I am tring to install redhat 7.3 from iso images i dloaded from there site. I run a win server but I am going to move to Linux however I dont want to take down the win server while I am learning linux.
Question 1 If I install linux on a hd on a different box than the one it will finaly be moved to am I going to have problems.
Question 2 What is the best way to load the Iso files from cd.
I have read the site on making boot disk but I am completly lost.
I understand you need certian files but I am unsure how to get them all in the right place

1. If the hardware configuration is going to be consistant not at all
2. Check the following link to burn iso http://linuxiso.org/viewdoc.php/howtoburn.html , and after the discs are ready just change bios boot sequence to boot from CD-ROM first, pop in the first one and happy linuxing

I am instaling it on an intel box pentium 400 but it will endup on an amd box athlon 800 with more ram. Am I seting myself up for a fall

oopsie, you can get the HD w/ linux installed in your AMD box later, but it can be tricky, because if you want to get most out of your AMD box you'd need to recompile kernel for amd optimization first, I believe, at least in the case of RH, every driver out of the box distro is compiled as a modules and just dropped on HD during install phase - correct me if I am wrong guys - so there wouldn't be much trouble, what I'd suggest though, just get linux on pentium box, during install choose separate partitions for your /home, /opt, /usr/local and when migrating to AMD box just do a complete install, but don't ruin your /home, /usr/local and /opt partitions - DON'T FORMAT THEM if you want to keep files already stored on your system.

I am puting linux on a 40 gig drive Are the size of the various partitions Important Currently I have the /boot set to 32 megs
/ set to 10240 /home same /opt same <swap> 1024 with some left over for use/local. I understand partitioning on a windows box but that is done by letters So I am a bit confused why it is done this way what drive is the primary drive for your programs.

As I type this I have a 1000 page linux book infront of me.
I can see this is not going to be easy.
Also I selected Server install Over the rest I assume this is the best choice

I have 512 meg of ram in the amd box is the swap file to large?
hanks for the help so far.

Run

I have RH7.3 on an AMD athlon 850
after the install go to the agent update and d/l the updates. You will get the 2.18-5 that is optimized for AMD.
It is smooth as a gravy sandwich.

If you are running the server on an AMD machine, one thing that comes to mind is the video set-up. AMD machines and certain motherboard chipsets have problems with certain video cards. You need to do a little research to make sure your system is not one of the effected ones.

Also make sure you read up on passing the ram parameters onto the kernel. Sometimes with systems with 512 or more ram, there is a problem with the kernel detecting it all.

You should also read up on fire-walling and optimizing the system for use as a server. If it is going to be sitting there and just doing serving, then there is little use for an optimized video subsystem, or the use of full desktop packages. A full KDE or Gnome implementation may not be the way to go. As far as GUI tools, you should just look into those that make server maintenance easier, like a light window manager.

AMD optimizations are great, but not essential. Re-compiling a kernel is a big step for a new person (I haven't done it yet and have been using Linux for probably 12 mos. in the aggregate). I would stick to the stock kernels for now, until you know Linux like the back of your hand. There are a lot of things that can go wrong that you need to know how to fix, like running fsck checks on nerfed filesystems. You should know how to do things like perform security updates,setting permissions for essential services and things before worrying about kernel re-compiles. Just IMHO.

Kernel being picky about RAM amount is an old issue - it has vanished with 2.4 version. Second, I'd be blamed by somebody here for this, but anyway - by default almost every package you install on your system after actual OS setup is going to /usr/local unless you tell your system otherwise, so I suggest to make /usr/local the biggest partition on your system. The architecture optimization is essential if you want to take the full advantage of your processor power unless you are going to have static precompiled binaries on your system without worring too much if it uses SSE instruction set or 3DNow! instruction set, etc.
As far as server setup concerned, if you are a security concious person, and you have will, effort and time to spend to secure your server you should minimize the number of development tools on your box as much as possible, and update to the latest patches as soon as they are introduced if they are relevant to your situation ( I mean you wouldn't be concerned about buffer overflow on IIS 5.0 servers, but if you are running apache - you must be alerted about mod_SSL buffer overflow vulnarebility if you are running a website with secure zones for instance). Of course, in the ideal case you would have at least two boxes with the same hardware/software setup one is used as a real server and the other is for compiling, testing new software you might be needing for your webserver, after compile/test phase is done you would just transfer compiled binaries with needed dependencies if any to your webserver. But real life is not that generous sometimes, so use your common sense when you do things on your server.
The arguments here were just generalization, so read the book, if you think it is not enough - get another book (more advanced) and so on, ask questions here and there, and you'll get a handle on linux very soon.
Cheers