New to Linux? - please READ this first.

[Audioaficionado]

If anyone is undecided on what distro to go with, I found this site that compares the various flavors of GNU/Linux.

 

[parkan]

David, I think you should update Debian to being 3.0 latest (sure, woody is not official but everyone uses it anyway)

 

[David]

David, I think you should update Debian to being 3.0 latest (sure, woody is not official but everyone uses it anyway)

Will do

David

 

[Silver]

Alright, I think I shall get in on this thread. It is time to learn Linux? I know nothing absolutely nothing about it but shall return this evening to find what I can.

 

[David]

Windows Filesystems in Linux

• FAT32 - Linux has full FAT32 read and write abilities, and will work fine with windows FAT32 partitions.
• NTFS - Most distributions*, by default, the ability to read NTFS partitions built into their kernel but not to write to them. Write support can be turned on (requires changes to kernel config) but will damage the filesystem, so that Windows will go crazy next time it boots.

*depends on your distro. NTFS read and write support can be turned on and off manually.

David

 

[parkan]

Windows Filesystems in Linux

• FAT32 - Linux has full FAT32 read and write abilities, and will work fine with windows FAT32 partitions.
• NTFS - Linux has, by default, the ability to read NTFS partitions but not to write to them. Write support can be turned on (requires changes to kernel config) but will damage the filesystem, so that Windows will go crazy next time it boots.

David

By default? eh? Linux doesn't have anything by default. Many distros load the module by default, yes, but it doesn't mean that it is built-in.

 

[David]

By default? eh? Linux doesn't have anything by default. Many distros load the module by default, yes, but it doesn't mean that it is built-in.

*sigh*

Such pedantic people

I will reword it....

 

[krazykraut]

what is best for person with little cash and nos nothing about linux

 

[David]

what is best for person with little cash and nos nothing about linux

Try www.linuxiso.org and download RedHat, Mandrake or SuSE.

David

 

[krazykraut]

dloaded suse. thought i bmarked step by step instruct found in a forum but didnt. these ins told about problems with some of the new progs. would you hapen to no of this thread. i cant find it now.
all help is realy appreciated.

 

[QuickCrystal]

WinXP + Linux Mandrake 8.1 Multiboot

Please, David, or someone else tell me what the hell I did wrong. I partitioned my 80GB HDD into:

approx. 40GB for WinXP (hda1)
the rest of it for Linux:
5GB for / (hda5)
500MB swap
35GB or something for /home (hda7)

I installed windows on hda1, work(ed/s) fine then and now (same installation). I installed Linux (some packages wouldn't install, but i downloaded it and burned it with crappy 4x USB burner on Windows, so it's to be expected, besides I usually manually install the "dead" packages because this copy has always given me problems, so i kinda expected it) and it installed and configured fine, got LILO on, set it to have Linux boot, rebooted, and BOOM...nothing happened, it went into Windows XP Professional like Linux didn't even exist. Can you please tell me what happened? I'm getting a friend to download Mandrake 8.2 and burn the ISOs for me, and, screwing that up somehow, I'll buy them myself. But seriously, can you tell me what happened? Is it just that the distro doesn't work w/ WinXP Pro Corp? Please, help me.

 

[David]

QuickCrystal: It looks like a known LILO issue but could you please start a new thread please, rather than ask in this thread? If you start a new thread just about your Linux problems then more people will be able to see and answer your questions.

Thanks

David

 

[Kaneda]

awesome post david!

 

[kaky0u]

Disk Imaging
In some situations you may want to image a file/partition to another file/partition. This can be done with dd, found in all Linux distros

dd can be used as follows:

dd if=<source> of=<destination>

Source/destination can be a file, or a device. Eg for the first partition on the secondary master drive to a file called backup.img:

dd if=/dev/hdc1 of=backup.img

You can also specify how much of it you want to copy over. Specify the block size, in bytes, and then how many blocks. For example to copy 100MB from the above example, try bs=1048576 to set block size to 1MB and then count = 100 to copy 100 of the blocks:

dd if=/dev/hdc1 of=backup.img bs=1048576 count=100

I got a problem using this.
I'm trying to make an image file from a "M'drake Boot Disk" with this command:

dd if=/dev/floppy of~/linboot.img bs=512 count=1

But it just ain't doing jack. Keeps on about this is a directory. Thought I'd mention Linii nuub.

 

[David]

I got a problem using this.
I'm trying to make an image file from a "M'drake Boot Disk" with this command:

dd if=/dev/floppy of~/linboot.img bs=512 count=1

But it just ain't doing jack. Keeps on about this is a directory. Thought I'd mention Linii nuub.

Try:

dd if=/dev/fd0 of=~/linboot.img

BS and count aren't needed. 512 and 1 would only copy 512 bytes of the disk.

If you get an error saying that it is a directory and the command above doesn't work then try this.

dd if=/dev/floppy/0 of=~/linboot.img

David

 

[David]

Setting Up DHCP server

This is a quick guide on setting up DHCP for a small network. On my network I run DHCPd on my machine for another machine (win95) to use.

1) Make sure the ISC DHCP server is installed.
2) Type route add -net 255.255.255.255 dev eth0 where eth0 is the network card connected to the network that the DHCP server is to run on.
3) Edit/create the /etc/dhcpd.conf file put the following in it:

default-lease-time 3600; # in seconds
max-lease-time 36000; # seconds
option subnet-mask 255.255.255.0;
option broadcast-address 192.168.0.255;
option routers 192.168.0.1; # routers
option domain-name-servers 62.31.64.115, 62.31.64.116; # your dns servers
option domain-name "blueyonder.co.uk"; # your domain just use any domain name
ddns-update-style none;

subnet 192.168.0.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 {
range 192.168.0.2 192.168.0.10;
}

Replace IP addresses with relevant ones for your network.

Then run dhcpd eth0 where eth0 is the interface you want DHCP to run on.

David

 

[David]

Setting up a linux rig to allow other machines to use the net through it

This will allow all data connections out, but only requested data connections in.

Run the following commands:
# Modules
depmod -a
modprobe ip_tables
modprobe ip_conntrack
modprobe ip_conntrack_ftp
modprobe ip_conntrack_irc
modprobe iptable_nat
modprobe ip_nat_ftp

# Enable forwarding
echo "1" > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward
echo "1" > /proc/sys/net/ipv4 /i p_dynaddr

# IPTables
iptables -P INPUT ACCEPT
iptables -F INPUT
iptables -P OUTPUT ACCEPT
iptables -F OUTPUT
iptables -P FORWARD DROP
iptables -F FORWARD
iptables -t nat -F

iptables -A FORWARD -i eth0 -o eth1 -m state --state ESTABLISHED,RELATED -j ACCEPT
iptables -A FORWARD -i eth1 -o eth0 -j ACCEPT
iptables -A FORWARD -j LOG
iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -o eth0 -j MASQUERADE

eth0 = external interface
eth1 = internal interface
This is for a 2.4.x kernel.

That worked for me: set the gateway on the clients to the IP address of the linux rig.

David

 

[bdf24]

I'm downloading the final ISO image for Red Hat 8.0 as I'm typing this. I've never had any interest in Linux. But I think I'm going to put a decent size partition on my second harddrive and install it just to check it out.

Got any tip's for me?

 

[res0r9lm]

I have mandrake 9.0 and almost everything is done by gui. say you want to install an RPM all you have to do is click on the icon. I assume redhat 8.0 is pretty easy to use also.

one thing if your going to do any fold use wine and the windows client it's a heck of lot fast than the native client unless they are gromacs work unitsand then everything is equal for some reason

 

[David]

Just gave Mandrake 9.0 a shot. I dont really like it. It was easy to install, but it takes time to load up an application (my PC aint exactly slow either, see sig) and mysqld is acting funny.

Its OK, but I dont really like it. I am going to give Redhat 8.0 a try, just downloaded the CD images.

David