[Techtalk] thanks for all the help!

[Jenn Vesperman]

On Sat, 2002-08-03 at 02:50, Sam Bradshaw wrote:
> Thank you all for your help!!
> 
> Thank you also "Hamster" for you philosophical advice and moral support. I
> think you are totally right, I have to just tackle on thing at a time.. How
> do I know if I have lilo or the other thing by the way? Will it say on boot
> up? Also I have a fast AMD machine, why is boot up so slow with Linux?

You may be starting a whole bunch of services you don't actually want.
I'm sure someone will tell you how to find out what you're running - I'm
sorry, but I'm kind of zonked right now and not with it myself. :)

> I was trying to
> help someone out who was stuck in a cult on a Yahoo group, little did I
> realize that my static IP (or semi static dhcp, it never changes
> though)would get around so quickly through the Yahoo email system. I have a
> cable modem you see. So when I go to Linux I don't want to have things go to
> hell overnight.. 

Yeeesh. Yes, you definitely need to lockdown. On the up side, I'm told
Linux can be locked down more tightly than Windows.

> Also it would be nice to know how to figure out a way how
> to hack into these horrible cult members machines that are trying to get
> into my machine (actually got in several times before the personal
> firewall). 

#include std_discouragement.h
I would prefer you handled it without stooping to their level.


> 2)I added a viewsonic plat panel display in addition to my fancy mouse and
> keyboard -- everything now looks like shite! I support the who Linux idea,
> but so far I have been struggling. Maybe I should just switch to Red Hat and
> buy it?

Odd. Everything looks great on my Acer flatpanel.
 
> 3)I am now "feeling" that maybe I should buy Linux because it seems that the
> manuals would help me (someone suggested this)

Purchased linuces usually also have technical support.
You may prefer to download a Linux and buy a book - there're some books
that are standard recommendations around here.

(Would the people who recommend them take the time to write even a
one-paragraph review and send it to lcx.books at linuxchix.org? It can even
be a cut-and-paste from one of your recent emails. It'll mean that next
time, we can just say 'oh, and check the books list, there're some great
books listed there'. Thanks!)

> 4) Which Linux should I buy?? Should I rush out and buy Mandrake or Red
> hat??

Um. I was impressed by SuSE when I installed it recently. Mostly because
Yast installed CVS painlessly, and it 'feels' good to me. But I only ran
it for about ten minutes .. because I installed it to get some data for
my book. So take this recommendation with a whole handful of salt, I
didn't run it for long enough to really get a feel for it.

> 6) All this talk of installation handlers has me confused.. Someone pointed
> out a cmd line command that would allow me to "install" a downloaded file
> (rpm).. What the heck is an RPM, is it like a zip? If I don't use the
> command line, what is this other installation thingy about?

Ok.

Linux software is often distributed in 'packages'. The packages are
basically 'kits' that contain the files essential to this specific
program, and a list of other software that program depends on. 

There are two types of package, 'deb' and 'rpm'.  Mandrake and RedHat
use RPM, Debian uses deb. To confuse the issue, Debian CAN use RPM, and
RedHat and Mandrake CAN use deb. I believe most other distributions can
use either.

Now. The command line program that you were shown is the basic tool for
installing packages. (there is actually one for debs and one for rpms,
but we'll ignore that point.)
However: Gnome, KDE, and most distributions ALSO come with graphical
tools. The graphical tools just call the command line tool, in the
background, where you're not watching because you're distracted by the
pretty pictures. :)

So it really doesn't matter -which- graphical tool you use, it calls the
same thing in the background anyway. The graphical tools are just trying
to make life easier.


This article has just been published, and might help:
http://docs.linux.com/documentation/02/08/01/2022213.shtml?tid=23




Jenn V.
-- 
    "Do you ever wonder if there's a whole section of geek culture 
        	you miss out on by being a geek?" - Dancer.

jenn at anthill.echidna.id.au     http://anthill.echidna.id.au/~jenn/