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Old 08-03-2000, 01:10 PM   #1
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For a Intell PII 450, and what would be the distribution with less conflicts, on a dual boot with windows 2000?
PS. Mandrake wouldn't work, LILO kept messing up!
 
Old 08-03-2000, 05:24 PM   #2
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Wink A rose by any other name.....

The eternal Linux question, which distribution is the best? The reason this is an eternal question is because there is no definitive answer. What makes something "best" is something that completely fullfills the needs that you have. If are a complete newbie to Linux and are not very adventurous, Red Hat may be the best distribution for you. A newbie with lots of time on his hands might enjoy installing Slackware as it leaves a lot of the configuration in your hands. On the same note though, a newbie might appreciate the OS doing much of the configuration for him or her. If you want Linux NOW and are on a fast connection, SuSE Linux has a very nice network installation which allows you to download and install Linux in one fell swoop, eliminating the need to either order a CD or download and burn a CD to install from.
Another thing to consider is that the biggest difference between distro's is the installation process. A nice graphical installation that goes smoothly for all users is a holy grail for Linux developers. Once you are past the installation and actually into the OS, the differences between the distro's tends to blur. Many distro's come with there own unique software to help with some of the more duanting Linux tasks (for instance the Red Hat PPP Dialer), but once you are a proficient Linux user, you'll find you use these programs less and less. Every Linux CD shipped has the basic Linux kernel on it as well as a pretty complete and uniform set of programs and utilities.
Included in this uniform set of programs is Lilo, the Linux boot loader. LILO is pretty much standardized accross all Linux distro's, so any problems or success you have with Lilo will pretty much be the same result you'd get with any other distro.
You mentioned you had some issues w/ Lilo when you installed Mandrake, what problems did you run into? What did you think of the installation?
 
Old 08-03-2000, 06:19 PM   #3
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Thanks for your reply man
About the network part, I could never get my DSL to work on mandrake, my NIC is from kingston, and supposedly supported as tulip, but nothing, any ideas?
PS. sorry if this is the wrong forum!
 
Old 08-03-2000, 07:16 PM   #4
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Kingston NIC

No problem. =) I actually have a Kingston NIC and I wanna say it uses the ne2000 module, but I'm not positive about that. (sorry I'm not in front of my machine right now) If yer curious try doing "insmod ne2k-pci" from the command line and see if it'll install the module. After you do that type in "lsmod" and see if it successfully installed the module. If that all goes well, run "ifconfig" and see if you have an eth0 listed in there. You might need to run "ifconfig eth0 up" to bring up the device, but not necessarily. You mentioned that you think it might use the tulip driver, you can always try "insmod tulip" and see how that goes as well..... Out of curiosity what exact problems do you run into when using the tulip module?
 
Old 08-04-2000, 12:02 AM   #5
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ok what happens is it detects the NIC, and installs it as tulip, I went to kingston's site, and the model I have is supposed to be set as tulip, but whenever I try to run netscape it won't open any page, no matter what configuration I change. Any ideas?
Btw that was using mandrake 7.0, and I couldn't get it to work under Red Hat either
 
Old 08-04-2000, 07:18 AM   #6
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OK First the disto question. I have to agree with bickford. The Linux that is right for you may not be right for everyone. Here's how I break down the different distro's:
Corel: For COMPLETE newbies only. Please do not use
Mandrake: Nice installer and some custom GUI tools. I personally don't like or use it, but it is a good choice for the newbies.
SuSE: Comes with a TON of software and some nice SuSE only tools.
Red Hat: I really like Red Hat. They do some non-standard stuff configuration wise, but I think this is the best distro for mid-level people. NOTE: The default Red Hat distro is almost always AWFUL!
Debian: Apt is amazing and you have to love their dedication, but 2 years without a release is pushing it.
Slakware: This is what I learned on (along with Yggdrasil). This is still one of the best around. If you really want to LEARN Linux install Slak.

I have also installed a few others (Turbo, Conectiva, Storm, and Caldera) but none of them really set themself apart in my opinion.
 
Old 08-04-2000, 07:22 AM   #7
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And now the second question. You say that the driver was detected, but you couldn't browse the internet. Did you configure the network? If you type in ifconfig does it recognize eth0? If so we probably just have to get the network configured. If not then try bickford's advice.
 
Old 08-04-2000, 05:53 PM   #8
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yep it does recognize eth0, but netscape won't open any page, I messed with all netscape configuration and nothing
 
Old 08-04-2000, 06:27 PM   #9
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It recognizes eth0, but has the network been configured? Did you set the boot protocol, ip address, default gateway, etc?
 
Old 08-04-2000, 11:48 PM   #10
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Yep the first thing I did
 
Old 08-05-2000, 11:53 AM   #11
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Cool browsing issues

You have a DSL connection right? Does your ISP use DHCP to assign you an IP address? If so, is your eth0 successfully being assigned a dynamic IP? Can you ping to the outside world? Perhaps its a DNS issue? Check your /etc/resolve.conf and make sure you have valid nameservers and IP's in there. Ya might just want to cut and paste the result of "ifconfig" from your machine into your next post to help this along a little bit. =)
 
Old 08-06-2000, 02:45 AM   #12
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I do have a static IP, and I set the DNS properly, right nbow I'm not running linux, but I tried to get past that for so long I'll install mandrake or Red HAt and try this, then I'll post it here, thanks for the help
 
Old 08-06-2000, 02:55 PM   #13
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Talking good luck!

Okie dokie, good luck!
 
Old 09-04-2000, 09:39 AM   #14
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What would be the best distribution to use for setting up a firewall.

I'm going to use an HP Vectra 5/75 (yep a good old pentium 75) to 'safely' separate my 'home' network (right now a Win'98 and an HP-UX system) from the outside world (cable connection).
I already have some experience with Red Hat 5.2, so should I stick to RH or try something else because it makes a better (or easier to use) firewall?
 
Old 09-04-2000, 11:27 AM   #15
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It really depends what you want to do with the system. If you just want a router/firewall you may want to go with the Linux Router Project. While I do like Red Hat I don't know if I could really recommend it for a firewall unless you are fairly familiar with the distro. From my experience it is kind of difficult, although very possible, to install a bare Red Hat. You may want to go with something like Zip Slack, which was built with minimalism in mind. Of course you could "build" your own distro. Just install a kernel and then add the tools you need one by one. This way you will have only what you need, you will have COMPLETE control over versions/etc., and you will get the satisfaction of doing it yourself.

LRP - http://www.linuxrouter.org/
Zip Slack - http://www.slackware.com/zipslack/
 
  


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