Linux Help!

[blackhawk1928]

Hi, I have been on this forum for a while, but I am usually on the hardware pages most of the time, however I am sort of new to the operating system part, I mean i don't know much about operating systems and how they work except for your average windows. Well I would like to ask a little help for something. I have another computer that I don't do anything much on except for doing a couple important tasks like I need use to share a bunch of hard drives on my LAN, do all my important downloads, defragment itself and my shared drives, and mostly I keep back-ups of all my multimedia on it and important stuff that I have, and use the internet on it, i am sure there are browsers for it. well my question is, currently that computer uses Microsoft windows xp, however with all the security holes, bugs, instability, and complexity of windows, and all those pesky annoying malware, viruses, trojans,spyware,adware and etc...which truth be told I am quite sick of, actually I am quite good at hunting them down and removing since I had so many but its lots of work and I still get annoyed from it! I would like to switch to a more simple,stable,more perfected, operating system with less bugs, holes...etc and people say that Linux would be perfect for that computer. I would like to hear some opinions from other people and if possible share your experience with and if possibly explain to me if it will suite my needs. I did some research and it looks pretty good and its cool since its free Also please tell me if there are different versions, their differences and which one I would need, and if possible a download link, also I am guessing you need to download a file and then put it on a c.d. in order to install...correct?

-I apologize about all the questions since I am quite new and really need answers lol but any help would be greatly appreciated! Please give me any opinions, information, and anything you would like to share ! Thank you so much

-b1ackhawk1928

-Also if you need the specs of the computer to see if it will even support linux then here they are:
-Its a laptop that isn't superpowerful but its old and does what I need it to do
-Processor: Intel Pentium 4 3.0ghz
-RAM: 768MB of ram
-Video:Radeon Mobility IGP

 

[linux_0]

Welcome to the Linux and BSD forum

Linux would be perfect for this. Give Fedora and maybe Ubuntu a try.

http://www.fedoraproject.org/en/get-fedora-all

You will need the i386 ISO since you have a P4.

Fedora-11-i386-DVD.iso

If you don't have a dvd drive you can use the network install cd instead.

http://docs.fedoraproject.org/install-guide/

http://docs.fedoraproject.org/user-guide/

Good luck

 

[blackhawk1928]

Thank you so much for your help, I went the first link you gave me. It will be fine If I use the "Direct Download" and download the i386, then burn the iso image file onto a CD or a DVD and then just install it? right?
-Also are fedora and ubuntu versions of linux or different operating systems? If they are different versions of linux which one would you recommend or which one is better for which tasks?
-Once again thank you.

 

[linux_0]

Yup, use the direct download and get the Fedora-11-i386-DVD.iso, if you don't have a dvd drive you can use the Fedora-11-i386-netinst.iso network install CD.

Fedora and Ubuntu are two very popular Linux distributions, they offer the same features for the most part and are functionally equivalent.

Try them both

Good luck

 

[blackhawk1928]

Yeah I just read the guide and seems like Fedora and Ubuntu have the best gooey interface and are the most user-friendly. However which one is better for my needs, I cant decide which one to put, which would you recommend or somebody else and why?

 

[linux_0]

Both are very good, try Fedora first It usually supports more hardware.

 

[blackhawk1928]

Okay thank you I will try it in that case

 

[linux_0]

Cool Keep the questions coming

 

[blackhawk1928]

once I install it, where do I get updates for it?

 

[linux_0]

You run yum update or the gui updater

It's easy you just need a decent internet connection.

 

[blackhawk1928]

Oh yeah, I have fast internet speed, its 25mbps

 

[blackhawk1928]

Oh I had a question, the link you gave me has very slow servers and gives me a download rate of never more then 20kb per second, I found a link on filefront (it gives you like 1MB+ per second that I think is similar:
http://www.filefront.com/4403342/Fedora-Core-4-i386-DVD-ISO/
-Is this the right one, its fedora, its i386 as you said, its a DVD ISO, however what is core 4? Also on the direct download DVD ISO on your link gave me a file size of 3.43GB and on filefront its giving me a file of only 2.46GB, if this is the wrong version is there any other website that I can download this faster?

-Thank you so much for your help so far!

 

[linux_0]

Fedora Core 4 is ancient, I wouldn't use it.

The current version is Fedora 11. They dropped the Core several versions ago.

Check the mirror page for a list of mirrors http://mirrors.fedoraproject.org/publiclist/Fedora/11/ and look for a mirror near you.

Good luck

 

[linux_0]

After you have the Fedora-11-i386-DVD.iso make sure you verify it!

http://www.fedoraproject.org/en/verify

md5 e3b1e2d1ba42aa4705fa5f41771b3927 Fedora-11-i386-DVD.iso

sha1 ed7a07ca6f58b75e05195c42b61475170d1eef54 Fedora-11-i386-DVD.iso

sha256 6e812e782e52b536c0307bb26b3c244e1c42b644235f5a4b242786b1ef375358 Fedora-11-i386-DVD.iso

gpg --verify Fedora-11-i386-CHECKSUM
gpg: Signature made Thu 04 Jun 2009 05:19:28 PM EDT using RSA key ID D22E77F2
gpg: Good signature from "Fedora (11 Testing) <fedora@fedoraproject.org>"
gpg: WARNING: This key is not certified with a trusted signature!
gpg: There is no indication that the signature belongs to the owner.
Primary key fingerprint: AEE4 0C04 E345 60A7 1F04 3D7C 1DC5 C758 D22E 77F2

6e812e782e52b536c0307bb26b3c244e1c42b644235f5a4b242786b1ef375358 *Fedora-11-i386-DVD.iso

 

[blackhawk1928]

I actually changed my mind, I am actually going to create a new partition on my drive and make a dual boot system with xp and with linux I just did it to be safe and all, I already downloaded it, burn the iso image file onto a DVD and about to install I looked at a tutorial and looks good

-If I any other questions i will post them and thank you so much for your help
-Blackhawk1928

 

[blackhawk1928]

Oh wait, I am not quite sure which file system it uses....I didn't know if it used ntfs or not so I just left my new partition with no file system and hopefully when I install fedora, It will automatically create its own file system as it needs.

 

[linux_0]

You should create a 256MB /boot partition ext3 - not ext4.

You can then either create a large / partition using ext4 or use LVM.

1st partition NTFS

2nd partition 256MB /boot ext3

3rd partition / ext4 or LVM

Good luck

 

[blackhawk1928]

well for xp I am using 1st partition and for 2nd partition, linux will install its own file system and operating system from the cd...

 

[blackhawk1928]

-ahh, wait I installed it, can I verify it after I installed it?
-I already installed it and I cant find any network/internet drivers for it or any display drivers and I really need them! Plz help

 

[linux_0]

Go to rpmfusion download, verify and then install their rpm then yum the drivers for your graphics card.

http://rpmfusion.org/Configuration

http://rpmfusion.org/keys

Good luck

 

[linux_0]

Or re-install and configure rpmfusion during the install process.

 

[blackhawk1928]

kind of new to this so please be patient with me, how do I verify? All these commands are so new to me and i dont quite understand, what exactly do I need to do step by step to verify Linux Fedora core 11 (the one i got)?

-and the only rpm i know is how fast a hard drive speeds (rounds per minute) i really dont know what rpm means in terms of this and what do I need to in order to get everything started like installing the rpm and using yum.

-and how do I get a network driver so I can connect to my LAN and start using the Internet ?
-I am assuming I download the rpmfusion for fedora 11 free, not the nonfree, correct?
-Once again thank you

 

[linux_0]

On Linux RPM also known as rpm is not revolutions per minute, it's the Red Hat Package Manager. It is used to install, update, upgrade and remove software on many Linux distributions.

Fedora uses RPMs.

Quoting wikipedia

Package managers have many advantages over relying on manual installation such as:

* They present a uniform, clean way for users to install and remove programs with a single command.
* There are many popular interfaces, both command-line and graphical.
* Non-interactive installation makes it easy to automate.

RPM also has a few advantages over some other package managers:

* It is the Linux (LSB) standard format.
* It is popular: the typical rpm repository (the place where the packages are made available publicly) contains thousands of free applications.
* RPM packages can be cryptographically verified with GPG and MD5
* Original source archive (e.g. .tar.gz, .tar.bz2) are included in SRPMs, making verification easier (for security-critical packages like OpenSSH it is possible to check with md5sum that the sources were not modified).
* DeltaRPMs, the RPM equivalent of a patch file, can incrementally update RPM-installed software without needing the original package.

rpmfusion links to these instructions for verifying RPM keys https://fedoraproject.org/keys

You should install both the free and nonfree RPMs from rpmfusion.

There is no charge for the RPMs or the software they allow you to install. Free and non-free is referring to software freedom.

 

[blackhawk1928]

since that link from rpmfusion.com isn't good, I found another one:
http://blog.alexonrails.net/?p=156
-is the top/first link out of the three it gives you, is that what i need??????

 

[sabot00]

Linux has MD5 built-in, you can use the terminal to check it (forgot the command! *cry*) For windows google MD5 & install it, run the program & direct it to the iso. It should give you a long string of random numbers & letters. Go to the fedora website & copy the MD5 string for your version (ie. i386) paste it into the spot for the MD5 program & click check/verify.

rpm is the file many linux distros use for their updates (think of it as a update file/system) the other system/file is .deb which debian & ubuntu use.

Just install Fedora & it will update automatically.

Since your new you should try fedora or ubuntu's live cd.

*gasp!* linux_0 beat me to it!