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First, I am not exactly a new user, but I am far from an experienced user. My FC2 install was done on 6/14/04. It was a clean install on a new machine. Now iit is 3 evenings later. Here are my thoughts on the experience so far. I had a brand-new custom built machine, not exactly high-end, but very nice. AMD 2800+ barton proc, a cheapo MSI KT400a mobo, FX-5200 video card, Antec aluminum lanboy case. I used an old TDK CD burner that I had, and a spare W-D 200Gb hard drive. Anyway, on with the install. The install was supremely easy, I don't see how you can install an OS any easier. Everything was recognized correctly, including my on-board LAN and on-board sound. I went with the Workstation Install, AND I recommend selecting Customized Package Selection, rather than accepting the default install. You can then click on different software categories (such as Sound & Video) and see what the default selections are, and add more items if you want. For example, for this category I kept all the default selections, but also marked k3b and grip for installation. Post-install, the first order of business for me was to get gnome looking how I wanted. Gnome 2.6 looks very nice, and is extemely easy to get customized just how you want. The Panel looked a little congested, so I removed the shortcuts for oo writer, and for oo impress. Of course, I wanted a terminal shortcut so I added that. Now, lets see... what would be helpful over on the right side of the panel... how about a Force Kill button and a Show Desktop button - might come in handy. The default background looks nice, so I left it for the time being. Now to my Home directory, double click it, and lets add some folders to it. Docs, Pics, ogg, and a few other folders for stuff. Lets snaz them up with some emblems, now that looks better. On my crappy 15" monitor, screen space is at a premium, and the panel was a little too big for my liking. So I looked to see if I could make it smaller - right click it and select less pixels until it is EXACTLY the size I wanted. Nice ! That all took maybe 10 minutes or less. Now, need to get some software installed. I have never been very good at doing the tar, ./configure, blah blah thing... I am a believer in easy installs. Back with RedHat 9, I got pretty familiar with apt-get, which can also be used on fedora. But I wanted to try yum, and since it is installed with fedora I did a llittle reading up on it. The repository sources file for yum is yum.conf and is in /etc. I looked at the yum.conf that installed with FC2. Hmm... just uses the fedora repository. Need to get a better yum.conf. I found an example of a yum.conf that could be used to get most everything that you would want: http://www.fedorafaq.org/samples/yum.conf So I renamed the default yum.conf to yum.orig and copied the above example into my /etc. I used vi to edit the file (many things were commented out, so I reviewed the file and decided to uncomment the gpgcheck=1 for the repositories that I was using. After doing this, you need to, as root, run (for example): #rpm --import http://www.fedora.us/FEDORA-GPG-KEY The above one-time command grabs the fedora gpg key and makes it known to yum. I did an import for the livna key also. So far, everything has been problem-free, and very easy. Now to try yum - I was a total noob to yum - never used it before. Ran yum update as root. This was taking a long time, and I kind of worried about what it was doing to my system - many things were scrolling up my monitor. But everything was fine, after it finished it seemed to have updated maybe 12 or 15 packages on my machine. Now time for an actual test of yum. Fedora has some minor inconveniences, such as mp3 not working, no flash in your browser, and little things like that. This is NOT a fedora problem many distros are the same. So, lets see if yum can fix the above 2 niggles. yum install xmms-mp3 and after that then yum install flash-plugin. Both worked perfectly, and both things were installed and working. This stuff is just TOO EASY. Fedora uses mozilla 1.6 for the web browser and evolution for email. Mozilla is nice, but I prefer firefox. Since linux is about choice, and you are the boss of your machine, lets change both things. How to install firefox... hmmm let's just try yum install firefox and see what happens... bang! installed perfectly. Now to make gnome use firefox instead of mozilla. Open the menu, select Preferences, then select Preferred Applications and pick firefox for browser. This just gets easier and easier. Same thing for thunderbird email: yum install thunderbird - bang! installed perfectly. Go to Preferred Apps and change Evolution to Thunderbird. Done ! I also have a San Disk 256Mb usb memory stick that I use on my win2k box. Need to do 2 things to get it working in linux: add an entry for it in fstab, and do a mkdir for the mount point. Plug in the memory stick, double-click the Computer icon on my desktop and there it is in all its glory ! One minor thing about FC2 is that if you install the nvidia driver in the normal way, it doesn't work. This is not an FC2 problem, it is just the new kernel. nvidia's current driver doesn't work with it, but nvidia is working on a new driver. However, it CAN be fixed, but I'll just wait for the new driver. As you can tell, I am very impressed with the ease of making everything how I want it. My first experience with linux was maybe 2 years ago(?) and with mandrake 8.1. That lasted a month or 2, then I promptly went back to win2k. The new distros, such as FC2, are getting EASIER & EASIER to install and do stuff with. For the first time, I am really excited about learning linux. I realize that many of the things mentioned above are just minor housekeeping chores that can be done on any newer distro. This commentary isn't just about FC2, but about the "new linux", in general. thanks for listening. Sorry about the long-winded post.

hmmm... over on linuxquestions I found some threads about how FC2 and the nvidia driver don't play nice. Guess I'll wait a while and see if the next driver will work. http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/sh...threadid=192523]

sorry for the confusion, I made a typo in the first post. I meant I deleted load "dri" out of the Modules section (as nvidia says to do). Load "glx" is STILL there, as it is supposed to be. It must be something else. I changed back to "nv" to get my X back. I'd like 3-D acceleration though.

Didn't take me long to break my new system. I d/l the nvidia driver, as usual, the newest one listed. Did the usual steps: change initdefault to runlevel 3, exit x and reboot, run the nvidia install (sh NVIDIA-blah-blah). The nvidia installer told me "no precompiled kernel module found.." and it proceded to do whatever it wanted to do, and finished without any problems. Then I get to the part where you edit your XF86Config file, except I don't see that one, so I instead edit xorg.conf. I deleted the Load "glx" line out of the Module Section, and changed "nv" to "nvidia" in the Display section. So far so good. But when I then did startx, I just get a blank screen. :o what did I do wrong, or maybe I can d/l an older driver instead...?? This is FC2, by the way, kernel 2.6.?

I just tried swappingout the old DDR256 for the new DDR400 to see if re-seating it would work, as Ix suggested. Booted up OK, FC2 loaded OK, but after that - forget it. Nothing worked. Gnome wouldn't even keep running. Stuck the old DDR back in and everything works great again. Guess it either has to be an incompatible DDR with the mobo, or else its just a bad DDR module. Anyway, now its time to have fun with my new machine...!

Only DDR400 modules listed in the users guide that would work were: Samsung 256Mb, and a Micron 128Mb module. Well, that's too limiting. I wanted 512Mb This was a low-end MSI board ($60). I didn't have the $ for a better board. I wonder if it was the brand that didn't work, or maybe it was the larger size...

I am typing this post on my new linux machine...!!! yay ! I pulled out the kingston DDR400 and stuck in an old DDR 256Mb from my win2k box and IT WORKED ! I just got thru installing FC2, and so far its great. Nice to see k3b available during install (noticed that xcdroast was not offered though). Anyway, thanks to Ix & bvc. I was really frustrated yesterday - a wasted day. While reading the users guide for my cheapo mobo - it only supports DDR400 from samsung. Also, it only supports ONE DDR400 module, even though there are 3 RAM slots. I am going to take back the DDR400 module and tell them to instead get me a DDR333 512Mb. That way, I can add another module later if I want to. I don't know what the big speed diff is between DDR400 & DDR333 - is it even noticable ?

Guess I'll take the machine back into the hardware shop and tell them I'm unable to install anything due to a possible memory error. Maybe they can stick the RAM in another machine and see if its ok, or run some kind of mem test on it - of course all they'll have is windoze machines laying around. Redhat said that even if some RAM works on "another OS" it may not work on a RH machine - said linux was pickier. Before I bought the MSI mobo (KT4AV), I did some checking on MSI's website to see if the mobo would be ok for me. On their site it said that that mobo ONLY supports DDR400 RAM that is certified by MSI (only samsung and micron according to my user's guide). However, the shop told me they just sell kingston RAM to everyone regardless what mobo manufacturers say.

I don't have any more DDR400 RAM, but I can pull out the 512Mb DDR stick from my win2k box - I thinks it is DDR333. Thanks Ix, I didn't think of trying that. The hardware store where I got the mobo, processor & RAM from installed the proc & RAM in the mobo for me for free, and they also installed the mobo into my case for me for free. I just took it home and put in my new FX-5200 video card, the H-D and a CD burner. When googling "Signal 11", it seems it is a seg fault - so probably memory problem. I am wondering if there is something in BIOS that will fix this. On Red Hat's site, there is a help site for Signal 11 errors and they say to try to turn off CPU cache in your BIOS and try installing again. My BIOS doesn't have a setting called CPU cache. It does have a setting for Internal Cache, and some other similar sounding things. So I'm not sure what to try. I did try disabling Internal Cache - but install still errored out. Edit: I saw memtest86 mentioned on linuxquestions.org site, in a thread like this one. Is it something you try on another computer, or during the boot process on the problem machine?

well, duh... After taking a break for an hour or so, I got back into BIOS on my new machine and looked everywhere for something. Turns out I found a selection for Primary Graphics Adapter: PCI. Well, I have an AGP FX-5200, so I changed it to AGP. Well, just tried installing again - still doesn't work. Tried FC2 (disc 3 passed media check this time) but install bombed out quickly. Tried again with RH9, this time I get: Install Ended Abnormally - received signal 11 Edit: a search of other boards for "signal 11" shows that most people say that it is caused by bad RAM or hardware.

lol, I remember that thread. But the question is, was getting up and going with Debian worth all that time, effort and trouble instead of going with a friendlier distro?

continuing saga: I took my Sony DVD burner from my win2k machine (a drive known to be good) and hooked it up to my new linux machine, tried installing FC1 (discs known to be good), got into the install to the point where it says Probing for video card (identified as FX-5200 - which is correct), probing for monitor - which it identified OK, and probing for Mouse - which it also identified OK. Then it says something about starting X, and then I get a blank black screen, and then back to the boot messages and it says Install Ended Abnormally... So maybe a bad video card - I just bought the stupid card at a big local computer show, so I have no idea who the dealer was. They said "oh yes, everything is brand new...". It did have the correct box, and the correct sealed stuff inside. But who knows. Any other ideas? I installed the video card myself - maybe I did something wrong, or is there something in BIOS to do ? thanks

I just tried again after setting PnP OS to Yes, same error. I tried installing my RH9 CDs (successfully installed many times before with same CDs) - errors out almost immediately with the message: Error 2 reading header:cpio:bad magic I googled this message, and found many people having the same problem. Most advice given is "download again - your CDs are probably bad". But I know in this case I positively have GOOD FC1 CDs and GOOD RH9 CDs. Neither will install. Sometimes the advice given was "bad hardware, or bad CD drive..." If I've got a bad mobo, I need to know about it cuz I need to take it back if so. Guess I'll pull the Sony DVD burner out of my win2k box and stick it in my new linux box and see if that will fly. What a pain... not linux's fault though...

I just finished assembling my brand new system for a linux distro. Components I bought are: Antec Lanboy aluminum case, with 350 w FX 5200 128Mb video card 512 Mb DDR 400 RAM MSI mobo (KT400A) W-D 200GB H-D (a spare drive I have used before) TDK CD burner, internal (I own 2 diff models - tried the install with both) I downloaded the 4 FC2 ISOs (from redhat) a couple of weeks ago, and burned them like so: cdrecord -eject dev=0,0,0 -v /home/blah/blah I burned the first 2 ISOs that way, which used the max speed of 12x, and burn free Off. When I found out about the speed parameter, and the burnfree parameter - I burned disc 3 & 4 like so: cdrecord -eject speed=4 dev=0,0,0 -v driveropts=burnfree /home/blah/blah When I tried to install FC2 on my brand new machine, and when I go thru media check, disc 1 passed, but the other 3 failed. So I get ticked off and downloaded disc 2,3,4 again (this time from ftp.nluug). I burned them this time on my win2k box with Nero 6. Went back to my new linux box and tried the install again. Disc 3 still fails the media check, but disc 2 & 4 passed this time. I don't know if its a hardware prob since it is new, untested components, or if something else is wrong. I'd like to get linux on my new machine to at least see if the machine works. So, anyway, now I decide to install FC1 instead - since I have some verified FC1 discs that I have installed successfully before. When FC1 is loading, it gets partly into the install (farthest I got so far is the Time Zone selection), then its just says "install ended abnormally" or something... any ideas? something in BIOS I need to do maybe.. oh yeah - that reminds me.. I checked PnP OS in BIOS and it was already NO

I'm interested in this also. I like a couple of the winblows street atlases, such as streets & trips, and, like ac, I don't want to keep winblows just to use them.

you're right its back up. It was down for quite a while though...

in case somebody doesn't know: http://art.gnome.org that site has been down a loooooong time....

I was reading a review recently of one of the major distros - I forget which one - and the reviewer, an experienced linux user, commented that he KNOWS how to install the nvidia driver, and he was just tired of doing it over & over & over & over again until he was sick of doing it. He said that for beginners AND experienced users it was convenient to have stuff like that work out of the box. I thought it was a good point. He wasn't just talking about the nvidia driver, but also all the other little things too.

I wasn't really aware of PCLOS until I read through this thread. It sounds great. By "preview 7" does that mean there will soon be a "7 Final" or what? ie: how are releases of PCLOS done...? It sounds convenient to me. Stuff working out of the box that you normally have to get working yourself - mp3, nvidia, blah blah.

I just got thru reading the FC2 review on Mad Penguin: http://www.madpenguin.org/cms/html/47/1570.html They say to just leave SELinux off (as it already is...) and don't use it till the usability is improved in FC2. For the most part, the reviewer was very pleased with the distro.

ok, thanks. Guess I will burn the 4 FC2 ISOs to CDs and then delete them from my computer. I've never burned any ISOs under linux, but I'm sure I can figure it out - if not, I've always got this board... Or I can download the mandrake ISOs on my win2k machine and burn the ISOs with Nero. That machine has 10.5Gb available. I'll try the nluug site, as Ix suggested. I remember downloading from that site in the past, and having good luck. I can't believe that my 6Gb disk in my linux machine is almost gone - with only a RH9 install on it, a few other progs such as k3b, and the 4 FC1 ISOs. However, I am giving that machine to my 6-yr old son, so no prob. The new machine I am building is going to have a brand-new 200Gb W-D hard-drive.

Yeah, I didn't know what the .exe and the /tmp were either. I selected my home directory to save the iso. Thanks for the df -a. I tried a couple of terminal cmds, but none gave me what I wanted. I'm still new at this. Here's the results: Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on /dev/hda2 5581824 4702800 595480 89% / none 0 0 0 - /proc usbdevfs 0 0 0 - /proc/bus/usb /dev/hda1 101089 9324 86546 10% /boot none 0 0 0 - /dev/pts none 127632 0 127632 0% /dev/shm when I installed RH9, I let it automatically do its disk setup. If its goofy, please tell me how to make it better.

I tried to download disc 1 last night, but it errored out and said: Download error: There is not enough room on the disk to save /tmp/fmpwext.exe Did I d/l the wrong thing? I went to ftp://ftp.sunet.se/pub/mandrakelinux/offi...l/iso/10.0/i586 and selected disk 1 I had tried a couple of closer places to me (US) but one of them was d/l at 8Kb/sec and the other was going at the blazing speed of 5Kb/sec. So I looked for some european sites and tried the above one, which was d/l at an average rate of around 80Kb/sec - slow but alot better... Anyway, I noticed that the size of the disk 1 was something like 711,000 Kb - isn't that bigger than a CD ?? My machine I am working with is a RH9 box with an old 6Gb H-D. It is a recent clean install (not really any data yet). The only major thing I have on it is the 4 FC1 ISOs, which I have not yet burned to CDs. They take up around 2Gb or more of space. But shouldn't I have enough room for the mandrake ISOs ?

weird - I always assumed var stood for "various", so I always pronounce "var" to rhyme with "air", like Steve does. More ppl seem to rhyme it with "bar" though...

I have actually wondered about linux pronunciations too - but more along with prog names, though... such as gedit... I call it gee edit, but I wonder if others call it ged it (with a hard g) or jed it. I don't talk linux with anyone in person, so I've never actually heard linux words pronounced.