sorry for the post title. i have just gotten my hands on a copy of red hat 8 and have no idea what i'm doing. now the question.

i want to set up red hat to be my server. i know there is an option for this in the install menu, but i have no idea how to configure it once installed. the command structure makes no sense to me, yet. i was wondering how you would share a broadband sonnection. (cable) i also want to set it up as a firewall. but have no idea how to do that. right now i can't even get the mouse to work. i am ashamed of my ignorance. if there is a FAQ or something else i can go to that will help answer my questions that would be wonderful.

please forgive a newbie's ignorance. i just want an OS that works ALL the time.

the easiest hassle free way about this is to just use a simple front end to configure both a firewall and ip masquarading for you at the same time. i use a program called firestarter (see google) and it works really well. give it a try.

thanks for the help. is there anything else.......anybody?

my suggestion is not good enough for your high standards? you might want to actaully search the site for many identical questions

you took that the wrong way. (damn text only world)

i was thanking you for you answer and asking for any thing else. like i said i have no idea what i'm dooing. it took me 5 hrs to make it see my mouse.

please accept my appoligies. and forgive my spelling.

oh BTW it will not ./configure. i have no idea what that means but that is what the text file told me to do.

are you trying to configure in the console?

i use konsole, to make it easy on you do this
log out and log back on as user root with your root "administration" password
now open konsole super user mode

that will give you all access rights,

follow your direction again to get to the file then run the ./configure

after that im sure you will have to run make then make install? just guessing,

i just switched back to mandrake hoping i can get it to network,

i tried redhat 8.0 for 48 hrs almost straight and no luck,

i did ip masquerading,deleted ip chains,
setup ip tables,
installed dhcp , and dhcpd
and the most i got was no internet connection at all,
not even my main connection for just the linux box which i had from first boot

hopefully i can get mandrake to work it out,
i do like redhat better though but i will wait until i feel more comfortable with linux,
i suggest you think about that option as well