Linux..it works!

S

SoWat

Guest
Got a shiny new laptop last week, courtesy of my ever generous emplyers ;)

I kept my old one (PentiumII 366MHz, 128mb RAM, 4Gb HD), and decided to put Linux on it.

After 30 minutes I have Redhat 7.1 installed, and I'm typing this message on it... bugger me!

Was mightily impressed that I'm able to connect to the Internet via my Main Win2K desktop's ADSL connection. I never thought I'd be able to do that!

Well impressed


:rolleyes:
 
T

Testin da Cable

Guest
wheee

:D


be aware that a default install may require some tuning SoWat
feel free to ask away if you have any questions.
 
S

SoWat

Guest
Thx, I will if I run into trouble (which I will!).

Just did a live update to all the latest stuff and now have sound working.

Firewall is set to medium at the mo'.
 
T

Testin da Cable

Guest
you may find you're running stuff that you don't really need.
commands like ps and top can show you what's going on. commands like w and free give you system status and resources.
 
O

old.Reverend Flatus

Guest
:clap: Bet you wish you'd done it sooner now.
 
W

Wij

Guest
Originally posted by testin_da_cable
you may find you're running stuff that you don't really need.
commands like ps and top can show you what's going on. commands like w and free give you system status and resources.

w

um, gosh, we should have guessed that one :D
 
S

SoWat

Guest
Bet you wish you'd done it sooner now.

Well I have tried!

All of the kit I've tried it on has been quite old, which I thought would be ideal for Linux. Unfortunately I've always had a problem that caused me to give up (life's just too short). Maybe it's because I wanted a desktop to start with.

However, it installed perfectly on the Dell laptop, and updated pretty quickly (it helps that I have ADSL now).

The Gnome desktop looks pretty cool, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of stuff for it, at least not on the RH7.1 CDs I have, so I'm using KDE 2 which, although slower, has lots of stuff.
 
T

Testin da Cable

Guest
aye, KDE2 comes with a plentitude of kit built in, but if you want to turn on uber-eyecandy n stuff Gnome is your friend.
there are many others floating about the internet too, if you feel like a change :)
I've got a reinstall coming up for my workstation, and I will be doing mucho wierdness to it I assure you ;)
 
T

Testin da Cable

Guest
reinstalling now :)
using this opportunity to have a look at the Mandrake flavor of linux.
just a regular install right now, with KDE as a desktop. Looks nice tho :D
 
T

Testin da Cable

Guest
all done :)
mandrake does seem a bit 'sluggish' atm, but it's a fresh install so I can't really compare it to my uber-tuned redhat system heh
 
O

old.Reverend Flatus

Guest
Well done.
After using Mandrake I don't think I'll go back to RedHat.
I'll be using it to set up a games server this weekend, need to move the games off the other server box.
 
T

Testin da Cable

Guest
hmmm...for some strange reason, Mandrake doesn't want to use the nvidia det drivers :(
rather a blow I'm afraid, as I'm partial to my games ;) anyhoo, I'll fiddle with it and see what happens, otherwise it's back to good ole RH
 
B

bids

Guest
TDC - you using Mandrake 8 ?

I've got an old Geforce DDR in mine, and it runs fine.

Is it still 'sluggish' too ? My Mandrake is running on PIII 600, 512 RAM and go's like a pig in a synagogue. The default install runs a huge amount of crap on startup - you got these de-installed ?

Did a few tests between RH7.1 and Mandrake 8 (fiel copies, FPS in Q3, etc) and Mandrake came out on top in most (admittedly not by a huge amount). The Mandrake server has now been up six weeks without any downtime - it's running Oracle 8i, DHCP, Firewall, Webmin (awesome !), Q3 server, and now a RTCW server, etc - rock solid.
I only have to fart in the presence of the NT4 server for it to BSOD :)
 
S

SoWat

Guest
Have to agree about Webmin, it's a gem of an app and web based too.

I'm starting to build up a nice little collection of must-haves. So far they are:

LinNeighborhood
Webmin
Putty

I'm sure there are lots more just waiting to be found.
 
T

Testin da Cable

Guest
heh mandrake is finito
now running RH7.1 [again] and, after removing Mesa [god I hate Mesa ;)[unless you don't have an nVidia card heh -then it's your friend]] and linking frigging libGLU.so.1 to libGLU.so, and linking that to libGL.so [I cheat heh] KDE2 works again wiv the wonderful 1541nVidia Det drivers haha! Tribes here I come! only 29 patches to go! woot!
thing is, for the rest of my games I'l prolly have to cheat some more and link in libGL.so.1, .2, .3 etc :D

anyhoo, ole Mandrake did have some very very nice features that I'd love to see in other distro's. I love that hardware detection thing they've got going there, not to mention some nice informative stuff that happens when peeps do wierd things to the system ;)

awa :) here are some of my fave apps:
CUPS -gotta love it, NMAP -portscanner supreme, LICQ - pester your mates online ;), cdrecord/cdrdao - well duh, jfs -it's a filesystem ;) Xchat -IRC fix for us addicts [some might diss me for not using bitchX heh, then again, some might praise meh ;) [and most of the rest you guys mentioned earlier]

well, happeh as a clam again making my spanking new RH system work the way I think it should hehe, nothing like a fresh install to liven things up again wheee [am I a geek or what?]

Code:
$cat /proc/nv/card0
----- Driver Info -----
NVRM Version: 1.0-1541
------ Card Info ------
Model:        GeForce2 GTS
IRQ:          10
Video BIOS:   02.15.01.13
------ AGP Info -------
AGP status:   Enabled
AGP Driver:   AGPGART
Bridge:       Via Apollo Pro KT133
SBA:          Supported [disabled]
FW:           Unsupported [disabled]
Rates:        4x 2x 1x  [4x]
Registers:    0x1f000207:0x00000104
 
S

SoWat

Guest
Mandrake 8.1 is out.

I'll give it a whirl later (if I can find an ftp site with a slot!).
 
S

SoWat

Guest
I've been trying out Mandrake 8.1, and it seems pretty good.

I've now installed it on my desktop (dual boot with Win2K), and it's still working :)

One nice feature is the ability to connect, via my USB ADSL frog, at boot-time. Mind you, that took me about 3 hours to figure out, as there's absolutely no documentation for it.

The Konqurer web browser seems appalingly slow, so it's nutscrape for now (Opera crashed a lot).

All I have to do now is read up on securing the thing, and get the connection sharing working for the other PCs.
 

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