxnum.gif

15th March 2003, 22:00	#12 \| Link
SoulKlekta Registered User Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: Edinburgh ,Scotland. Posts: 18	Sorry,I forgot to mention,a linux version of ICQ is called LICQ ,funnily enough __________________ http://www.soulklekta.vgamer.co.uk/images/linuxnum.gif

19th March 2003, 09:48	#13 \| Link
mtc Registered User Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: New Zealand Posts: 70	Just thought I'd add my (late) 2c to this topic. I agree that Mandrake 9.0 would have to be the easiest version of linux for people new to linux to start with, it's installation process is incredibly easy to use....in many ways even easier than windows As far as networking and internet connection sharing go, Mandrake 9.0 has a lovely graphical utility for setting up internet connection sharing so that should't be a problem. It is also to set it up to use a shared connection on a windows box on your network (just put in the ip of the windows box in the gateway section when installing Mandrake, or in the networking settings later on). The Linux Documentation Project has heaps of guides for setting up networking/SAMBA etc but they do tend to go about it the hard way (alhtough it won't hurt to learn) they can be found at http://www.tldp.org Also the windows emulator Wine allows you to run a lot of windows applications under linux, for example Kazaa runs perfectly under linux, as do many other apps. Good luck ....and enjoy

6th April 2003, 14:57	#15 \| Link
Stampede Registered User Join Date: Oct 2002 Posts: 26	Well I see some recommending SuSE but I'd have to recommend STRONGLY against it. Maybe the distribution itself has improved since the 6.1 version I purchased way back when but I'm certain their customer service hasn't. This is a company who makes compatibility claims on their website and in their documentation with hardware their distribution doesn't even work with. In my case I just purchased an Adaptec 29160N SCSI host controller for my computer. A couple months later SuSE had a new version of their distribution they claimed provided full support for this card and that it should install out of box. However it could never boot up to the drive after installation and kept giving kernel errors. It worked fine on my IDE hard drive so I knew it was an issue with compatibility with the SCSI card. Several calls to their installation support and several hours of fighting with it never did correct the situation and the SuSE representatives said there was nothing more they could do for me. I'm pretty sure the driver wasn't correctly compiled into the kernel but I didn't know how to compile my own kernel and that was something evidently outside of what their support could help me with. I thought this was rediculous that they would claim full support for this hardware and claim to fully support the installation of their distribution but then not follow through with these promises and say "well sorry we can't pursue it any further". And they wouldn't even offer a refund either. At least they didn't waste much of my time. Between the 5 tech support reps I spoke with they spent maybe 30 minutes with me total. Each one gave up pretty quickly without offering much help. I switched to Red Hat which installed fine and never looked back since. Last edited by Stampede; 6th April 2003 at 15:02.

6th April 2003, 18:40	#16 \| Link
spankmeister7 Registered User Join Date: Oct 2001 Posts: 17	Suse 6.x Gee, I wouldn't recommend a three-year-old distro, either.

6th April 2003, 19:37	#17 \| Link
SoulKlekta Registered User Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: Edinburgh ,Scotland. Posts: 18	Well FYI,I have installed v9.1 from scratch as opposed to upgrading (I know I could have but didn't),anyway 9.1 installed without a hitch,recognised all my h/ware including the GF4 and the whole installation process was completed in less than 1/2 an hour. I can fully recomend Mandrake 9.1 Final to anyone. __________________ http://www.soulklekta.vgamer.co.uk/images/linuxnum.gif

7th April 2003, 03:29	#18 \| Link
jggimi Moderator Emeritus Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: The NW corner of Lake Erie Posts: 5,552	My small experience with SuSE I installed SuSE 8.1 based on a 3rd party recommendation, and first tested before installing by booting their evaluation CD. This sample Linux system, on boot, discovered and had drivers for 1) my VIA chipset, 2) my ATI video card, 3) my BT878 video capture card, 4) my Linksys network card, 5) my Lexmark printer .. all of it hardware that Windows doesn't know (or care) about. The network install went very smoothly, and the defaults gave me most everything I needed. Since the install, I've only added Mozilla (as I prefer it to the Konqueror browser), pure-ftp, and Samba and the associated LinNeighborhood (for Windows networking). I can't talk to their support, since I'm a download-only user. But I've found most of my questions answered, in English, either in their support database or the mailing list archive searches. SuSE 8.2 has been announced and will be released mid-month, I expect to upgrade to be able to go from KDE 3.0 to 3.1; this release was also announced with GNOME 2.2.

7th April 2003, 17:48	#19 \| Link
SoulKlekta Registered User Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: Edinburgh ,Scotland. Posts: 18	jggimi if you don't mind me asking,what was the name format of the SuSe 8.1 distro you have? ie;suse-sparc-7.3-CD1.iso (I know this example is for CD1 of v7.3 of the SuSe sparc release but you get my drift I hope?) Basically,what were the names of the files you d/l'd should I want to d/l SuSe v8.1 myself?,an ftp address would be excellent . I just liike experimenting with different distros on different boxes,such as the M/drake 9.1 Final I have dualbooting with XP Pro on this pc,I also have the 399Mb iso version of Peanut Linux v9.5 which is a complete OS on one CD. I have an ancient P2-400 with 128Mb PC133 RAM & 30GbHD which at the moment is just another client on my small homenet being used to process Seti@Home WU's.This would probably be the pc I installed SuSe on to give it a looksee. __________________ http://www.soulklekta.vgamer.co.uk/images/linuxnum.gif

7th April 2003, 18:44	#20 \| Link
jggimi Moderator Emeritus Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: The NW corner of Lake Erie Posts: 5,552	I used the mirror at ftp://mirror.mcs.anl.gov/pub/ftp.suse.com/i386 but as you're in Scotland, a closer one would be ftp://ftp.mirror.ac.uk/sites/ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386 -- the 8.2 release will be available very soon, check at www.suse.com for more info and more mirrors. The links I've provided are the top level for Intel binaries; you'll find the "LiveEval" demo .iso files there, 8.1 is 661MB, and you'll find the install-boot .iso file also, which is only about 18MB. Note: It was a little confusing getting the install boot started, as, while DHCP comes up, DNS does not, and you have to put the mirror's IP address into your install ftp url. The error message is less-than-obvious, and, after re-reading a README, I slapped my forehead and changed the command. Last edited by jggimi; 7th April 2003 at 18:48.