Fear Red Hat 7.1 :P i love it and im a linux newbie

Well, I use Mandrake, although I haven't had much else experience. I am a teacher and they will not let me install my own software on my classroom computer (too dangerous, they claim). So, I needed to find something I could do a spreadsheet on that would run on my old P133. I bought Mandrake 8.1, threw it on my computer at home and at school and found it easy to install and use. I had used Linux before (Redhat) but never installed it on a system myself. Mandrake's installer in Expert mode is great. The one bad part of Mandrake is the installer in the simple mode (can't remember the exact name of it) is horrible, you should use expert install even if you don't feel you are. The nonexpert mode will try to install software off disks that didn't even come with the set you bought (unless you bought the best set of disks) and never asks you in detail what you want for software installed except for "Games, Office, Programming, etc"

Good tip. Thanks.

I've tried RH, Mandrake and Stormix (a great distro out of Vancouver BC which has since gone bankrupt).

I have stuck with RedHat for one reason only: tech support. The ISP I worked at when I first got interested in Linux ran RH6.0 on all their servers, so it was easy to pick the network admin's brains when I got stuck.

That has remained true since, all my friends run RH, and most of them are far above me in terms of ability, so that's what I'm sticking with.

I also had a dickens of a time getting Mandrake running, it looked awful and goofy and although RedHat is far from perfect, it seems to be a nice balance between the total 'do it yourself' style of Slack and mandrake.

I originally began Linux with Corel which gave up developing new Kernels. I switched to RH and have moved through the last three additions now to 7.2. I use Win2000 most of the time but coming from a Mac background I really like Linux - look at OSX and it's basically Linux (I believe). I have considered Mandrake because I really hate building a watch everytime I want to find out what time it is. Everything seems so difficult for what I think should be simple things - read my issues about installing and configuring my CDRW in the General area. I find RH's tech support and even their "network" a real pain. I struggle to find the answers to what I posted -- maybe I am really too much a newbie for any of this. I have learned far more from reading posts on Linuxorg and a couple of books I use than anything I can get from RH. I don't want a server, I don't want a supercomputer -- Yes, I might want to network my Win2000 boxes to my Linux box so I can "get to old stuff." I read about SAMBA and wonder if I have to go through all that to do what I want -- I think the answer is Yes. I find a lot to like in Linux and inspite of pulling out my hair trying to do "simple" things I can pick and choose what I want rather than having "all that stuff" in Win. I am seriously thinking of the latest version of Mandrake because it "appears" to give a guy like me what I need to do what I want to do. I will put it on another HD because of all I've done in RH 7.2. It just shouldn't be this hard!

Pete...you sound like a man who needs to download slack and get in touch with your command line.

I don't know about that! I am about going nuts with what I have! As you can see from my cdrecord/xcdroast issue (which I seem to have solved if only I could figure out the writing program(s)) I'm not sure if I want to struggle with command line "stuff" more than I have to!

You might be surprised...you sound like you have tried a few GUI distro's, it might be time to dive into a real one now.

gently Pete, gently...
the console is a powerful... um medium...
it can do many more things than the clicks of a mouse.

don't get me wrong... i was dependent on GUI initially. i still LIKE having a GUI. heck gui is my NAME!

well this is how i started on the command line:
i tried installing some free games off the net on linux. the readme told me i had to muck around with some command line stuff. apprehensive but i tried. to my surprise, it worked. well yea i installed it in a place i didn't want it to be in and had to re-do it... but hey if i didn't mess around with it, what would i know?

just start with something simple and something that can work.

take it slow, read all the instructions available (use man, info, README, INSTALL etc etc) and you'll actually find it rewarding...

the installation of Linux isn't a huge problem for me, as my first Linux experiences were with Redhat 6.0 and 5.2..... (I remember trying to install RH 6.0 with X on a 250MB HDD..... ah the days )
partitioning my hard drive for Linux is nowhere near as big a worry as it was then, as i didn't know what partitions I needed

Mandrake is really easy to install, but I was fine with Redhat's installation.....

I currently use Mandrake because I feel it is a great distro for newbies like me...

1) Automount. I don't like having to unmount and mount my cdrom or floppy drive, I guess i've been using Windows too long....

2) Package Management. I hate compiling software, it nearly always screws up for me RPM's are great

3) DrakConf. very easy to configure Linux, and I really like that..

most of the things that I like about Mandrake are because I'm used to them in Windows I guess....

I want to try Slackware on a system eventually though

I don't mind Redhat, but Mandrake seems great, and I don't feel the need to install Redhat yet....

I have a question: I have several gigs of unused space on my hard drive. If I let Mandrake install itself without first partitioning with Partition Magic, will it use the whole space, will it ask me how big I want the Linux partition, or what? Or will it even "see" the unused space?

I bought Mandrake Standard 8.1, (3 CDs) but I'm kinda scared to take the next step for fear that it will do something I don't want it to do. I already have 4 partitions, and I want to put Mandrake on PART of my unused space, leaving space after the install. I suppose I could create another partition with Partition Magic, but I would kinda like to see how Mandrake handles all this by itself after reading all the raves about it.

I have no idea what people mean when they refer to one distro giving more control over ones system than another. Simply because Mandrake is packaged with a lot of Newbie-friendly utilities doesn't mean that one must use them. The use of a gui isn't necessary either. I use Mandrake 8.1, and while I'm still a novice Linux user, I rarely install rpms. I like the idea of source code being compiled specifically for my system ... dido for the kernel.

My advice for other newbies is Mandrake. Mandrake offers more for free that any other distro, 3 CDs worth. (the distro that SuSE allows you to download for free is a joke ... and, at least when I downloaded SuSE, wasn't even their latest distro) Once you are comfortable with Linux, simply begin to use the command line to do the things you did with the gui when you had no choice. Once you've become a Unix guru, then you can switch to BSD or Slackware etc ... and look down your nose, condescending, at everyone else.

paul sterrett

Mandrake will allow you to use the amount of free space that you desire. Personally, I have a triple boot machine, Mandrake 8.1, WinXp, win98SE. I use a shareware program called BootITNG to boot (I installed the Grub loader from Mandrake on the first hda1 instead of in the MBR) The thing that I like about Boot IT is that it can hide partitions from the OS's that don't use them. That way, there is no danger of ruining another OS while installing a new one.

paul sterrett

Being a fairly newbie to Linux (I started with DOS 1.0 on the PC years ago), I have tried Caldera and Redhat. I have to say there is a world of difference. After struggling with Caldera OpenLinux and their tech support - or lack of it- for a good six months, Red Hat 7.1 was a silver lining!
I considered Mandrake, but most of the people I talked to and the reviews I read steered me towards Red Hat. Since I have never seen Mandrake, I can't say Red Hat is better or not.
Samba was a little bit of a chore on Red Hat, but once that was working it was okay.

People need to stop basing their opinions on the installation screen alone! GOOD GOD. RedHat is not that hard even when doing it by fdisk. Just a little common sense mixed with manuals can get you a long way. I am no linux expert but dammit to hell I've installed RedHat 7.2 5 times in the 2 weeks since i've had it! not because it was bad, because to go in depth on how it worked. Over the time i've had win98, i reinstall it about every 3 months adding to something around 11 installs. After the first two you will get it everytime. Sorry to get off subject, but it pisses me off people are really ratting on redhat because of it's not "user-friendly" enough?? Linux and Unix aren't user friendly. If you never knew what windows was and you were introduced to it you would have just less of hard time as putting you in front of a linux installation screen. even so...... it's not hard. expert mode is basically the normal mode in text. Have the fun is figuring out things for yourself, you will remember them and apply them better. If you derived the quadratic equation mathematically, you would sure as hell would remember it more then being told in algebra class just to memorize this formula.