first install, no idea how it works... help.
 

MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE....

hi!
i'm a ccna and mcsa, but not even a newbie on linux...

i've installed a red hat 9 with kde on an old p1 200mhz 32mb ram...
and it's slow.... really slow... badly slow... too much slow.....
4 minutes to get the menu when you right click on the desktop.... really badly slow......

i heard that it's possible to faster all this stuff by installing xfce4....
i downloaded a file called gtk2-2.4.1-1_shadow.i386.rpm on the site of xfce.

how can i install it? does it really resolve my problem?
what can i do????

please, i really do not know NOTHING about linux, so the one(s?) that will be enough courageous and patient to help me, please, precise all the action in all hte details... because i'm starting from zero, right now....

and thank you, really!!!

You shouldn't use KDE with that machine. There's just no way. Xfce is supposedly fast, but I have no experience with it. I use fluxbox on my 64MB RAM machine. Other lightweight window managers are blackbox and Icewm. Slackware is also much faster than Red Hat in the default setup.

You can install RPM files from the terminal with:

THANX TO BOTH OF YOU!!
you're the first that help me, really...
another question: how do i switch to the new gui, after that?

ok, i'm a dork....
i burned the file to a cd-rom.....

how can i access my cd rom, now....???
shame on me.....

ok

Now, that's a useful post!

aldric90, you can access your cdrom drive by mounting it to a directory. Something like this:
That would mount the device /dev/cdrom in the directory /mnt/cdrom. You should view the contents of your /etc/fstab first:
to find out which device the cdrom drive is (it's not necessarily /dev/cdrom). It's also quite possible that in your RH installation the cdrom drive was set to automount. Look around.

well since you're using redhat just type "mount /mnt/cdrom" and it should mount it there. No questions asked. when you're done with it you'll need to unmount it by using "umount /mnt/cdrom" or since its a cdrom you could just use "eject cdrom" and that should work also.
I agree you should not use KDE on that machine, its a resource hog, however you won't really be able to use any GUI on that either.. even the light weight ones are going to be too needy for that setup. I would just suggest using it as a server and as a learning experience, you'll be amased how much you'll learn when you don't have a GUI to help =)

thanx to both of you!

i've already learn a lot... i've found a way to get to the console................
and the worst is that is true...... i'm already on my way to suicide....

i think i'll start without gui....

on another forum, someone told me to istall a red hat 6.2, instead of this one... coze it's about to be lighter....
and i didn't succeed to do this... even with a floppy boot disk.......

you know, windows is really simpler.... and the doc seems to be much reachable......
but i'm hard! it will take time, but i'll get it!

starting without the gui is the best way to learn quickly, particularly long time windows users. there is a rough period to get acquainted with accomplishing tasks at the command line that you have done forever from a gui, but you will learn what actually happened "under the hood" when you clicked your mouse and looked at the pretty pictures. you will also find, after some time, that you can accomplish more and do it faster from a command line.

i'd suggest purchasing a linux book if you haven't already, as a good one will ease this transition. and of course, post questions here, but only after you have tried your best to solve it. i have learned more trying to solve problems than i can express. calling for help is good, but not before you completely understand the problem and can tell others what you have tried.

best of luck with your linux experience.

As far as books go, I recommend starting with Running Linux from O'Reilly. I agree with lyceum that trying to solve a problem yourself is the best way to learn. Wanna know what a command or app does and how it does it - just go:

i second that recommendation. a very good reference that is often off of my bookshelf.

BTW I'm runnning a RH7.3 on a P200 for years... Had to change the hard disk 3 time though but it's quite fast eithou GUI..