What Linux for a Newbie

[Enverex]

Smoothwall is a Firewall alternative, so thats useless if you intend on USING the machine.

Windows file sharing just requires that you install Samba, so any distro will suit for that.

NS

[sparky191]

I'm also a noob it linux.

I thought Red Hat is dropping the free version for an enterprise only version now. Mandrake is the easiest I found so far. Couldn't get my scanner working on it though.

ark linux - whats that?

[Enverex]

Just another Distro name, same as Slackware, Yellow Dog, SuSE, Gentoo, Debian, College, Mandrake, etc etc.

NS

[oshta]

Originally posted by NightShade737
Windows file sharing just requires that you install Samba, so any distro will suit for that.

NS

Ok, were might i download a distro??

were might i get "samba", and is it easy to use or what ever??

can i boot of a USB pendrive??

[Enverex]

Ok, were might i download a distro??

http://www.linuxiso.org have lots of distros. Otherwise just use google to find the official sites.

were might i get "samba", and is it easy to use or what ever??

http://www.samba.org - Not the easiest of things in the world so you may want to do some reading up.

can i boot of a USB pendrive??

Depends on your Motherboard, but what exactly do you mean boot off? You mean install the entire distro to it? It is possible, but I would get to know Linux before you try to do that.

http://www.google.com/linux - Is also a good place to look. But I'm saying this now, try the obvious before asking questions otherwise you will waste yours and everyone elses time....

NS

[oshta]

Ok so if I:

- get hold of the 3 mandrake CDs

- Install them on my SFF server-to-be

- Install/run samba

- enjoy a linux based File server from my two client pcs (running win2k and winXPpro)


???


thanks daniel

ps were might i get the cds, 3x640mb is "slow" on a 56k !!!

[Enverex]

No, you dont need CD 2 and 3. They are just programs completely useless for a server, so you only need CD 1. Also mandrake really isn't the best distro for a server.

NS

[Darkmatter]

What is a good distro to get for server use

[Enverex]

Gentoo, Red Hat, BSD (Not really Linux), Debian, Slackware.....

But to be honest, unless you get to know Linux a lot more then you will just fall flat on your face, as when you are setting up a server you will not be using a GUI at all, just a command prompt (Terminal) and doing everything from there.

Though Red Hat is easy enough, just make sure you dont install all the crap it select by default (depending on install options).

NS

[oshta]

ok

-why cant i use a GUI???

[Enverex]

Er, because it uses RAM which would be alot better used as Cache by the server software, because it will take hours to compile, because it will waste HD space... etc etc.

NS

[malfunction]

Originally posted by oshta
Ok so if I:

- get hold of the 3 mandrake CDs

- Install them on my SFF server-to-be

- Install/run samba

- enjoy a linux based File server from my two client pcs (running win2k and winXPpro)


???


thanks daniel

ps were might i get the cds, 3x640mb is "slow" on a 56k !!!

If you've got 2 client PCs running Win2K + XP why not just use Win2K or XP on the file server? Are you intending to use the box for anything other than sharing files across MS networking? I'm not bashing Linux but if you know windows and you only want a windows compatible file server you might want to try windows...

[oshta]

yeah well - i might

i just thought id see, it might be fun

but yeah i get were you coming from