Linux

The Dark Side of Will · Wed Jan 18, 2006 1:08 pm

zonyl wrote:ISO images are only bootable on CD media. Installing via USB isnt a very obvious way of doing it, so it isnt documented all that well unfortunately. CD installs are probably about 98% of the way most get linux, anything else is odd. I am one of the 2% that does it differently just because I know how and I never buy CDROMs for machines I use.

Just feed my elitism, why don't you?

You need the usb image which is located here:
ftp://mandrake.mirrors.pair.com/Mandrak ... es/all.img

For future reference, how did you go about finding that?

The steps to make the USB image are here:
ftp://mandrake.mirrors.pair.com/Mandrak ... .htm#other

Once you get the image onto the usb flash device, you boot, and then select ftp install from the menu and punch in the address to the mirror you are using:
ftp://mandrake.mirrors.pair.com/Mandrak ... .0/x86_64/

I presume I'll need a wired connection for "ftp install"? Will I need any extra network drivers? What image will it look for during the installation process? I have a 1GB thumb drive, so if I can go ahead and download that to the thumbdrive as well, I would like to.

Sometimes a computers BIOS doesnt handle booting a USB flash device very well and you may run into issues. If that occurs, and you still have a floppy drive in the machine, you can use the network.img file instead and put it on a floppy using the same instructions above.

I don't have a floppy drive and it is a bit older machine.

zonyl · Post by **zonyl** » Wed Jan 18, 2006 2:00 pm

Heh.

All the mirrors just have the CD install files. One directory contains just the ISO images for the CDs, the other has the contents of the CD. The ALL.img file is in the install folder and the link I gave points to the install folder on what would be the CD.

To do a FTP or HTTP install you would need a wired connection. Linux usually has support for any network device built in. Wireless might be scetchy on install so I wouldnt recommend that.

The entire Mandriva installation is more than 1GB (3CDs), so that wouldnt work so well putting it all on the thumb drive.

The Dark Side of Will · Wed Jan 18, 2006 2:06 pm

My comp is too old to boot from USB anyway, or so it seems.

The comps here at the liberty center don't have burners.

I'll check into external USB CD/DVD burners...

product1620 · Post by **product1620** » Wed Jan 18, 2006 9:57 pm

Don't know if someone already said this but you should go to linuxiso.org you can download just about any distro you want including the BSD's which are a better choice IMO hope this helps.

The Dark Side of Will · Thu Jan 19, 2006 6:28 pm

What do you think is better about BSD?

I checked out the Mandrake DVD image on that site, but it's coming through in single digit k/sec... for 2047 megs. WTF?

Is there a DVD image on the Mandrake mirror?

product1620 · Post by **product1620** » Sat Jan 21, 2006 10:18 pm

well I'll tackle the three main distros one at a time. FreeBsd is very stable, in fact I belive thats what the yahoo servers are running. OpenBsd it the most secure *nix platform. and NetBsd has installs for just about any platform you want to run it on. Also because less people are using BSD you will have less virus programs written for them; which is as you know is one of the major problems with wincrap

. Don't get me wrong I'm not saying theres anything wrong with linux, because its a great improvement over windows I just think BSD is one more step up. Then again i'm a little partial to BSD because it was the first flavor of *nix I was introduced to. Also if you are looking for a more familiar enviroment you should try Linspire. there web site
is linspire.com it is more of a ease of use disto, and if you like that idea there is also xandros.com. I think they have a free version available through bit torrent.

in conclusion it all depends on what your looking to do with the computer your running the OS on if your just looking for a better replacement for windows than Linux should be just fine.

product1620 · Post by **product1620** » Sat Jan 21, 2006 10:30 pm

I checked out the Mandrake DVD image on that site, but it's coming through in single digit k/sec... for 2047 megs. WTF?

Is there a DVD image on the Mandrake mirror?

yes there is a DVD image on the mirror. I started the same download and mine was going at the same pace it use to take me about an hour and a half to download about 800mb's so its probably gona be a wait :banghead: .
but if you don't want to wait try finding an already burnt copy on ebay.

zonyl · Post by **zonyl** » Sun Jan 22, 2006 8:52 am

product1620 wrote:well I'll tackle the three main distros one at a time. FreeBsd is very stable, in fact I belive thats what the yahoo servers are running. OpenBsd it the most secure *nix platform. and NetBsd has installs for just about any platform you want to run it on. Also because less people are using BSD you will have less virus programs written for them; which is as you know is one of the major problems with wincrap .

Just a hint: When evangelising a product, try to use factual points instead of subjective ones. Your statement about viruses kinda discredited your review with me.

Fact: Apache runs more websites than any other server (70% of the web is running Apache)
http://news.netcraft.com/archives/web_s ... urvey.html . By your logic Apache server software is a bigger target by your logic for virus/worm writers.

Subjective, based first hand experience: The last web server worms that have made press and caused major finincial loss (CodeRed 1 and 2, Nimda, Sasser, Blaster, etc) are for Microsoft IIS webserver software (20% of market)

My opinion on why viruses are more prevalant on MS software: Microsoft prides themselves on having a lower TCO (total cost ownership) than its competitors. http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/feat ... study.mspx This lower cost really means that it does not take as much technical skill ($$$) to run their products (or so they think anyway) Virus writers, IMO, target the market of computers that are run by people with generally less technical skill.

For example, I put in a simple rule into my firewall that does not allow my webserver to initiate web requests. What does that mean? Well, if my Apache servers were to be infected with a virus/worms, they can never propogate (a webserver application should never be browsing the internet itself!). This simple rule into everyones firewall (literally one line of text) could have stopped all of the above mentioned viruses and prevented billions of dollars of loss. This illustrates a general lack of complete technical skill by MS software users and what virus writers target.

----- back to topic -----

I tend to find mirrors in Europe to be faster than those in the US (go figure) Check out http://anorien.csc.warwick.ac.uk/mirrors/Mandriva

The Dark Side of Will · Sun Jan 22, 2006 12:34 pm

product1620 wrote:yes there is a DVD image on the mirror. I started the same download and mine was going at the same pace it use to take me about an hour and a half to download about 800mb's so its probably gona be a wait :banghead: .
but if you don't want to wait try finding an already burnt copy on ebay.

Mind pointing me to it (DVD image on ftp://mandrake.mirrors.pair.com)? I apparently suck at teh FTP.

As I said I found the DVD image on LinuxIso... but it's just a smidge older at version 10.1 rather than 2006.0. Is there a DVD image of 2006.0 out there?

zonyl wrote: I tend to find mirrors in Europe to be faster than those in the US (go figure) Check out http://anorien.csc.warwick.ac.uk/mirrors/Mandriva

Thanks again. Is there a DVD image of 2006.0 on this server? I know that I can burn 3 CD's and do the same thing, but it seems silly to me to do that when it will all fit on a single disk of a different type.

product1620 · Post by **product1620** » Sun Jan 22, 2006 11:28 pm

Is there a DVD image on the Mandrake mirror?

sorry I misunderstood what you said, I thought you were talking about the other site. no I could not seem to find the DVD image on that site either.
You might try just using the older version as its probably a little more stable, again just my opinion.
good luck!

product1620 · Post by **product1620** » Sun Jan 22, 2006 11:34 pm

Just a hint: When evangelising a product, try to use factual points instead of subjective ones. Your statement about viruses kinda discredited your review with me.

Fact: Apache runs more websites than any other server (70% of the web is running Apache)
http://news.netcraft.com/archives/web_s ... urvey.html . By your logic Apache server software is a bigger target by your logic for virus/worm writers.

I was not talking about servers, I was speaking more along the lines of home pc's. Again I'm not bashing linux or any other *nix based OS, I just said he might try BSD just another alternative.

The Dark Side of Will · Thu Jan 26, 2006 12:36 am

Installed Win2K SP3 on my laptop. I couldn't quite get it to do what I wanted.

I have a 100GB HD in the laptop now. I had setup make two 20 GB partitions and one 60 GB partition. I made the 60 first (C:) and installed the OS on one of the 20's. It had to format the 60 first, but always had some sort of error before it was done. I wiped out the existing partitions and created one 20 GB parition, on which W2K installed just fine.

What's are the security and performance aspects of having things on different partitions or large (60 GB) partitions?

Now I just need to scrounge some cat 5 so I can download all the stuff I need...

zonyl · Post by **zonyl** » Thu Jan 26, 2006 7:40 am

If you are referring to linux, there is old skool thought that your / (root) and /home (user) filesystems should be on different partitions. Most distros will default to setup your drive in this manner as this was originally intended to prevent a user from running your server out of diskspace (a very bad thing in unix). Since then, most filesystems in linux support a root reserve plus quotas by users can be implemented and more than one partition is unnecessary and often a problem down the road.

On all of my linux machines I just have a single partition and dont use the swap memory (virtual memory). If you are low on ram <200Megs, then you may want to consider using a swap partition (I dont run anything with less that that)

product1620 · Post by **product1620** » Mon Jan 30, 2006 10:07 pm

I made the 60 first (C:) and installed the OS on one of the 20's.

try switching them around make the 20 for windows (C:) and the then do the 60 as (D:)

The Dark Side of Will · Fri Feb 03, 2006 9:17 am

That's exactly what I was going to do (except call the Windoze drive D: and the big one C: so that all the crap I install doesn't default to the OS partition), but the Windoze installation disk wouldn't finish formatting a 60 GB partition...

So what's available in the area of repartitioning hard drives? I have 80 gigs of unpartitioned space that I'd like to make use of before everything becomes too entrenched in the 20 gig partition I'm using now.

Downloading the trial version of partition magic as I type...

The Dark Side of Will · Fri Feb 03, 2006 10:19 am

Anybody know how to change drive letters under Windoze?

zonyl · Post by **zonyl** » Fri Feb 03, 2006 1:41 pm

Start->Control->Admin->Computer Managment->Disk Manager

Right Click partition on the graph, select "Assign Drive Letter"

Not sure if this is going to solve your problem though, as I dont know if Window will let you change its "system" partition.

derangedsheep · Post by **derangedsheep** » Fri Feb 03, 2006 3:10 pm

Question about Linux networking. I have a P3 933mhz, 128mb ram system that I woudl like to stick a hard drive in and use as a file server. However, all of my computers are Windows. Can I do filesharing between the Linux box and Windows? Or would I be better off installing Win2k (the only good windows)?

product1620 · Post by **product1620** » Fri Feb 03, 2006 11:51 pm

So what's available in the area of repartitioning hard drives? I have 80 gigs of unpartitioned space that I'd like to make use of before everything becomes too entrenched in the 20 gig partition I'm using now.

yea you should be able to get it done with a partition program, but if by some
chance that doesent work try making several smaller partions instead of one big 60gb one.

The Dark Side of Will · Sat Feb 04, 2006 7:14 am

I found the disk admin tools... they hid those from where they were the last time I messed with NT 4.0...

But I still can't format the 60 GB partition. Windoze gets almost to the end, then stops and gives me an error message something like "disk is too big"... That's trying to format FAT32, BTW. WTF?