Hello, I'm looking to purchase cheap computer which I can dedicate to learning linux on. I would like to install Redhat 7.2, since most servers have Redhat installed on them. I was wondering what fellow WHT members thought about which computer would be the best fit.

AMD T-Bird 950MHz
128MB SDRAM Memory
20 GB (5400 Rpm) ATA 100IDE Hard Drive
1.44MB 3.5" Floppy Disk Drive
Sony 52x Internal IDE CD-Rom Drive

Intel Celeron 800
128MB SDRAM Memory
20 GB (5400 Rpm) ATA 100IDE Hard Drive
1.44MB 3.5" Floppy Disk Drive
Sony 52x Internal IDE CD-Rom Drive

AMD Duron 800
128MB SDRAM Memory
20 GB (5400 Rpm) ATA 100IDE Hard Drive
1.44MB 3.5" Floppy Disk Drive
Artec 16x IDE Internal DVD Drive

They all basically have the same specs, just different processors. So what do you think is the best computer and why? Also does it matter if the components are integrated or not?

I was reading through the redhat manual and I have one last question. I was wondering what type of installation that you all recommend, ie workstation or server? I want to use this computer as my main desktop computer, but I also want to use it to try to emulate a server environment.

Thanks again
Steven

Steven
All those machines will be fine. There may be some compatibility problems with bleeding edge hardware, but anything more than a couple of weeks (!) old should be fine. If you're wanting it as a desktop, select the workstation install, make sure it works, get things like the firewall locked down, then install the latest samba/apache etc from source. Then you know more about how it works.
Are you using suse or redhat?
Jim

I would suggest the thunderbird 950 simply because it has the most 'horse power', but linux should run fine on any of them.

redhat install: I would suggest a custom install - you will see a list of categories that you can choose from and if you select 'choose individual packages', you get a list of everything that is available and you select what you want. this is an excellent way to learn what linux has to offer. the installer automatically installs all the necessary packages to satisfy dependances, so it's pretty much fool-proof. you can easily install additional packages (like server s/w) after install with up2date (or manually).

If this were true, and trust me, I wish it were, the world would be a much more stable place.

Base level hardware portability is one of Linux's strongest points. Sometimes, when a chipset on a motherboard is dodgy, the Linux patch is in the kernel before the vendor has out the Windows fix. Support for chips usually happens before the thing ever sees market. For instance the Clawhammer, AMD's 64-bit monster, supposedly due out in Q3 this year, is already supported in the kernel.

Your biggest issue is going to be sound, networking, and if you can't avoid it, modems. Its the 8 billion peripherals that Linux isn't strong with. I recommend used SB128 sound cards and 3com networking gear. Onboard is usually okay if its sound, same with networking if its a name brand, avoid the sis900 stuff, onboard scsi is almost always adaptec, which is brilliantly supported, and lastly onboard video almost never works right with the cheap chipsets they've been putting on newer mobos.

Cheers,

Finegan

thanks for your replies, I was testing suse, mandrake 7.1 on my desktop computer running a dual boot, but I decided to dedicate one machine to windows and one to linux, this way if anything goes wrong with either they won't adversely affect one another. I just bought redhat 7.2 as I heard that it is very stable and has a lot of extra features that previous versions didn't have like the ext3 filesystem. But from what I've heard freebsd seems to be the most stable and secure of the linux flavors is that true? How is it different the RH? Once I get the hang of everything, I want to throw my windows computer out the window, as I hate the crashes, problems with it. I also read through the RH manual and understood everything (hopefully), but I was wondering what other books you pro's recommend for a newbie? I have heard that Redhat Bible is the best and RH Unleashed is good as well, as there any others on this level, if so which ones?

Thanks, BTW I've bookmarked this site, and will visit it daily

finegan: i presume he means that most high performance linux servers are redhat, which to my experience they are, as my uni's S/390 runs redhat server, and i don't know any other linux servers of that type...

Yeah, good point Bluecadet. I was assuming that Steven believed that most of the 'worlds' servers ran on RH. Also, Linux runs on Sparc, SunUltra, the Itanium, alphas, er... there are some others.

If that was the idea... really, its a zoo out there: Hp-UX, IRIX, AIX, WinNT, freeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD running Apache webservers on Sony Playstations, Solaris... and the young up and coming contender from Finland, Linux.

Uhmmm... where to start?

FreeBSD is rather secure by default, much more so than Linux and so astronmically more than anything Windows has put out as to be ridiculous to compare the two. OpenBSD is, offhand, probably the most uncrackable free operating system on the market..

If you invert that little pyramid, then you also have the ease of use scaled from top to bottom. Windows: pointy-pointy, clicky-clicky...

Linux... command line, GUI config box, command line... must work on network card...

FreeBSD... no training wheels, none... weee!!!!

Also, FreeBSD (a fully POSIX compliant true UNIX)
NetBSD (Same as above, and its ported to everything you can think of: Playstations, Dreamcasts, Macs, PCs, the alpha, the sparc, my toothbrush)
OpenBSD (same as above, but built with security as the primary project goal)

Net, Free and Open are not, and have nothing to do with the Linux kernel. They run on their own kernels (similar to one another, but separate enough now to be completely different beasts), use their own filesystems and compilers, and generally are an entirely different creature than the Linux distros.

The Linux distros big six: RedHat, SuSe, Caldera, Mandrake, Debian and Slackware, all use the Linux kernel and just come with varying packages of GUIs toys, tools, and desktops. For the most part you could make one distro look almost un-distinguishable from another in about 3 hours. Turning Slackware into anything else would take me about 5...

Also, yeah RedHat 7.2 is the only current release major distro that supports ext3 in the default install. Technically you could turn any distro's installation into using ext3 after the fact, but you probably don't want to muck about with that just yet.

Cheers,

Finegan

Ok, I've been told that linux won't work with the components that the computers above have because they use integraded components. I was wondering if any of you know of a cheap linux desktop/workstation retailer where I can get a computer from? If any of you can do me a HUGE favor and tell me if the following computer would be suitable for linux and if not why, I would GREATLY appreciate it.

http://www.myjackrabbit.com/a_eco.html

But I was told that the compents wouldn't work right with linux, but I wanted to get all of your professional opinions before I went any further.
Here is the url to the motherboard
http://www.pcwave.com/prod-m810lmr-xp.html

All help is greatly appreciated
Steven

I've got a laptop and Mandrake runs as good as anything, you really can't get anymore integrated than a laptop can you? The only issue i've had is the winmodem, that's solved by using an external modem.
I've got integrated sound, video, 30mg harddisk IDE, dvd/cdrom/burner built into one, floppy, 1gig cpu and 512 ram.
If you're running one of the machines listed in a desktop I can see little problems...