Celtic Radio Community [Powered by Invision Power Board]

Printable Version of Topic
Click here to view this topic in its original format

Celtic Radio Community > General Discussion > Linux Question Please Help

Posted by: scottish2 13-Jan-2004, 07:59 AM

Hi

Some of you have suggested I try Linux and was thinking of trying this on my older IBM just out of curiousity if for no other reason. Now I plan on formating that drive as I have everything I need moved to this system of CD so I can format that drive and no worries. Now I will download the software on this system and burn to CD will this CD automatically run the install when I redo the new system or will I have to go in through DOS and run the program. Could someone give some very simple instructions that even the most novice of user can use in case we have others wanting to try this. I was hoping to make this just a Linux system so no windows is needed unless required to install this. Can some one help please

Bare in mind I have never even seen a Linux system before so in a sense I am a novice for this OS.

ALso where is the best site to download and which version? Was looking the Linux site over and seems like they have different versions for different uses. I plan on just using this as a test system that would be a normal system nothing fancy smacy just for normal usage. Can you send a link with what file to download if there are multiple choices.

Posted by: Seawarrior 13-Jan-2004, 08:30 AM

QUOTE (scottish2 @ Jan 13 2004, 08:59 AM)

Try Mandrake Linux @ http://www.linux-mandrake.com/en/ftp.php3#iso. Download the ISO images ( there are three) of Mandrake 9.2 (current stable release) to your WIndows system( create a separate folder) and then burn each ISO image to a CD-R/CD-RW. Each ISO image will just about fill the CD. Make sure you label each one carefully. Power up your old system you saild you were going to use and put the first CD in and reboot off that CD. Once you have booted off the first CD, there wiil be an installation GUI interface. Surf around the Mandrake site and there are some screen shots of the installation. There are many Linux distros (distributions), but Mandrake, Red Hat and Suse. I tried Mandrake 9.2 recently and I liked it. Get this much done, and I will be happy to help you install/tweak it. Need help downloading let me know.

Seawarrior

Posted by: scottish2 13-Jan-2004, 08:33 AM

Do I need to do the drive format before rebooting or will the install do this for me?

Posted by: scottish2 13-Jan-2004, 08:38 AM

Also which files? When I click the no I will register soon take me to download page I get the following list. I see 2 listed for 9.2 and only one of these has ISO image the 3rd one unsure if it is part of this or not. What 3 files do I need? As I said new to this so want to make sure I get right file(s)

QUOTE

Download:

Mandrake 9.2/i586
Mandrake 9.2/i586 ISO Image
MandrakeMove/i586 ISO Image
Mandrake 7.1/SPARC/UltraSPARC ISO Image
Mandrake 7.1/AXP ISO Image
Mandrake 7.0/IA64/SPARC/Alpha ISO Image
Mandrake IA64 | Mandrake 9.1/PPC
MandrakeSecurity Multi Network Firewall
Older Mandrake versions

Posted by: Seawarrior 13-Jan-2004, 08:39 AM

Here is a sample of what a FTP download site will look like.
ftp://ftp.tux.org/pub/distributions/mandrake/iso/
Notice the 3 Mandrake 9.2 ISOs cd1,cd2 cd3. It an FTP site is busy, try another one until you find one that will give you a reasonably fast download.

Posted by: Seawarrior 13-Jan-2004, 08:40 AM

QUOTE (scottish2 @ Jan 13 2004, 09:38 AM)

QUOTE

If you are installing on an old IBM PC, use Mandrake 9.2/i586 ISO Image

Posted by: Seawarrior 13-Jan-2004, 08:48 AM

QUOTE (scottish2 @ Jan 13 2004, 09:33 AM)

Do I need to do the drive format before rebooting or will the install do this for me?

Once you boot off the 1st CD, it will completed format your hardrive, not immediately, but a few steps later. You will asked questions like, mouse config, time config. etc. I don't remember the exact sequence.

Posted by: scottish2 13-Jan-2004, 08:49 AM

Question I am on highspeed and how long should this take to transfer from web to my system? For some reason it is saying about 1 day IE 24 hours roughly to download. This sound right? NOw wondering if it is as you did say the info would fill 3 CD's so...

Posted by: scottish2 13-Jan-2004, 08:50 AM

QUOTE (Seawarrior @ Jan 13 2004, 09:48 AM)

OK cool. I did notice there were a couple extra files where do I put these? looks mostly like a read me file and one or two other files.

Posted by: Seawarrior 13-Jan-2004, 08:56 AM

QUOTE (scottish2 @ Jan 13 2004, 09:49 AM)

Try another FTP site. That site you mentioned apparently is very busy. Try another site. The time it takes depends on your connection and how busy the site is. Some of this sites are kinda busy during the day, mostly students. Yes, it could take a day, but try another site. Mandrake has about 20 or so "mirror" sites to download from in the US

Posted by: Seawarrior 13-Jan-2004, 08:59 AM

QUOTE (scottish2 @ Jan 13 2004, 09:50 AM)

OK cool. I did notice there were a couple extra files where do I put these? looks mostly like a read me file and one or two other files.

Just the ISOs that says Mandrake92-cd1xxxx, cd2xxxx cd3xxxx

Posted by: Seawarrior 13-Jan-2004, 09:00 AM

QUOTE (Seawarrior @ Jan 13 2004, 09:59 AM)

Just the ISOs that says Mandrake92-cd1xxxx, cd2xxxx cd3xxxx

Yeah, you can open up the README file a print it out if you like and keep it handy

Posted by: Aon_Daonna 13-Jan-2004, 09:01 AM

I personally never used Mandrake

Seawarrior explained it well, so I couldn't add anything...

I'll add things when I can but I'll gladly leave it to those whose english is better than mine

Posted by: scottish2 13-Jan-2004, 09:02 AM

Well if it might take a day anyways will just keep it going so I don't have to restart. But hey compared to dial up it would have taken me 3 days at minimum to do it on dial up and that would be providing I could keep a good rate which would mean I couldn't be posting or doing anything else at least I can do other things on-line at same time now

like try and stay ahead of Aon LOL

Posted by: Danann 13-Jan-2004, 09:05 AM

Had to put my oar in. I have been using LINUX for a long time, and I think that Mandrake also has the best release right now, but if you are used to being a windows junky, you might see things more familiar with RedHat, but I don't know if they are still doing free downloads. I get my stuff supplied for me from the government since I am a developer and security admin for them.

The LINUX downloads are very popular, especially after a new release, which just happened not too long ago in Mandrake's case. Its not unusual for it to take several days to download. I would see if you can download faster elsewhere, but keep your current one moving, so that you don't lose your place in that queue just in case.

Posted by: Seawarrior 13-Jan-2004, 09:13 AM

QUOTE (Danann @ Jan 13 2004, 10:05 AM)

By all means, welcome! I been a Linux junky for a few years. I love it, except my hardward is getting old, I'm considering a workstation for www.pogolinux.com after my tax refund comes around.

Seawarrior

Posted by: scottish2 13-Jan-2004, 09:21 AM

Well just looking to see what it is like and if I like it or not compared to Windows systems.

Posted by: Aaediwen 13-Jan-2004, 12:41 PM

my 2c

Mandrake and RedHat were my introkductions, and what I recommend as well for anyone in your shoes, S2. It took me about a half a day total to download the entire boot set for Mandrake 9.1 on my DSL when I was setting someone up with it. One caviat is, Mandrake tends to use some development and beta software in the distro on occasion, but by the time you start running into where that matters, then hopefully you'll be far enough along to replace the package. Mandrake or RH is definately a good place to look, though, for getting started. Seawarrior has covered things pretty well. grab the three 1586 images, burn them to CDs, boot off the first one, and follow the yellow brick road. IIRC, it still lets you use either fdisk or DiskDruid to repartition your drive. I will give you a note too on how to partition it. Where Windows uses a swapfile, Linux uses a swap partition. I recommend one 2x physical RAM if you can. I've got 1.5GB of swap on my main workstation with 1GB of RAM. currently, system reports that it has actually hit it for some reason, and there is 2 MB stored there... I'm also sitting here with 548 MB of RAM free... That, and right now I've got the two most bloated pieces of Linux software I know of, running (OpenOffice.org and Mozilla). If you don't feel comfortable using that much swap, you don't have to of course. Just a metric to go by. The rest of your drive can be mounted at /

Posted by: Aon_Daonna 14-Jan-2004, 07:01 PM

mmh.. did nobody else start on SuSE?

Posted by: Madadh 15-Jan-2004, 05:00 AM

I have been using linux for several years. I found that if you have a slow link (phone modem) then it is best to

buy

your first distribution. You get the disks pre-made and some documentation to work with. If you can not find a copy in one of the "computer" stores, try a book store. Several of the Linux bible type books come with a complete distribution.

For older machines you just have to have at least 32Mb of memory.

I would also suggest Galeon as a web browser. It has a great feature of blocking pop-ups with a preference setting. I hate paying for something that I can get for free.

Posted by: Aaediwen 15-Jan-2004, 08:32 PM

Aon: I've never used SuSE personally

Madadh: 32MB?? well, maybe for a decent sized workstation. I would not hesitate to install Linux on a 386 2/ 4MB RAM and a 250 MB HDD (and be planning on a specific use for it, wouldn't make that great of a general purpose box, unless you're just wanting a look at the system)

Posted by: Madadh 16-Jan-2004, 05:45 AM

QUOTE

Madadh: 32MB?? well, maybe for a decent sized workstation. I would not hesitate to install Linux on a 386 2/ 4MB RAM and a 250 MB HDD (and be planning on a specific use for it, wouldn't make that great of a general purpose box, unless you're just wanting a look at the system)

If you are trying to load something like RH7.2 or higher, you will need a minimum of 32MB. If you are going to use Linux from scratch, you can get along with a lot less.

Posted by: Seawarrior 16-Jan-2004, 07:56 AM

scottish2, did your ISOs download ok? I meant to tell you, I have downloaded them once in about 30- 45 minutes per image; sometimes 1-1/2 hours per image;that was on a good day.

Seawarrior

Posted by: scottish2 16-Jan-2004, 08:01 AM

I've got to try it again somehow the downlaods keep stalling out.

Posted by: Aaediwen 16-Jan-2004, 08:16 PM

Madadh: true, true. My 486 has an 8 GB HDD in it and 12 MB RAM, runs Mandrake 5.2 just peachy even diring the three days it took to build X when I upgraded it. Not that I use X too often on it... after all, it takes 5 minutes to launch. I don't recall X taking that long to load on ym 486 SX/25 when I started using Linux.... (RH 4.2)