How do you work this thing?
 

I am new to Linux. I am a PC and Mac user. I have Red Hat 9.1 installed on a spare Gateway laptop I had lying around. It installed very easily and was a no brainer, however, now that the OS is installed I am wondering what to do next. I have used Open Office since I have that on my iBook with OS X Panther. That is about it. Oh, and surf the net. I played around with some Terminal commands checking things out. I am trying to get this thing more graphic friendly through use of windows instead of major typing or coding. Any suggestions on how to get started with getting some programs installed on this thing? Possibly some references and some links to download some graphic programs and some mp3 player maybe?

Thanks.

What GUI did you install? Install KDE or GNOME for a good time :) They both come w/ audio player gui's if you installed them. As to a site that just has a bunch of things to download?? try http://www.freshmeat.net/ this site has some media players if you can't find one already installed http://linux.tucows.com/

KDE or Gnome?
 

I am not sure really how to check. I am new to Linux. I have a GUI....however, I have no idea about anything with Linux. That's why I am requesting some newbie knowledge.

Thanks.

Does the start menu button look like a foot (gnome) or a K (kde)?

Like I said
 

I know absolutely NOTHING about linux. Can you tell me what to look for in IDIOT terms?

Gnome
 

I am looking at my Add Or Remove Packages screen and it looks like 35/35 of Gnome is installed. 0/16 KDE....is there any real difference or is it just personal preference between the two?

Sorry, I though I was already being too 'user-friendly' :)

Okay, when you are in the gui - do you have a start bar at the top or bottom of the screen. If so, is there a button with a FOOT on it or a K? If it's a foot, it's gnome. If it's a K, you are using KDE.

If you have some other bar without those buttons, you are using something else. If you have no bar, you are using something else.

What happens if you click the left or right mouse button anywhere on the middle of the screen? Ar there any menus pop up?

We are flying blind here as linux can be running any number of dozens of different gui's and they are all, well, different.

We can't even start til we have some idea what you are using... :)

hmm...Well I believe w/ Red Hat if you installed GNOME the "start menu" should be a foot, and if you did KDE it is actually a red hat, not a K like usual. Do you have a start menu like thing? If so then you probably installed KDE or GNOME, if alot of programs are called Kwhatever, Kuser, Kaudio, Kmail, or if they are called Gtoaster or things w/ G's then you know if you have KDE or GNOME also. (K's are KDE, G's are GNOME). Other than that you can go to the add/remove programs part and see if you have GNOME or KDE checked. When you login it also tells you under the username which GUI you are going to start with, you can change it by clicking session down at the bottom.

edit: didn't see your previous post. I see you are using GNOME.


Yes, KDE is better :-P lol okay okay, it is just a personal preference (bet you can't figure out what mine is! lol) If you have the disk space install KDE also and try it out. One GREAT thing about KDE is if you press Ctrl-Esc it brings up a task manager like alt-ctrl-del in windows. Gnome has an audio player, but I don't know what it is. I think KDE's is called Kaudio. If you look in the add/remove programs thing there is a media section in red hat and you should look for programs in there.

Kind of Funny
 

I am looking at my Add Or Remove Packages screen and it looks like 35/35 of Gnome is installed. 0/16 KDE....is there any real difference or is it just personal preference between the two?

However...you mention that KDE has a Red Hat. I have a Red Hat on my taskbar. But as I said above and earlier....the GNOME shows 35/35 installed. I just copied a file to the desktop and saw the status box come up and say something about GNOME.

This is weird.

You have GNOME for sure, I was wrong about the hat...I was basing it off of Fedora...which is almost red hat, but obviously not quite. If you want to give KDE a try then install the packages in add/remove packages log out and click on "session" and change it to KDE.

Any difference?
 

I was looking on Gnome.org and KDE.org and really cannot find a reasonable difference. Any suggestions?

My main reason for writing these posts is in hopes of finding out if there is a more (and excuse me for saying this) Microsoft Windows based way of installing applications and working inside of Linux? I find it very difficult to use other than the basic icons you get straight out the box. I have went through and added a few more apps from the Packages but nothing external has been installed. I am pretty much lost at this point.

well Like I said there is the Ctrl-Esc feature in KDE. KDE is a bit more customizable and has a lot more GUI's than GNOME, but I think it requires more computer power.

overall I just find KDE more stable and better. I know someone will post that advocates GNOME, that's why I say just try both and choose.

As for easy installations, that is up to the people who make each program, for instance Open Office has a nice installer, as does mozilla. But most programs don't. How about you tell us what kind of program you are looking for, we'll find one (or you can) and we'll try to guide you through the install. http://www.rpmfind.net is a good place to find a bunch of programs as are the two a linked to earlier.

Programs
 

Well working this OS seems a bit difficult under Gnome. I guess I can uncheck Gnome and select KDE and probably restart and all will be changed.....As for programs, I do a lot of graphic design, web page design, things of that nature....and of course listen to mp3's while I work. Thats about it...and and I have MSN, and AIM on my pc's. Any suggestions?

Graphic Design - The Gimp (command: gimp), OpenOffice.org Draw (command: oodraw), SodiPodi (command: sodipodi), Sketch (command: sketch), Karbon14 (command: no idea, just read this one does SVG like SodiPodi and Sketch, but never used it)
Web Page Design - Mozilla Composer (command: mozilla -edit), OpenOffice.org Writer (like MS Word you can create HTML pages through this word processor as well, command: oowriter), Bluefish (command: bluefish), Quanta Plus (command: quanta), KWrite (this is a plain text editor with syntax highlighting and other kewl features for working with code, including HTML, command: kwrite)
Media Players - XMMS (command: xmms), Noatun (command: noatun), MPlayer (command: gmplayer [for GUI]), Xine (command: xine).

This is just a quick list I banged up from memory. In reality there's still much more software out there for this. Some of what I've listed is KDE specific (since I'm a big KDE user), but there are plenty of GNOME and DE-independant alternatives, and that is actually the majority of what I have listed. A good distro will most likely include all of the listed software and much more; it just depends on what you've chosen during install. I do a little bit of webdesign myself (http://apluspc.cjb.net), and very simple graphic design (i.e logo generation via Gimp's plugins), and I play all sorts of media all the time. One little trick I have to point out while I'm thinking about mp3s is Ogg generation in KDE. If you get around to installing KDE, try out the "audiocd:" protocol in Konqueror. You can use it to rip and encode Ogg's from your audio CD's through a simple drag-n-drop process. Ogg is a superior format technically and philosophically, and I think for legal reasons RH may still not include mp3 support by default in their distro (pretty simple to patch this if you look into it).

Anyhow, have fun. If you need any further help, I'd suggest logging onto FreeNode (irc.freenode.net) via X-Chat (command: xchat), and check out their numerous support channels for Free Software. Also, lookup your local LUG (Linux User Group) for your town (most major cities have one), and check them out some time. Most LUGs have good online forums, mailing lists, etc., and best of all, in-person support :-).

In Red Hat 9, they excluded the mp3 features for some odd reason, but you can download the latest version of xmms (it's just like WinAmp in Win, but not associated with them in any way). When you get that, you'll probably have to get some libraries, etc, but trust me, it works once it's in. As far as AIM and MSN, you can go to http://www.aim.com and go to their linux section to download the RH9 version. MSN might have it too, but I've never used it, but it never hurts to look. Also, RH comes with Gaim, which can substitute AIM if you don't mind a couple sacrifices.


"Windows-like" doesn't quite exist, but learning more about linux can help greatly and is a really good experience. I'd have to say that my favorite way to learn about any distro of Linux is to get a cup of coffee, a few bottles of asprin, and sit down to do a lot of reading. Of course, this is just my opinion. I also enjoy just playing around with it. If you screw it up royally, you can call it a learning experience and reinstall if you have to. I haven't seen a hard drive catch fire from stuff like this... at least not yet.

tk31337 has some very good suggestions too. If you're looking for a web design program that is more like FrontPage, I'm looking to that too. If there is a program like it for Linux out there, I'd really like to know... other than Netscape/Mozilla and basics like that. FrontPage is pretty much the only reason I keep Win on my computer.

Good luck with linux, and you certainly came to the right place to get more information about it. LQ has been great for me.

Thanks for the info
 

I will play around with it. I really don't use frontpage. I use programs such as Dreamweaver MX, Flash MX, Adobe GoLive, Visual Studio....Lot of programming. I appreciate your insight and have already downloaded a bunch of documents from Red Hat's site. I cannot stand reading, however, how else am I going to learn? Thanks once again guys.

I just read that you wanted to try out different desktops. To switch between Gnome and KDE, simply type "switchdesk" in a terminal window, and it will bring up a dialogue box asking if you want Gnome or KDE. Then simply log out and log back in again, and you will get you new selection.

I hope this helps
--Ian

My two cents:
Firstly, a really good front-page like program (if thats what you choose to call it) is Quanta. Features range from all forms of syntax highlighting (CSS, html, etc), to correcting code as you type (with an XHTML doctype try typing <br>, you'll see what I mean). Many other features as well that make it great, and you can preview in different browsers at the push of two buttons.

I recommend having both KDE and Gnome installed at all times, and with all the main development packages. This way you'll have the Qt libraries (the main GUI libraries that almost all KDE programs require), and the GTK libraries (GUI libraries almost all Gnome programs require). Having both of these saves you a lot of hastle.
Another thing to mention, if you're big on VS, then you may want to check out Qt - a cross platform toolkit with an easy interface designer and loads of useful functions and stuff.

Another thing is that you may want to try and get apt-get for Red Hat set up, which solves the problem of dependency hell (one program requiring another program which requires another program, etc.). This exists on Linux because as everything is open source, programs can use some functionality provides by some other program, and so on.
Apt-get installs the program you choose, and all of its dependancies. Heres complete guide to installing apt-get and Synaptic, a GUI to apt-get:

Download the following:
http://ftp.freshrpms.net/pub/freshrp...6-fr1.i386.rpm

and then from a terminal:
Now whenver you want to access Synaptic, you go to start menu > system tools > synaptic, and voila.

Hope thats been of some help.

For web design, I found Nvu located at http://nvu.com which looks really nice. I'm downloading it as I type so I can't say how well it works, but it's said to be a good Dreamweaver clone. I've never used Dreamweaver (only straight html, frontpage, or Netscape composer) but from what I've seen and read, it should do rather nicely.

Also, is there an apt-get for Slack? I've used the RH apt-get, and just very recently started using Slackware 9.1 and haven't seen it.

Personally, I don't think you've chosen the best distro to start with. There is no more "Red Hat" per se. I'd suggest downloading the Mandrake 9.2 isos (as Mandrake 10 isn't really ready for Prime Time in my opinion) and starting fresh. As for window managers, it's personal choice. However, as a recent convert to the KDE desktop, I'd say KDE is more reliable and more familiar aesthetically to Windows users. I bought a copy of Red Hat 9 for a buck 88 at CompUSA and never installed it. I gave it to a friend who likely gave it to the trash man.

I personally find Mandrake 10 the easiest and most enjoyable to use.
Don't worry about having Red Hat 9, I think it's quite a good distro and as good a place to start as any. As radiowriter said, Red Hat no longer really exists, so you may have been better off with Fedora 2 (sponsored by Red Hat). Plus it comes with the newer, faster kernel and KDE 3.2, which I must say is pretty nice

There is "slapt-get", but I think there are others such as swaret, but I don't know how to use them

--Ian

Which Distro?
 

I re-formatted and re-installed Red Hat 9....only this time I did a custom install. I installed Gnome and KDE. I really like KDE a lot better than Gnome. More on the lines of what I am used to. The only thing I do not like so far in Linux is majority of the programs are pretty lame looking. I guess because they are free, this is so. However, I have to invest some more time into working with this thing before I can make a final judgement.

Why is Red Hat not considered existent any more if its still available on their site?

I noticed I have looked under the Distro section of this site and Red Hat posts are pretty low compared to some others....but Slackware seems to have the most publicity. Any insight on this?

Thanks again.

Red Hat isn't considered to be existing because they aren't supporting it anymore. They basically said "it's not user-friendly enough for the mass public." As far as RH vs. Slack and Slack having more publicity, my guess would have to be the fact that it's supposed to be the most Unix-like distro out there, but from what I've seen and heard (not experienced though), Mandrake is probably the easiest to work with... for instance, my old boss actually got Mandrake 10 to work as a server (file server for a whole 3 Win2K clients... with a lot of help from an unknown source) when Win2K Server was too difficult for him to get working as even a gateway. On a personal note, I took RH9 and did both with a little bit of help from an old college instructor. I don't mean to put down my old boss, but of course he is the one that laid me off. :tisk:

Also, I know that Slack is considerably less demanding as far as hardware goes.

IBall, thanks for the suggestion for apt-get. Any chance any of you have any ideas for my modem problems? Read my post at http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...postid=1041950 to see all about the problems I've been having and please do let me know about any ideas. Reinstalling the driver is getting annoying.

Well see
 

I could have gotten Win 2k Server working easily....considering I build windows servers and workstations everyday. I will have to check out Mandrake 10. I have it to install. I will have to check it out. I actually have RH9, Mandrake 10, Gentoo, Slackware, and Fedora. I am confused as to which one I should install. I have RH 9 on there right now and find it easier to use under KDE, however, as I said before....The programs are really lame and elementary looking. I will have to play around with it and see. Maybe I will install Mandrake 10 tonight. I am assuming it will have the choice of Gnome or KDE, right?

Yep, you sure do. Make sure you install them both if you can.
Which programs do you consider lame looking?

Everything
 

All the programs that get installed from the CD I find to be quite lame. Maybe its because I have been working with Windows for so many years, I am used to seeing that. I have an iBook with OS X Panther on it and find it to be really cool looking. I guess I will have to work around in linux and maybe it will grow on me. Who knows.

KDE 3.2 is quite a big improvement, I think all the programs there are pretty nice looking.

Bear in mind that you can customize the global styles of ALL KDE programs in one panel, and therefore change the looks of every single program.

Re: Everything
 

Well, it is amazing how different these same apps look (even something like the KDE CD player or the KDE calc) once you skin them with a liquid, panther/jaguar style theme :) But the functionality is already there.

Look at Firefox. Now there is an app that really doesn't look much until you stick a decent skin on it. Amazing how much we tend to rely on looks to determine how good an app is :) I didn't like firefox much until I customized the heck out of it...

I have now reformatted my drive and installed Mandrake 10.0 Official. It is cool. I have the KDE desktop and configured my desktop to be a more familiar face to me. It is way easier to use than Red Hat...and I know it's more or less for newbies...but it's so configurable. I think I will stick with this distro.