Hey, I have a problem that I do not know how to approach at all. I currently have 2 hard drives in my pc. One has windows and other has redhat9. I installed redhat because I wanted to get familiar with linux, im very much interested. But i cant seem to do much with redhat because i cannot get the internet to work, everyone tells me to get slackware or mandrake, so i would like to remove redhat and install a different distro, but i do not know how to remove it. When i boot my pc i have a grub loader with the redhat logo asking me to choose windows or redhat. How would i remove redhat and install a different distro, if so, which one?

Thanks for taking your time to read this.

You don't have to remove it first, you can simply install a new distro over it, and simply let the new distro format the disk and install a new boot loader.

Which one, now you are new to linux, so i would say that slackware is totally out of the question.

Something like mandrake, fedora core 3, or ubuntu might be a good start.

But, the question about getting on the internet from redhat, that really should be possible, and if you can't get it working in redhat, you might not be able to get it to work at all. What is the problem?

Hey, thanks for replying,

Am i supposed to boot into redhat and put the mandrake cd in so it asks me if i want to overwrite redhat and install mandrake?

Well i had dial up and the internet worked, but i now have cable on a linksys router and it just wouldnt pick up my internet connection. Im using my onboard ethernet on my asus motherboard.

Try this and let us know what happens,I would get redhat on the net so you know how to then you can install a newer distro;
http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/l...rk-config.html

does it detect the network card at all? if it is GigE then it probably doesn't. If you are using a router and has setup redhat to connect using dhcp, then it should just work (tm)

As for reinstalling, you should just put in the mandrake cd and reboot your computer, and then choose the redhat disc inside the installer.

I had no idea that all i had to do was put in a disk and it will replace the current distro, sounds great

Yea i will try the internet one more time and see if it picks it up, if not, will mandrake be any different in that area.

Is the mandrake installer a gui, i would most likly mess up with a command line installer, im 100% new to linux.

Hey, guys! Installing anew disribution is not solution of problem.
Post your dmesg here for future viewing. Thanks

yes, mandrakes installer is a gui, and is as easy as redhats.

hopefully it will work with the network, if your netcard is linux compatible...

Thanks for all your help, im downloading mandrake now.

BTW, Mandrake is a clone of Red Hat. Also RPM oriented. Why would you swith from "Cleo to Punto" instead of taking a "Mustang" if there is a chance already...

lol what does that mean...in english

It means that Mandrake is practically the same Red Hat. It also uses packges that have rpm packaging system. I tried them both, and it's same darn thing, with extention that drake is more annoying. I also started with Red Hat, Also swithed to Mandrake and then SuSE. They are all rpm oriented. I wish someone were there back then to advice mme otherwise, but it wasn't .
The whole meaning of this is: If you want to swith the distro, take something you'd use and stay with. Like Debian-Sarge or Slackware

I just want to be familiar with linux, like know the basics of it, wouldnt slackware be more high end for me.

Maybe not, i will download slackware as well and install it later on.

Does mandrake and slackware both update automatically after you install it? Like security updates?

As I have already mentioned, It's like switching from Fiat "Punto" to "Corvette". They are both vehicles, both drive but the question is not what they do, but how they do. Of course, If you sit in Corvette it's strange and scary at the begining but soon you realize that Fiat "Punto" is somewhere far behind....

Heh, i have heard that one before, and i am still not buying it.

No, slackware or debian are not better or more corvette like (and who would want an american plastic sports car anyway :-) ) than redhat, mandrake, etc. They are not really all that different either. What they are is cut down, and have all the easy setup tools and manuals removed. And debian also have a crapload of totally outdated, and to most people, useless software in its repository. Good luck to the new user who is trying to find something useful between the 8000+ packages in debian.

And complaining about package formats is just silly. They are all virtually the same, and even basically work the same. All there is to a package is a collection of files, and a few script files. New users should just use a frontend anyway, and not even have to know what the hell rpm or deb is. And the last time mandrake and redhat was alike was about 6 years ago, then you could complain that mandrake was a clone. But they have actually evolved quite a bit since then, and i think in some ways they are better than redhat. Though it is also my experience that they are slightly more buggy. But everything is better than redhat 9 today :-)

Now i think new users should start with a distro that does a little hand holding, that can do things like resizing their windows partitions, can configure their sound board, and that have an X setup that works more often than not, and probably even a graphical installer. And debian does not fit that at all. Not that im bashing debian, im using it daily, and it annoys me less than many other things, but i am not a new user.

I also think they should be able to read ntfs partitions and play things like mp3 files, which both used to be problems with redhat, and probably still is, at least for the latter. That is at least a place where debian is ahead.

But it of course boils down to what you want. If you want to play with the innards of an operating system, and learn a lot about what is going on internally, then by all means, use debian or slackware or gentoo or linux from scratch. But if you just want to use it to get work done with, then any of the mainstream distros should do.