Newbie Terry's Pitiful Thread

I'm a professional who does very well with Microsoft Windows operating systems. So it is with great humility that I once again pick up the journey of learning Linux. I've helped so many people on other windows forums, but now I need real basic help.

I'm going to attempt a project and request help along the way. Thanks in advance for any help.

I want to replace my Windows servers (ultimately) with a single Linux server. I want my linux server to be a firewall, ftp, web, smtp and pop server along with holding file shares. I will start with Fedora 2.0 that I got with a linux book at Barnes and Noble. It seems to include all the items listed above. I have a friend who said that I should install linux in text mode, but I have a powerful enough computer to at least learn in graphics mode.

At this point the only question I have is what text editor is the easiest to use? I got all turned around in VI or whatever vi sent me to. I feel so stupid. I can't even save a simple text file.

"nano" is an extremely easy to use text editor.

hope this helps,
jrtayloriv

yeah dude!! definitely nano... and don't worry, i STILL don't know how to use vi properly

and don't be so rough on urself...everyone's gotto start somewhere.
just next time use a little bit more of an informative subject line

Use nano or pico they are both very simple. You may be interested in a vi(1) tutorial. There is one here.

Ok, I am installing a fresh copy of Red Hat Fedora 2.0 and have chosen KDE desktop. I did not see any of those editors listed. Are they in the Gnome or do I need to install them seperately?

Like me, jrtayloriv and 0pal_t0ad have one thing in common, GENTOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Which, I think is a bloody excellent distro and also explains why they suggested nano, the default editor for gentoo.

I should point out that when I was using mandrake (and the kde default environment) I only ever used either kwrite or Kate.

I don't know what the default editor would be with fedora?

But with nano and gentoo I can be in the terminal shell, "SU'd" to root and edit away!

with the kwrite/kate, I never did work out if I could do that, I always just would login to root and do the edits I wanted from there.

VI is a very good editor, but you'd really have to print off a basic command list to go with it until you're "all about"!

Because you profess a dislike of VI though, I won't bother suggesting Emacs. Which, if you can get your head round it, is arguably better as it has lots of extra stuff that you can plug in!

Oh, and I'd also suggest that instead of trying to learn that "doggies do do" that is deadrat/fedora, you got for maybe something debian based (or gentoo for that matter), say Ubuntu then get your head round apt (the package manager), change the apt-sources list and then just get any other packages or upgrades/updates from there.

I'd "alledge" that it'd be better in the long run.



regards

John

If you are in KDE, there's kedit, kwrite, and kate - varying levels of the same thing basically. The editors mentioned in this thread are console editors. There should be an icon on your taskbar that looks like a piece of paper (graphical editor) and one that looks like a shell or a computer screen (interface to the shell, from which you can invoke a console editor).

Don't feel bad - ed, and thus grep and sed and more, and thus vim are core parts of the system - the mechanism and philosophy behind them flavor most everything in a *nix system. But they are also some of the most obtuse and arcane tools around. A must learn, but not a good way to get your feet wet unless you have someone to walk you through every keystroke.

-- Damn. I don't feel so good, but I must be worse than I thought if this took me this long to type. Sorry - bigjohn's already got you covered.

Ok, so I should skip Fedora and go with a different Distribution? I'm more than happy to change, but I've never heard of gentoo. Thus, I've never heard of apt either. Could I bother you for a small explaination?

yeah, gentoo's the only distro i've come across that has nano with the distro. but that doesn't stop you from downloading and installing it.

nano is a text mode editor, which is what i thought you wanted but as for a KDE editor my fav is kedit, i don't like the way kwrite formats source code.

You should use Slackware!

Just kidding.

You probably don't want Gentoo - unless the install process has changed, it's a distro you install from the command line and which compiles itself on your box. My second/third favorite distro, but not good for minimizing Windows culture-shock. Apt is a (primarily) Debian way of installing packages. Again, not a newbie-friendly distro to get on the box until maybe the next release.

Fedora should be fine, especially since you've already got it on. If you wanted something else, and you were most familiar with Windows, your Mandrakes and Suses and Linspires and all might be good choices. I'd just stick where you were for a bit before you decide to switch.

Thank you. The installation process has started. I will tackle the tasks one at a time. I think I will start with the web server unless anyone has any objections. That's actually where I started having problems with the editor. Wish me luck.

As for the editors, they are not GUI utilities. Simply try typing

nano

or

pico

at a prompt.

Oh, I misread - I thought you had just completed your install. Still, might as well go with what you've got. Just make sure you do the update thing when you've got it on - I'm not sure how old FC2 is. Not very, I don't think, but still need to get the latest security fixes, I'm sure. Good luck!

use whatever distro you like to learn. fedora may not be the ultimate for your server needs, since it has so rapid release cycle and older versions aren´t usually supported. and the rpm-package is not very sophisticated way of installing software (not that you need much after everything works). but it has a nice and working desktop.

for server i´d recommend slackware or debian. debian is easier for a beginner, slack gives total control for experienced user.

pico and nano are good cli-editors. you may want to check if your install cd has them (i bet they are there).

Alright. RH Fedora 2.0 completely and cleanly reinstalled. Basic stuff works fine, like web browsing.

My first step is the web server. I picked that because the configuration is GUI. I go into HTTP and make changes to the HTTP server configuration. Specifically, I need to add a servername. But after adding the name and clicking on ok, I get a dialog box asking if I would like to save the changes and exit. I click yes, but it does not close the program, and it does NOT save the changes. The only way out of the program is to cancel, and of course, that does not save the changes.

Last time I started to edit the text configuration file. That's where I ran into trouble with VI. But I shouldn't have to do that. I should be able to use the GUI.

I manually put a test htm page in \var\www\html. I can't pull it up from the linux machine or from another machine on my network.

Is there some service I have to turn on for the web server to work.

And should I download all the updates, leave them downloading, call it a night and pickup with installing the updates tomorrow?