Hey folks,
I really want to learn Linux. My mom's boyfriend set me up with a copy of Red Hat 5, which I installed on a Dell Inspiron Mini 1018. (no cd-rom btw)

After installation, I found that the nic didn't work.
(rlt8188ce)

Nice guy, tried to help for about 10 minutes, and pretty much bailed.

So...
I'm trying to figure out what to do. I'm excited to learn, and anxiously want to do that... as soon as I can actually connect to the internet with it...
Afterwards my hope is to use it exclusively until I know what I'm doing.

Any help or guidance is greatly appreciated.

-Bguysquared

a few issues

the current red hat is RHEL6.3
RHEL5 ( 5 point WHAT 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 RHEL5.8 is the current in the OLDER 5 series and 5.0 cane out in 2007 )

rhel5 is NOT FREE !!!
i repeat NOT FREE , you have to have a paid for support license to install software
you NEED TO BUY IT .
https://www.redhat.com/apps/store/desktop/
and if you have to ask ... Then you WILL need the $299 PER YEAR license


so i am guessing that you DO NOT have the license
so basically if it is not on the old and out of date cd
you DO NOT INSTALL IT
and if firefox is installed it is the very much dead firefox 1. ? or maybe firefox 2.0
firefox is currently as 15
so there are NO plugins for firefox 2
none of the current will work

( it is like trying to use windows98 in a win 7 world )



second issue

RHEL is normally installed on a server -- NOT on a desktop or laptop
and there is NO and i do mean NO LAPTOP SUPPORT
RHEL was NEVER meant to be ran on a laptop

as such there is almost NO music or video support
as in you do not play mp3's or watch a *.wmv video
( there are in third party reops - BUT you HAVE to have a paid for support license to use it )
normal problems on laptops is
NO wireless
no mouse pad
no sound
no video
and so on

you would be much better off using a operating system MEANT for the DESKTOP or LAPTOP ( and not a headless server)

something like Linux mint13

http://linuxmint.com/

you would be better off installing that, and Mint is FREE

I too agree with JohnVV. First off, that Red Hat 5 probably has too old an kernel to support your NIC, and if you are new to Linux, trust me in that you don't want to get involved with adding modules to the kernel nor installing another kernel.

Nothing wrong with Red Hat but you should use a much newer version of Fedora, which is Red Hat basically and any version of it newer than Fedora 15 or Fedora 16 should support your NIC.

Even I don't bother with Scientific Linux, which is a free community equal to Red Hat as its just too stable, too old for me on a new laptop. Save that for enterprises who need hardened hacker proof stuff and whatnot.

I suggest start right now with Fedora or Ubuntu. Take it slow.

Okay.

So taking it slow.

What should I do?

It's already installed.

I am virtually broke.

I do have a 256 mb jump drive. (which I know is extremely dated), but with that in mind,
is "Damn Small Linux" an option?

I have a few burnable CDs. I SHOULD be able to borrow his external usb cd drive, but there are no guarantees.

What do you think?

on an older "netbook" fedora 17 might not even install
(fedora will require 2 gig of ram to be usable - install with 1 gig , but not very usable)

also fedora is a RESEARCH and DEVELOPMENT -- testing distro
and is NOT stable - would need to be fixed BY YOU often


in your first post you say " no cd-rom btw" ?
so is it broken ? or what

how was RHEL5.? installed ?
from a usb ?

there is a cd iso for mint 12
http://www.linuxmint.com/edition.php?id=98
it is still supported until April 2013

burn that to a cd on a second computer
and use that

also you might want to do a LOT of reading on installing a Operating system
and on using Linux ( mint is a good NEW TO LINUX user operating system)
http://www.linuxmint.com/documentation.php

or Ubuntu
( mint is a ubuntu spin off)
http://www.ubuntu.com/
http://www.ubuntu.com/download/help/...ubuntu-desktop

It's an Inspiron Mini 1018. It just doesn't have a cd drive.

borrowed it from my mom's boyfriend.(the guy who gave me Redhat 5) I could ask for it again but I'd rather not, mostly because I don't want to have to tell him I think he's wrong...
I also don't think he realizes that red hat is an ongoing subscription...

A quick internet search shows that your laptop doesn't have any problems with Linux, so all you need is an up-to-date and beginner-friendly Linux, plus a usb stick to install it from. If you're broke, try borrowing the latter!

Fuduntu is nice and has special features to minimise power demand. It would fit onto a 1GB usb stick, transferring it with unetbootin.

http://www.fuduntu.org/
http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/

1 members found this post helpful.

You can purchase a USB stick with a beginner-friendly distro such as Mint or Ubuntu for less than $20 from sites such as: http://www.osdisc.com

If you are tech-savvy and have a 1gb blank thumb drive, then you can make your own.

1 members found this post helpful.

If someone can afford $20 for disks, they can afford the bigger USB drive... Download the distro, and put it on a USB,...

As for which distro to try,...

An easy distro, like Kubuntu or Xubuntu 12.04 might be worth a shot. But there's nothing wrong with Scientific Linux 6.3, if what you want is to learn for an IT career. Like the latest CentOS, it's pretty much a clone of RHEL 6.3. Don't let people scare you away from a distro you want to learn. That said, the machine won't much help you study for a RHCSA or RHCE (no hardware virtualization support),... No KVM,... But it would run Scientific Linux 6.3... maybe with a little coaxing. Still, Kubuntu or Xubuntu 12.04 are probably better. If you like eye candy on your desktop, go Kubuntu. ... And don't let anyone tell you it won't run on that machine,... I run Kubuntu 10.04 on a 900MHz Celeron ASUS netbook (in addition to 12 or so other x86 machines at home, and countless embedded devices running Linux). It runs just fine with Nepomuk & Stringi disabled,... 3D desktop effects and all.

The N455 in that netbook might not support 64-bit processing (technically it does, but it needs BIOS and motherboard support, and I don't know about that Dell). It's also a single core processor,... just a step up from the more common Atom N270s. The graphics are in the Intel GMA-945, and it's successors, family (GMA3150?!),... so it'll work fine (not fast, but fine). So, you'll probably be better off with the 32-bit versions of whatever Linux distro you settle on.