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I actually like Linux Format magazine. That's where I learned all about setting up apt-get on redhat. I followed the instructions and got it working great, upgraded my entire system, did an apt-get of k3b - perfect ! I Could never get k3b installed the rpm way... rpm just literally sucks big time... in my opinion... Stuff like that is what I'd like in one basic linux book. As cyberjackal says, LF magazine is $15 here in the US, if my calculations are correct - that's $180 per year. :(

I agree with most of that, but... I know apt is not exactly redhat, however - it IS available and it DOES work great and it DOES make things alot easier... So, as a beginner, I would just appreciate a $50 "complete" redhat book saying something like - "hey, this apt-get is alot easier, why don't you try it... here's what is is and how it works...". I didn't think to look at the various linux "certification" books - maybe one of those would be more like what I want...

hmmm.... I'm using rh9 at the moment, but I did buy the mandrake 9.0 powerpack - I'll check out the books when I get home... I generally don't read books that come with software... :? I know, I know, I should still it would be nice to have a large linux book that has everything you need to know to actually use the system and do things with it. Not just 1000 pages of setting up samba, backing up your system with tar, blah blah. Be nice to see a chapter something like "All about installing software - tar, rpm, apt-get, blah blah - everything you need to know"

I was at Borders Books yesterday looking for just ONE general linux book that covers the basics + a little more. The tests I was using were "tar" and "apt-get" - I wanted to see if any books discussed these issues. I know, I know - apt-get is pretty easy - even for me... but I just wanted to see if any books say that it even exists... I looked thru maybe 3 or 4 huge 1000+ page "redhat 9 bible" or "redhat 9 secrets" or "redhat 9 unleashed' or basically any "everything you always wanted to know about linux...". You would think that in more than 1000 pages you would find a discussion regarding installing software by way of tar... nope. Apt-get - not even mentioned anywhere... Tar may be mentioned, but most of the discussion may be regarding "backups with tar". I didn't see much in the way of installing software by tar. The more "lightweight" books - "Learn blah blah linux in 24 hours", blah blah linux for dummies" - tar? - nope not mentioned - ONLY rpm is discussed. Apt-get - not mentioned. That's why, on all the linux boards around, there are probably tons of posts like "how do I install tar software..." The point is, I can't even find ONE linux book that I like. I just come here. I know some people on this board don't believe wasting money on linux books - just find whatever info you need on the internet for free. Still, I'd like to have one good general book.

yep, I'm a member of both. This place is generally my favorite though. Seems friendlier :)

hell, I suppose I will just leave my current linux box as is... its not exactly a slouch.... Over the next month or 2, I'm gonna pick up a small black Antec case, an nForce2 mobo, an AMD barton, new H-D, 512Mb RAM and just put it together slowly as I can afford the components. Maybe a big new linux distro will be out by then... :? and I can do a fresh install. Good practice. I can let my son have my current linux machine. Maybe he'll be a linux geek by the time he's in high school... :lol:

ok thanks. I'm just so glad that at least I can use it. I don't like anyone else touching my computers anyway... :lol: I did give my 5 year old son a login & password to use my linux machine - he likes some of the games - tuxracer, etc. I guess he can do without openoffice 1.1... as a footnote: I think openoffice.org needs to get with it & give people what they want (ease of installation / upgrading). How many people are getting pissed off & frustrated in the last week or so due to upgrading problems. I know I'm not the only one. I know many others are just saying f**k it, I'll just keep using MS Office. And besides that, I installed the new oo1.1 on my win2k machine in like 2 minutes. On my linux machine in like 2 days... so what's wrong with that picture :? anyway, sorry for the ending rant. Thanks to BooYah, richard lawson, and william for getting me up and running... :)

yeah, I really wanted to go AMD. Its just that with all the hair pulling I've been doing lately installing OO1.1, j2sdk, blah, blah - I just want to use the same rh9 install on the same H-D. I could bump up the RAM on my P-III 1000 from 256Mb to 512Mb - not sure how much diff that would make - but DVD burning software recommends 512 (at least the windoze ones do)

trying to cheer me up, richard... ?? :lol: thanks, I needed it. Yes, the fromTemplate double click worked great, and I got into a new doc that way. I dragged the fromTemplate to the desktop & "copy link here" and renamed it OpenOffice... I notice the fromTemplate window that comes up has New Doc, and some other stuff like My Documents (sounds like windoze :? ) So what is My Documents ? Its not a folder. And where do I save things I make with OO. Should I create a folder in /home like OO Docs or something? Thanks for helping. I knew I was mostly there, I just didn't know how to finish it. Also, other people were talking about some prompt for "workstation install" but I never saw that part... :? What about other users on my machine using the new OO ? Note: I uninstalled the prior OO 1.0 a few days ago, but I just noticed that it is still in my 5 year old son's kde menu, and panel. And it works too. I guess when you uninstall something, you are just uninstalling it for yourself... :? So I guess I have the OLD oo and the NEW oo on my machine.

thanks richard. Actually I have no idea if its installed or not, with all the screwing around I've done in the last 2 days. What I have now: 1. an OO directory in my home: /home/don/OpenOffice.org1.1.0 2. under the above directory, there are 4 other dirs: help, program, share, user 3. an OO directory in /usr/local: /usr/local/OOo_1.1.0_LinuxIntel_install (contains 528 items) So I don't know if its installed or not. It seems I need to do the final setup step where it basically puts it into your system. I want it to be showing in my kde menus, and gnome menus. And after its installed ok, I'll put a couple of icons on my desktop. Sorry I got ticked off in the above post. I was ready to throw this out the window. At least I see that I'm not the only one having trouble with this new oo install. Why can't we get a popular program like OO in a "nice, installable" way?

no diff that way either. when doing the last step (./setup) as a regular user, it does EXACTLY the same thing that it just did when I did the ./setup -net as root. I put the tar file in /usr/local, I unpacked it, then I did (as root) ./setup -net in the directory OOo_1.1.0_LinuxIntel_install. Then I did the chgrp thing. Then I did the ./setup as a regular user, but it just does the same thing I just went thru (asks me Regular inatall, Custom Install, Minimum Install). It does not ask anything about Workstatiion Install. And after its done, I don't have any Openoffice anywhere in my Kde desktop. At least I have got OO installed and working great on my win2k machine. So at least I can dump MS office on that machine. This linux tar, chgrp, local, opt, blah, blah, is just literally fu**ing pissing me off.

nope. I d/l the rpm.bin file to a /tmp directory in my /home. Then unpacked it. Then after the ./install it made an "openoffice" directory in /usr/lib. Anyway, I'm just gonna re-do it the way booyah says. thanks edit: sorry, I mean tar file not rpm.bin file

there's a list somewhere on the internet about what MCSE "really" means - about 50 or so hilarious meanings... My favorite: Microsoft Completely Screws Everyone, although rcxau's is pretty good too. I don't remember that one.

well, I was originally intending to do an apt-get install openoffice or something like that. That was before I found out that you have to install oo the hard way. Anyway, since OO is "self contained" (no dependencies or anything like that) I uninstalled the version that came with my RH 9 distro (OpenOffice 1.0). I did an apt-get remove openoffice or something like that. So there is no original version on my computer. When I did the ./install earlier today, it did walk me thru an interactive installation - asked me such things as "Recommended Install, Custom Install, blah blah). I did the first one, the regular install. Then after all that finished, I was confused in chris's instructions where to do the ./setup... ? I can't find any "setup" anywhere except in the original directory where I unpacked the tar. BUT if I do ./setup in THAT directory, it just starts asking me the exact same things that I just did with the ./install. The ./install did not ask me about any locations to use. So why is the OO-linux-intel-install.blah blah directory in /user/lib ? hey booyah I remember you from the chat room during the anniv "party" a month ago. Think I was logged in as "object" - it said "null" was being used or something...

My impression of the Jorge Lopez, MCSE was that it was just a joke picture... :? or, would they get in trouble with MS for using "MCSE" satirically ? Anyway, at first glance I figured the pic & MCSE were a joke. It's just an illegal immigrant, or a road worker or something.

I installed OOo 1.1, sort of, but something's not right. I followed chris z's instructions in the above post: d/l file, change to dir where d/l (as root) tar -zxvf filename, this created an installOOblahBlah directory, I cd'd to that dir and then did ./install --interactive. That stuff seemed to work ok. However, then I am supposed to become a regular user and change to the dir where OO installed: cd /name of dir/OpenOffice.org1.0 - well, that bombs out. What dir are we talking about here? It appears to have installed in /usr/lib ? In /usr/lib there is an "openoffice" directory, and in the "openoffice" directory there are 3 other dirs - I think program, user, and share. So anyway, I don't know where to do the user setup (./setup) I d/l the orig tar file to /tmp in my home dir and I unpacked it there. Is that ok ? So what did I screw up? I guess its not as idiot proof as everyone says, either that or I'm a 40 year old idiot... :?

I think I will just stick with my current mobo and P-III processor. That way I can keep my current H-D with my RH 9 on it. Can a P4 processor be put in a P-III mobo or do they require diff mobos ? Also, I'll just bump up my 256RAM to 512RAM. That should be enough under the hood for whatever I need to do in linux. I don't play any high-end games. I just want to learn the basics of linux and burn CDs and DVDs. btw: the computer hardware store that I go to told me that basically kt400 boards were "old news" and the only thing they were selling anymore are nForce2 boards - because thats what the gamers want... When I originally started this thread, I was kind of thinking I could basically get a new mobo, AMD instead on Intel, and just re-use the existing H-D without any problam. Didn't realize that would probably not work. So the only question remaining is: can a P-III processor be changed to a P4, using the same mobo ?

ok, I tried to finishup the install. java -version shows all the correct version info for java, JRE, and java hotspot whereis java does not show anything mozilla does not have java I probably did not do the symbolic link right :? I typed the link as shown in the Doc on this board (while in my home dir logged in as root) ln -s $JAVA_HOME/jre/plugin/i386/ns610/libjavaplugin_oji140.so /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins EXCEPT: I wasn't sure about the oji140. The Doc was using j2sdk1.4.0 as an example, but the one I was doing was j2sdk1.4.1, so I typed oji141 instead of oji140. Does that matter ? also since the sym link was very long it just wrapped to the next line automatically, or are you supposed to use some kind of continuation character ? This seems more complicated than it needs to be, but probably mostly my fault... :?

ok I did it all, except for the last step (the java_home stuff). It appears to have installed properly. Now what I have to do is what phunni said ? does the "wherever its installed" just need to be /usr/java, or does it need to be /usr/java/j2sdk1.4.1_05 (as the Doc shows) ? thanks for all the help. Almost there. After its all done, how do I know java is working or not ? (I don't know java, but I'm taking a class soon). Do I just need to enter a "hello world" type program and see if it works ?

:lol: I didn't think of that. You're absolutely right... if they think its really true, then I guess we don't need them...

I just read an article (current issue of Linux Format) about apt-get. They made it clear that freshrpm repositories and the new "fedora" repositories have agreed to use different versioning methods for their filenames. The article specifically said DO NOT mix freshrpms sites & fedora sites in your repository file (sources.list for redhat) or you will SCREW-UP your system good and you would be getting all sorts of errors and conflicts. When they come up with something good (apt-get) why do they have to come along and screw it up... :? I can see articles coming about "apt-get hell"... Needless to say, I made sure I don't have any fedora sites listed in my sources.list.

:lol: that's the best divisontwo joke yet... only thing I'm worried about is that when clueless people are browsing around for windoze vs linux info, they will read that and get taken in... well it COULD happen... I mean, not everyone's as informed as we are... :?

hi - can I butt in for just a second... like Richard, I would also like to install the rpm way (urpmi or apt-get). What's the usual lag time for rpms to hit the urpmi or apt-get repositories ? thanks

well spoken, I agree gowator. btw where can I get one of these :lol:

thanks, that clears up a lot. when you say "extract the rpm from the bin file..." are you talking about the "./" ? Sorry, I've not really done this before. Do you mean move the rpm.bin file to a /tmp directory and then do the ./ ? And then, since I do not have any previous Java version on my machine, I would do the rpm -iv from within the /tmp directory, and it would install to the necessary folders (and create them if it needs to)... :? btw: I got j2sdk setup & working properly on my win2k machine, and I installed eclipse for windoze - everything works great. Obviously, I just need more linux experience with this stuff. edit: I had this particular post on my screen for over an hour before I actually hit submit (I got sidetracked at work - had to do some work :lol: ). Anyway, I wrote this post BEFORE I saw phunni's post above. Thanks phunni !