Hi all! This is the first in what I guarantee will be many Q's

Just to eliminate any possible problems that could ruin this whole experience, I was wondering if any other n00bs (and experts too!) Have some good pointers to give me a jumpstart.

I'll be installing RH 8.

Any known issues, tweaks, heads ups, ,recomended downloads, anything would be greatly appreciated! I remember confusion and dfficulty installing RPM's got me away from Linux the first time.

Thanks again!

Shinobi
( Shin00b ;P )

So long as you are using fairly standard hardware you shouldn't have a problem. I don't know what your problems were with rpms but they are easy to install.

1) Download the rpm
2) Type "rpm -ivh /path/to/package.rpm"
where /path/to/package is the location and name of the rpm (you don't need the /path/to/ if you are in the directory containing the rpm)

If you have plenty of disk space do a full install it will save you time later WHEN (and inevitably you will) you want to start installing programs that don't come in rpms.

One other tip - if you into run any problems post the EXACT message if there is one. It is very difficult to help people when they say "xyz doesn't work" or "It said something like ...". ^ I'm not saying you would do this - it is just a pointer

yea, don't use redhat

if you're brave and dedicated debian is the best distro.

(The subsequent distro war following my endorsement of debian may commence)

Red Hat is fine. Linux is Linux. It's so lame when people fight over distros.

I like Redhat 8.0, this link will help you get up to speed, it is excellent!

http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=1890&page=3

I like Red Hat. Heh.. I was going to post a list of Red Hat concerns etc.. but then I read frontier1's linked article. That pretty much sums of everything.

Thanks everyone. I already know "Linux is Linux" I've been around the block

I chose Red Hat because I plan on becoming a RHCE. No doubt Mandrake et al is good too, RH just will suit me better as it is the industry leader when it comes to Linux.

Is KDE the default GUI or can I select gnome to be default in the install process? I need gnome because I use it on my Sun system at work and Sun is also switching to Gnome instead of CDE. Any links like the link Frontier1 posted are much appreciated (but I won't be using KDE )



Thanks

Gnome is the default but I usually install both then if you need to swap to run a particular app you can.

Cool, thanks for the idea.

You did mention, before, loading all of the packages so I'm assuming KDE is one of them. How much disk space do I need for all of the packages? Is there a few that are totally useless? (like source code for developers, or other crappy proggies?)
I have 40 gig but it runs out really fast with MP3's I'm a staunch advocate of MP3's too because I hate rebuying CD's four or five times because of scratching!

Thanks again for your input, dave, you're a very good help!

I think the full install is about 4 Gig. You could get away with removing any server service you don't need such as apache/dns/mail. My point earlier was simply that some people see the developer tools as being for developers only. In fact you can't compile any programs you get from source as the gcc compilers etc aren't installed. For the extra space they take up I suggest installing them so that if you do need them in the future it is less trouble.

I see lots of people that get put of linux because there is no executeable setup programs like in windows. Then you tell them about rpms. They eventually rember the "rpm -ivh package.rpm". They even find this easier as they don't need to say next next no yes finish. Then it comes to a program that isn't available in rpm form and when they follow the install instructions they get loads of errors about the time they run make. It is about then that most give up

Not that from any of your posts this seems to relate to you - I just thought I'd share.

some other installation help-

i prefer suse since i am 10% german -he,he
suse 8.2 on the fed express truck today, should get it on the 5th

http://www.mplug.org/phpwiki/index.p...t8.0TipsTricks

The first time I tried Linux was I believe around 6 or 6.2 I had all sorts of RPM trouble. Plus it really is difficult learning how to install packages from command line instead of GUI because it just doesn't feel right. Then you have to figure out where in the hell it placed the application so you can excecute it/put it in your path. It was really clumsy just trying to play an MP3! At that time I said to myself "I'll try this later when they fix a few things."

Well we're at Red Hat 9 now so I figured 8 has a lot of documentation/forum discussions on problems I could run into. The linux community has grown a lot too so that makes help a lot easier to find. The many responses I've gotten to posts at linuxquestions.org shows me that help is right around the corner.

To me, there is no better time than now to try Linux!

Thanks everyone!

If you are trying to find where system programs are installed try the whereis command - eg
"whereis telnet" gives
"telnet: /usr/bin/telnet /usr/share/man/man1/telnet.1.gz"

There is a gui version for installing rpms - I just don't see the need. By the time I have opened konqueror, found the file, double clicked (waited for an extra app to open) - clicked a few more times. I have already typed "rpm -ivh /root/package*.rpm" (using wildcards saves a lot of time - no need to type lots of horrible version numbers )

Why don't you wait one week and download RH 9.0? It has likely sorted out issues with various drivers like Nvidia. With Linux (the free downloads) you have to install extra software to bring it up to speed, however, once you understand how to do that, it might take some months, than you can have a kick ass computer system that makes MS Windows look like a sick joke.

Well I tried to install Red Hat last night (Full install was about 4.6 gigs) And, you guessed it I get L, and sometimes even LI but never LILO!!!!

I checked all five CD's and they were burned correctly (as confirmed by RH8 utility)

Well looks like I've got my weekend booked.