New-found love of Linux, and minor teething troubles
 

I am converted! My break from the grip of The Beast has been a long time coming, and I wanted to share my happiness with others. Oh, and right at the bottom I'm also looking for a couple of tips, if anyone gets that far.

But first the evangelism. Tell your friends! Shout it from the rooftops. Linux is the future.

Installing RH8 from a DVD was absolutely a pleasure. No problems with unsigned drivers, no crawling around the back of the box to note down the 25-letter code (again), no forced activation. And no problems, at least once I'd fixed the flickering monitor resolution, thanks to the info on these boards.

I'm feeling my way around slowly, with a view towards that great day when I wave a not-so-fond farewell to WinXP.

So far, I find that:

* Linux is fast. OK, so I have a P4 2.53GHz system with plenty of RAM, but it is still f-a-s-t. And running apps do not gobble up as much memory as 'Doze.

* Apps such as Ximian Evolution and the OpenOffice.org suite made me feel at home almost instantly. And I was delighted to find an alternative to MS Money.

* RH8's final config was obviously decided by the lawyers, but I've now found and installed an MP3 codec, and it sounds just grrreat.

And now the areas where I'm still puzzling, if any kind soul has the time and patience to help:

* I altered fstab to automatically mount my NTFS "Windows C drive", my other Windows drive is "E" - still puzzling over how to see that one.

* When I run the "SU" command under gnome-terminal to try and become root, I can then navigate to "root"-owned folders in Terminal, but not in the file explorer, which tells me I do not have permission to access that share. And I've already fiddled with the privileges, as root, to no avail.

* I have a DVD+RW burner and a second DVD drive. How easy is it to mount DVDs, and ... the killer q. ... to write CDs and DVDs?

* Ximian refused to import my contacts.csv file even though I'd saved it as a DOS format CSV file, as per their website's instructions. I'm migrating from Outlook 2000.

* Is there any way my scrolling mouse wheel will ever work?

* What's the best anti-virus software for Linux (free and paid-for).

* In plain Eengleesh, can someone please explain me how I would go about getting RH9, if they recommend doing so, and whether I'd need to pay. I've got 1MB/s-plus dual DSL for the downloading so lengthy FTP-ing isn't a problem.

Er, that's it. In exchange for any assistance, I promise to post a summary of the fixes that worked for me, to help other newbies.

Best,

Nesjo

Welcome !!!!

Here's what i can contribute for u :

The SU issue is that you only have SU privilidges for THAT console, NOT the entire system, that would be dangerous. If you want gnome as root , login as root before starting X.

Your other drive is no longer refered to as "E". Thats an MS thing. Your drives are located under /dev (devices) and /hda or hdb etc. so try /dev/hda for first hdd on channel 1, /dev/hdb for first on channel 2. Hard to explain but you'll get it. NTFS at the moment is read only though as linux is still under development, if i were you i'd convert to fat32 using partition magic.

Redhat 9 is available at www.linuxiso.org and as usual it's 3 cd's and FREE !!!!!

Scrolling mouse !!!! Look for the file /etc/X11/XF86Config (or somthing like). There's a section in there for mouse. Add this option to your mouse section:

Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"

If its usb then replace whole section with :

Option "Protocol" "IMPS/2"
Option "Device" /dev/mouse (might be /dev/psaux whereever your mouse is is what goes here)
Option "Resolution" "300"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
Option "Buttons" "3"

Option buttons 3 is optional if you have 3 buttons !!!

Dunno about DVD writing, not got that far yet. and again don't use Ximian

And as for anti-virus, i'm not sure you need it, as most worms and viri's are aimed at MS boxes not Linux boxes.


Hope that helped

Evilone

Thought i should explain a little further, the XF86Config file is the file X windows uses to set it's self up !!!

You can tweak X windows from here, hence the mouse change !!!

And if i were you !! DO NOT USE Redhat, you'll get a whole lot more knowledge and understanding from slackware. I tried Mandrake and redhat, and finally got fed up with the wizards hiding config from me just like windows did... Take the plunge matey, go slackware !!!!

Oh yeah and don't trash windows just yet, Remember the games young skywalker !!!

I usually just use 'mc', the Midnight Commander file manager which works in console mode. After you switch user to root('su'), just type 'mc'.
To start any program as root, just type it's name in your root console.
Since I use KDE, if I wish to use the graphical file browser (which happens to be konqueror) I would type 'konqueror' in the root terminal.

Sorry I add here a confusion: should I edit /etc/X11/XF86Config or /etc/X11/XF86Config-4?

But Evilone, I think you agree RH and Mandrake is good for newbie, isn't it?

xf86config-4 is the same file as xf86config , it's just for users using the later version of xfree (the windows system). If you have the 4 file use it, if it does'nt take any effect use the other !!!
It may be that the xfconfig file is linked to the 4 file anyway. Do a ls -al and check it's not a link !!




And as for Mandrake and Redhat, no i think you should start with Slack, go on with slack , and not confuse yourself further than you have to. Also why switch to linux, when your throwing away the versitility in favour of a wizard??? If you need wizards, use windows!!! Slack is the more unix like of the lot, and that's what linux is trying to do.

Thanks fellas and honorary female fellas, this is a good start. I've now installed a second HD (almost half a tera on my home pc now, scary) and I'll be using one of the drives to store files that are readable by both systems, another will be dedicated to Linux etc.

Since I have RH Linux 8 and it installed as easy as pie, it will do me for now. Let me get under the hood a bit more before I try other flavors.

As for FAT32, no ta, I'd rather stay with NTFS, which I find to be a bit more robust.

But has anyone got an answer about how to see my DVD drive under RH8?

Nesjo
-slightly less of a newbie today-

Linux DVD HOWTO

# Managing drives
LNAG - Accessing my drives
Rute - Device Mounting

# CD burning info
Is it configured and what is the device? Command this to find out:
cdrecord -scanbus
Adding an IDE CD-Writer to Linux
CD Writing HOWTO
# Burn an ISO to disk
cdrecord -v speed=<burning speed> dev=<your device> /path/to/foo.iso
# Burn from disk to disk
cdrecord -v dev=<your device> speed=<burning speed> -isosize /dev/cdrom
# Generate an ISO from a directory.
mkisofs -Jr -o foo.iso /path/to/directory
mkisofs -vrTJUV "Label" -o foo.iso /path/to/directory
# Generate an ISO from a CD
dd if=/dev/cdrom of=foo.iso
Linux MP3 CD Burning mini-HOWTO
# Convert mp3 to wav with lame
for i in *.mp3; do lame --decode $i `basename $i .mp3`.wav; done
# Burn a CD from wav files
cdrecord -v -audio -pad speed=<burning speed> dev=<your device> /path/to/*.wav
# Erase a CDRW
cdrecord -v dev=<your device> speed=<burning speed> blank=fast

For updating, download and burn the 3 ISOs for 9.0, insert CD 1 and reboot and choose upgrade.

# Redhat links
RedHat Linux Manuals
Get your mp3 support here
Maximum RPM
rpmfind
Easier software management: apt4rpm - Red Carpet
RedHat 8.0 Tips & Tricks

# Redhat 7.3 down configuration commands
setup leads to several configuration tools

# Redhat 7.3 up configuration commands
Configure soundcard:
redhat-config-soundcard
Configure X server:
redhat-config-xfree86
Configure network:
redhat-config-network

# Handling NTFS
New Technology FileSystem (NTFS) HOWTOs
Linux NTFS project

Try getting a hold of Redhat 9 through bit torrent. I got mine incredibly quickly... it's a new way to P2P. Search 'Bit Torrent' on Google for it.

How hard is slackware compared to Rh 9?- cuz I've been on linux for 4 days and I really want to learn Linux(like so I know how to do the advanced stuff) but on Rh 9 everytin is so easy.

good question, i want to know the same thing, but here's what i know:

slackware is the closest to the original Unix OS (so u need to know bash and probably how to program)
not exactly user friendly (though i would rather not use a user-friendly environment, puts too much on the screen and crams in useless info)
somewhat hard to install

i just downloaded it and i'm mustering the courage to install slack to boot with my redhat9 and winxp

well I dont mind it not being user friendly but how can i put slackware on my comp wile keepin my Rh 9 (just put another hd in?)(but then how would I switch between distros?)

Make another / partition for the other distro and put another stanza in your /boot/grub/grub.conf (or menu.lst) for the distro. You can share swap, /boot and /home if you have those separate. Here is my quad-boot:

so when I boot up it will give me a choice? and how do I create a partition?