[Corvus]

Hi how are ya? I have DLed Mandrake 9.1, RedHat 9.0 and FreeBSD 4.8 ( possibly some others ..I have a few that I haven't really looked at..Debain, Slackware and others..humm just for fun I looked..Vector, Freevix, Orange, Byzantine, Censornet, Gentoo, Coyote, Lycoris, Knoppix, YellowDog, ..uh.. amoung some others.. Tom's fit on a floppy one.

It has been a long time since I was into ..Unix.. AT&T still had some arguments..(I was using BSD) Now Linux seems sooo much more then M$'s windowz.. Urgh.. Need air.

On to the subject at hand.

I want to get back. But I still need some of my Win(x) files.. So I belive I shall Dual boot..

..Humm what ever happened to C/PM? And everyone's PET? ) ..the C=64c?

ok here is what I have..

ASUS A7N8X Deluxe ( I just happen to like ASUS.. A friend of mine just happens to like MSI.. he like Windows too crazy ..well nobody's perfect ) )
AMD 2800+ (caught the price drop.. used previous buget for ..frills..)
ATI Radeon 9700 Pro (heard horror on it's install)
WD 120Gb (plenty 'o space for 2 OSes)
(2) Corsair CMX512-3500C2 (want it in Dual DDR)
550W p/s (no worries there.. )
LG CD-ROM..48x or 52x..? forget and not printed..no biggie)
(or LG DVD-Multi GMA-4020B )

I know of problems with one or both NICs..and the Nvidia chipset..and sound ..and seems like the list goes on when you look around.

As for which distro.. I kina like Mandrake over RedHat.. Haven't used much for others.. ..nothing recent to be sure.

I have seen a few posts that were close to what I have in mind. So I am figuring on some problems once I settle down to finnally install.. rolleyes Oh well..

So that would bring me to seeing if anyone else has had success. There was another forum I was posting in a month or so ago.. but.. ? forget..

Bottom line? I don't want to run into any problems .. lol .. ) on first shot-in-the-dark.. Any suggestions on how to pull this off?

Thanks.
-Corvus

[Admiral LSD]

I'd avoid anything RPM-based as a start. This includes Red Hat, Mandrake and I think SuSE, among maybe a couple of others which I can't remember right now. RPM package dependencies simply aren't worth the trouble, it's best to avoid them completely.

I currently using Gentoo, which I'm liking a lot but if you don't want to spend several days seeting up your system then it's probably not for you. If, on the other hand, you want the most configurable and optimisable distro around, it's only beaten by building your own distribution from scratch.

Slackware's a fairly old (it was first released in 1993 but wasn't the first packaged distribution of Linux, that went to something else and Slack was a response to it) and reliable distribution but the infrequency of releases and simple package format (no dependency checking at all for instance) make it something you wouldn't want to sit on for a lengthy period of time.

Debian is also reported fairly good although I don't have all that much experience with it (something I intend to change in the near future, whenever I can get a hold of either the unstable or testing distributions). Is has strict policies on stability, security and remaining completely non-commercial but this comes at the cost of the stable distribution being reasonably behind the times, the by-product of every package going into it being thoroughly tested before being cleared for entry. It also isn't the easiest thing to install and use (which were my main reasons for avoiding it in the past but now are the main reasons for wanting to try it again, I've come a fair way in terms of Linux knowledge since I tinkered with it last and want to give it another go) but the time spent learning pays off in spades.

The best advice I can probably give you though is to sample a few and see which you are most comfortable with.

[Corvus]

That's why I am ..waiting around..

I have heard some good stuff about Gentoo.
(And it isn't old.. Becuase that would make me ancient. )

[Philipp]

Quote:

I'd avoid anything RPM-based as a start. This includes Red Hat, Mandrake and I think SuSE, among maybe a couple of others which I can't remember right now. RPM package dependencies simply aren't worth the trouble, it's best to avoid them completely.

RPM isn't that bad. I running current Red Hat Linux RawHide with YUM (Yellow dog Updater, Modified) on my workstation. YUM is a powerful package installer/remover for rpm systems, which resolves all dependencies.

Here some examples:
yum install package installs a new package

yum update package will update a package with a newer version

yum check-updates shows a list of available updates

yum update will install all available updates

yum upgrade will doing a full distro upgrade (if available).

There is also a preconfigured YUM release for use with FreshRPMs:
http://shrike.freshrpms.net/rpm.html?id=656

[blueworm]

I agree with philipp rpms are ok the dependencies are easy to sort out.
I have used mandrake for 3 years and was very dissapointed with 9.1 and changed to gentoo. I am delieted it is tricky at first, and yes it does take forever to install. The gentoo.org forums are fantastic. and if you want to give it a quick try you can download an iso image of their livecd (americas army or enemy-territory), which is great just for a look see.
As far as Radeon 9700 on your asus a7n8x, it is going to kick your a$$, but it is not impossible. A good place for support is the nforcershq.com
http://www.nforcershq.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=29&sid=f6608c2210ea973e3e46c3076b8a896c

[Corvus]

..All the others I had used the RPMs.. I just wanted to see whatelse is there.. and there's alot. Hey (Philipp just posted again.. ) ) Give me a chance to answer.. ) ..or something.. )

So far otherthen from scratch for the most uh.. fun.. Gentoo is next inline Though there is still a lotta ..shufflin' going on.. )

I had seen on a post somewhere..(quite a while back.. maybe not even here..) about 9700 and installing without a PCI installed first.. I don't want anything I don't need. or will ever use.


Gotta see what else was put up now..<pause for following announcement>

[Corvus]

Maybe it went somewhere else? ) I dunno.. I deleted the Email when it came through thinking it was in same place.. rolleyes ..ezcuze me pleazzzzzzzzzzzz sleep (much better) )

[punkisdead]

Go with Gentoo, it's a little involved on the install, but very well documented and you'll definitely learn more about Linux just from the install than if you were to run either Redhat or Mandrake for years.....

[Corvus]

Do you really need that GUI?

Umm.. no. )

FreeBSD is as un GUIed as I have.. er had..actually still have. Recently DLed Gentoo. just one ISO? OK.. ) My BSD has 4 (I think..) What.. isn't on Gentoo.. Humm maybe I go to Gentoo.org and ask

Learning can be fun. (So I am told.. HEY stop snickering.. crazy foo.. )

-Corvus

[Corvus]

..um whoopie. 1 outa 25 I think I should vote just to have it 1 in 20. )

Oh well..

[Admiral LSD]

Quote:

Recently DLed Gentoo. just one ISO? OK.. My BSD has 4 (I think..) What.. isn't on Gentoo.. Humm maybe I go to Gentoo.org and ask

Yep, just the one ~70Mb ISO (assuming you downloaded the Stage 1 ISO). All it has on it is the basic installation kernel and the base file system tarball, you download and compile everything else from source as you go along. It isn't that difficult, everything's quite well documented in the install.txt file in the root of the CD. What I like to do when I'm installing is to set a root password (type passwd as soon as the LiveCD has finished booting and enter your password) so I can access all 4 of the LiveCDs virtual terminals and then have the Install Guide open in nano on one of them while I'm chroot'ed on another so I can keep referring to the install guide as I go along.

[Corvus]

Went wiith 1.4rc4 and all 3 stages tarballz.. I figured why just basic? ) ..besides might want more.. )

looks like it uses packages too..(Like RH or MDK..) rpm! ) Bah.. brian no work in the light..

-Corvus

[Corvus]

[quote="Admiral LSD...so I can access all 4 of the LiveCDs virtual terminals and then have the Install Guide open in nano on one of them while I'm chroot'ed on another so I can keep referring to the install guide as I go ...[/quote]

-) THat is what I liked about *nix systems.. There is actual useage for Scroll Lock and SysRequest buttons.. ) that and you ca swichth betwen a fe doz terminals. )


Humm.. with that 1 in 25.. those 24 were too lazy to vote Thanks bu tno.. I guess they don't care.. ) heh

Shouldn' tyou be promoting what you like to use?

..humm s'pose not.. this machine is using windoze.

-Corvus

[Admiral LSD]

Quote:

Went wiith 1.4rc4 and all 3 stages tarballz.. I figured why just basic? ..besides might want more..

Stage 1 allows you to fully tailor and customise it to your system as you download compile and install virtually everything to a set of compile flags you specify. The downside is that it takes an absolute age to install, my own install took 3 days but much of that was because I was downloading everything over a 56k modem. The stage 2 and 3 LiveCDs don't contain any more than the stage 1 in terms of packages, they just have more of the base system compiled to save time. The down side to these is that you don't get as much flexibility as you do with Stage 1.

[Corvus]

I wounder how distant I would have figure that tho?.. I knew there was some extra.. I think I will go with #1 then. From one description I had it was the other way around.

Thanks. Just as soon as I get a few other things worked out. )

[Corvus]

not the thanks part.. that should have been

thanks.. (Now just as soon as I get a few other things worked out (I can install Linux) )

[Admiral LSD]

Before you start, download these and have them somewhere you can access from either the remaining virtual terminals on the LiveCD or the chrooted Gentoo environment. You'll need them if you want any hope of being able to use 3D on your 9700 under Linux. Included in there is a patch to enable AGPGART support on nForce/nForce2 for non-nVidia graphics cards.

Also included are drivers for the onboard audio and LAN but don't worry about these as you can emerge the LAN driver later (but preferably after you've compiled the kernel and before you reboot after finishing the chroot install) and the onboard audio, if you use it, will be handled by ALSA (remember to compile sound support into the kernel (as a module) but don't select any of the drivers underneath. After you've booted into your new Gentoo system, go and read the Gentoo ALSA for instructions on how to set ALSA up. If you use the onboard nVidia SoundStorm audio, the driver to use is intel8x0).

[Corvus]

Cool. Thanks.. I have some but I don't think it was either of those in particular.. (DLed for MDK 8.2/9.0 RH 9.0..none there for 7.2.. Bah.. Oh well) And kernal RPM.. might come in more handy as I don't think I will be using others.....But have enough Disk space to install a few flavours..

-Corvus

[Corvus]

Hi all.

After trying install I found out that there was an important command that wasn't in the install text. ) oops. ) (Thanks to a fellow that posted a step-by-step who included a missing step)

# mount -t proc proc /mnt/gentoo/proc
# cp /etc/resolv.conf /mnt/gentoo/etc/
# chroot /mnt/gentoo /bin/bash
# PKGDIR=/usr/portage/packages/ <-------this one was missing
# env-update
# source /etc/profile

Oh well. Typos happen. and it is easy to forget even important stuff sometimes.

As I don't have that particular machine connected to the net I went with Stage 3 and GRP. Files are on 2 CD's. And with that I don't need net access. (which I don't want until I fell I have most everything secured.)

It may not be for "newbie's", but I am to old for that )

[Admiral LSD]

I don't recall having to do that on any of the Gentoo installs I've done but then again, I've never bothered with stages 2, 3 or the GRP so it might just be specific to those (especially the latter with it's precompiled binary packages for non-base packages).