Linux Help!

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

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.

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?

Okay thank you I will try it in that case

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

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

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

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

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

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

Good luck

-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

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

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

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.

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!

when I went to your second link here is what i got once I clicked on fedora 11 free and then once I clicked download: it gave me this
http://rpmfusion.org/keys?action=A [...] -fedora-11

That is one of the two keys you need.

Save the keys on your hard drive.

Then open a terminal. Applications => System Tools => Terminal


su -

type in the root password you entered during installation to become the super user ( aka root ), be super careful what you do as root, do not run commands you found on google

download 'http://rpmfusion.org/keys?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=RPM-GPG-KEY-rpmfusion-free-fedora-11' and 'http://rpmfusion.org/keys?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=RPM-GPG-KEY-rpmfusion-nonfree-fedora-11'

rpm --import /path/to/RPM-GPG-KEY-rpmfusion-free-fedora-11
rpm --import /path/to/RPM-GPG-KEY-rpmfusion-nonfree-fedora-11

replace /path/to/ with the real directory the keys are in


After you import the keys download the free and nonfree RPMs from rpm fusion into your current directory and run

rpm --checksig *.rpm

If the rpms are legitimate it should print "sha1 md5 ok" or something like that.

Good luck

Also is there a visual step by step guide on this to make make it easier for me?
-Since I dont have any internet or network drivers on my linux computer, I am using my other windows computer to get these keys, so I use a flash drive to transport them from one comp to another should I just copy and paste the key into notepad/textfile and then put into linux? How should I save them

rpm --import RPM-GPG-KEY-rpmfusion-free-fedora-11 will import the key assuming it's in the current directory.

Fedora 11 should have automatically detected your ethernet interface on the laptop, unless it's incompatible.

Does it show a connection at the top right?

I have a wireless network but the computer is currently connected to a wired network and says there is no connection at the top

Cool

Download the updates and install the software from rpmfusion

Hi, I am already posting this from linux yey!!
Anyway, I dont know why but the partition for linux on my computer is called "Filesystem" so anyway I download the two keys from firefox and they are located in "filesystem"/home/me(myuser)/download
-thats where they are, in the terminal, can you tell specifically what I need to type to import them, becuase I replace path to, to the actual directory and didn't work, i must have mispelled something or did it wrong.

aha, and my key is called RPM-GPG-KEY?

its just not working, the keys aren't importing, it just says that the directory does not exist and stuff. And when i try to acess a folder called root, its says "I dont have permission"

Well I typed what you said and here it is

"fbed5a442414347a001582e0715884e22b694b36c35e99ceb95931a244f755f8 rpmfusion-free-release-stable.noarch.rpm
9ae50b69bfce8e9ec7477165d2673916d30fab629e391734ddf5287053caadc8 rpmfusion-nonfree-release-stable.noarch.rpm"

You can also use the GUI ( graphical ) interface to install all that software.

System => Administration => Add/Remove Software

Alright so all 241updates have been done, I went to the add/remove software stuff and there so many different files and softwares on it, and i have no clue which one i need, i typed in many things to get my video driver but there are too many results and i dont know which one i need: here all the stuff i typed
-Video driver
-display driver
-graphics driver
-graphics adapter driver and firmware
and etc...and there are too many confusing results!

-the add/remove software thing seems much simpler and easier so I would prefer if possible to use that