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.