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brainchild786
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Newbie wanting to get into Linux

Tue Nov 11, 2003 2:05 pm

Hi Guys. As the topic says i want to get into linux but have absolutely no experience with it. I would like to learn some stuff about it because at some point i would like to set up a linux router/firewall box. My question is what linux should i d/l to try out??? Also please provide links if possible please. Thanks a lot guys!!!!
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dolemitecomputers
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Tue Nov 11, 2003 2:43 pm

I would recommend either Suse, RedHat, or Mandrake to start out with. If you check out Distro Watch http://www.distrowatch.com/ they have links to about 100 distros and even an online store where you can buy copies for a small price if you can't download them. You will need to get familiar with the command line so you might need to get a good unix book or maybe someone can point out a good place online to go. I can't think of one right now.
 
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Tue Nov 11, 2003 3:11 pm

why not use Clark Connect if you just want a firewall/router
 
brainchild786
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Tue Nov 11, 2003 3:22 pm

Fogg wrote:
why not use Clark Connect if you just want a firewall/router


Cause i would like to learn about linux as well
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brainchild786
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Tue Nov 11, 2003 4:07 pm

Sorry guys another question about linux. Is it compatible with NTFS or am i going to have to reformat to FAT32??
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Captain Ned
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Tue Nov 11, 2003 4:30 pm

Actually, a real easy and painless way to test drive Linux is to d/l the Knoppix ISO. Burn this to a CD, put it in your drive and reboot. Voila, instant Linux that doesn't touch your hard drive. Of course, you won't be able to make any permanent changes, but you can get the flavor without any fear of FUBARing your HD.
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dolemitecomputers
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Tue Nov 11, 2003 5:27 pm

brainchild786 wrote:
Sorry guys another question about linux. Is it compatible with NTFS or am i going to have to reformat to FAT32??


It is only read only compatible and sometimes requires recompiling the kernel. If you want to transfer files between windows and linux you could make a small FAT32 partition and use that to store files until you need them in whatever operating system. I believe you can copy files from NTFS but not make changes directly to them on the windows partition.
 
brainchild786
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Wed Nov 12, 2003 2:25 am

dolemitecomputers wrote:
brainchild786 wrote:
Sorry guys another question about linux. Is it compatible with NTFS or am i going to have to reformat to FAT32??


It is only read only compatible and sometimes requires recompiling the kernel. If you want to transfer files between windows and linux you could make a small FAT32 partition and use that to store files until you need them in whatever operating system. I believe you can copy files from NTFS but not make changes directly to them on the windows partition.


On my drive i have it partitioned but they both NTFS. I was planning to install linux on the 2nd partition (i already have XP Pro on the 1st partition). So do i leave it is NTFS or do i change it to FAT32???
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LJ
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Wed Nov 12, 2003 2:38 am

The distro you should try is called Fedora linux. While I don't have experience with it directly it's the current hot distro that inexperienced users could install (the hot "geek" distros being gentoo and debian).

Everyone who has used to claims it installs very quickly, things just work, and it's been a very enjoyable experience. Also, it comes with excellent tools for keeping the system from getting obsolete (you can use 'yum' instead of up2date). If you're considering Redhat: don't. This is like redhat but significantly better and it will continue to be a community supported linux aimed at the desktop (redhat will now be aimed at small businesses and low to mid range servers).

Here is the deal with NTFS: in linux you can read from it effectively but writes are very limited (with the 2.6 kernel you can overwrite files but not create them and you might have to write to files of the same size). So if you want to read from your windows partition that's fine but don't count on writing to it.

One of the reasons you don't want to look at FAT32 is because the performance is middling and it isn't a journalling file system. Try ReiserFS or XFS if you want a high performance journalling file system for linux. Neither will be readable from windows.

Make a note of which partition you want to remove (perhaps by relative size) and when you're in the linux installer there will be an opportunity to delete the partition. Do so then and follow it's instructions; it should create new partitions for you within that partition and suggest a reasonable file system. Do Reiser or XFS if it gives you the option.
 
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Wed Nov 12, 2003 3:16 am

Linux doens't install on fat32 or NTFS. It uses it's own file system. You will just need to make a partion of unformatted space to install. The mentioned distros will take care of formating the drive(partition) for you.

I would honestly say your best bet is to find an extra HD and use that and share a fat32 partition to use files on both systems. Most linux distros will read/write fat32 and just read NTFS. Windows however will only understand fat or NTFS.
 
element
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Re: Newbie wanting to get into Linux

Wed Nov 12, 2003 3:37 am

brainchild786 wrote:
Hi Guys. As the topic says i want to get into linux but have absolutely no experience with it. I would like to learn some stuff about it because at some point i would like to set up a linux router/firewall box. My question is what linux should i d/l to try out??? Also please provide links if possible please. Thanks a lot guys!!!!


Libranet 2.7 Free edition and apt-get till you're satified :)

http://www.libranet.com/download.html

Libranet is 100% Debian compatible, I use it as an easy Debian installer + you get their easy Adminmenu with it to configure everything.
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muyuubyou
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Wed Nov 12, 2003 5:12 am

Hey element I never tried that one. Looks very promising.

Debian and Gentoo get a bit cumbersome at times.
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brainchild786
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Wed Nov 12, 2003 5:53 am

Thanks guys you have been a big help.
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element
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Wed Nov 12, 2003 6:49 am

muyuubyou wrote:
Hey element I never tried that one. Looks very promising.

Debian and Gentoo get a bit cumbersome at times.

Yeah, I love it, Libranet 2.7 is outdated, but you can apt-get to testing or unstable, just add the repositories to your sources.list. And you can compile a newer kernel through the adminmenu which makes it easier. And you have a Debian that's as up to date as you want. I'm running bleeding edge unstable, Gnome 2.4.1 and kernel 2.4.22 .. it's awesome :)
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just brew it!
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Wed Nov 12, 2003 7:17 am

For on-line Linux reference material, I recommend two sites:

<a href="http://www.tldp.org/">The Linux Documentation Project</a>
-and-
<a href="http://www.google.com/">Google</a> :D

IMO either SUSE or Redhat would be good distros to start with. Mandrake seems to get good marks for 'newbie friendliness' as well, but I've never used Mandrake myself so I can't comment first-hand.
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brainchild786
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Wed Nov 12, 2003 7:41 am

just brew it! wrote:
IMO either SUSE or Redhat would be good distros to start with. Mandrake seems to get good marks for 'newbie friendliness' as well, but I've never used Mandrake myself so I can't comment first-hand.


Well i am downloading Redhat 9.2 at the moment so it should be done by tonight sometime. Again i thank all of you for the info.
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Despite
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Wed Nov 12, 2003 8:01 am

RedHat's last version was 9, so if you're downloading 9.2, you may be in for a surprise.

Mandrake 9.2 maybe?
 
brainchild786
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Wed Nov 12, 2003 8:34 am

oh yeah version 9!! my bad!!!!
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Re: Newbie wanting to get into Linux

Wed Nov 12, 2003 7:01 pm

brainchild786 wrote:
I would like to learn some stuff about it because at some point i would like to set up a linux router/firewall box. My question is what linux should i d/l to try out???


My suggestion would NOT be to get a full blown distro like Mandrake, SuSE etc. These are desktop oriented; though it would be a good learning experience it would mean you would be crawling through a distro inherently insecure because it was/is running services that are not required to handle routing & firewalling.

Keep it simple, and start yourself with a distro so that you'll learn a couple of principles at a time rather then overwhelming yourself - there are various distros like ClarkConnect (already mentioned), Coyote Linux, LRP, IPCop, GNAT, and numerous others.

Also a good suggestion was to look into Knoppix/Gnoppix for learning Linux - it doesn't actually install to the hard drive, so any system can run it providing hardware support which I've found myself to be quite extensive.
 
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Fri Nov 14, 2003 3:04 pm

Install Gentoo. It's the most no-nonsense distro that shows a healthy respect for the traditions of the Unix world. Red Hate and other RPM based distros have wretched binary package management. The Gentoo install is painful, but if you can't accomplish it, you probably shouldn't be using Linux.

You may also want to check out FreeBSD - the other great Free Unix. In many ways, FreeBSD is far superior to the popular Linux distros.
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Mon Nov 17, 2003 12:12 am

The Gentoo install was painful (the first time, now it's no biggie) and if that was my first Linux experience, I would have given up right then and there. I had all sorts of random problems, I didn't set up grub correctly so I had to manually type in some commands to load my kernel, and all sorts of other stuff that almost scared me away (I spent like a month with Mandrake first). I love Gentoo and still use it today, but it's not for newbies
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Mon Nov 17, 2003 2:32 am

I've just spent the last few days on/off downloading 1.838GB of Fedora. Will report back.
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Mon Nov 17, 2003 2:54 am

yarbo wrote:
I love Gentoo and still use it today, but it's not for newbies
It is a great wa to get familiar with the command line. Gentoo is the only distro I've installed in quite some time (had to see what everyone was talking about back when it released, stuck with FreeBSD for my stuff though). As I recall it, the install docs, even in the beginning, were pretty good, and by building up the install you do get a decent feel for the system in general. It's not for the casual newbie, but for someone serious about learning "real" linux and not just leaning on a bunch of distro-specific GUI tools or varying quality.

When it comes down to it, there *is* a lot to be said for taking things slow and learning what you're doing rather than installing everything else and figuring it all out later. My first linux experience was some old version of slack, downloaded to install floppies over 28.8 dialup. After that, I messed with redhat 5 for a while, since media was available in stores. Cutting this rambling to a halt, starting with a "large" distro isn't a bad idea, but if you have a specific role in mind for a machine, using a "small" distro is more educational. I'd never trade in my minimal FreeBSD configurations. Once you know what software you want and need minimal setups rock.
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