just gets more "bang for the buck" writing Windows virus

Exactly.

I would never go with a non-RPM distro

LMAO Thanks for proving my point! While you wouldn't use anything but an RPM distro, I would personally never use one at all. It's that pesky personal choice thing.

Tarballs are the most evil thing ever invented.

Kinda how I feel aout RPMs. Especially when they're expecting dependent libraries in a certain place and they're actually installed in another place thanks to some developers who just like to change things around for no good reason. They didn't invent the term "dependency hell" for nothing

It really is about choice. I have friends who won't use anything but Debian or Debian based distros. I think Debian is ok, apt works pretty well. But I like fast and Debian distros just seem to run a lot slower because of the too generic compiling they use.

FC is faster than Debian, but still a tad slow for me (not to mention those nasty RPMs ). I've used many different distros and have found that Slack, Arch, and Gentoo (if it moves, compile it ) to be the fastest.

But like I said, it's all personal taste. I won't knock anyone choice of distros. If it works for you, use it.

I like Fedora. Berry is nice and fast, but has a text-mode only installer.

So I use Fedora on the Hard Drive and Berry as a Live CD.

Could somebody talk about KDE vs Gnome?

Sure.

First, KDE has a nice UI.
GNOME's look and feel still gives me nightmares.

GNOME uses the GTK+ engine to draw all of its UI elements which is much slower. It also comes with a few applications.

KDE comes with all of the apps you will ever need.

Right now I'm typing this in KDE Konqueror, which is the KDE web browser/file manager. It's also highlighting everythong I type incorrectly in red.

Konq is very fast. It seems to work well with WC. You can also use Firefox.

GNOME GTK+ apps work fine in KDE, and vice versa.

KDE includes KMail for email, and Kontact which KMail integrates into, and the news reader, RSS, calendar, etc. integrates into. It works great for Gmail, and a replacement for Outlook.

The KOffice suite (be sure to select thing when installing!!!) is basically Microsoft Office. It doesn't offer MS Office compatability to my knowledge. For that you'd want OpenOffice.org.

KDE offers a centralized Control Center, wile GNOME has separate control applets (it does in Fedora at least).

Things in KDE are easier to get access to. It's a nice optimized UI.

KDE has Kopete for an IM client, it works great with MSN, and is compatible with all the rest.

And KSirc is an IRC client.




So KDE has much more softy then GNOME.

KDE also has a great help system.

Any thing else?

Oooo... you may be sorry you asked! My situation is that I got a 200 GB disc for my birthday. Also still have my 30 GB, so I may not have the world's newest setup, but there's a little room ot play around. I was planning to try Linux to see what it's like when I stumbled across your thread. I'm good with XP but a complete noob to Linux.

So here are some noob questions.
I was just reading some of the basics on the Fedora site. How do KDE & Gnome relate to what I'd get from Fedora? Does the Fedora Core have a KDE or Gnome GUI, or something else? Or if, for ex. I wanted to try KDE, should I get Linux from the Kubuntu site?

The discussion of RPM distros was a bit intimidating. In looking at Fedora, it seems like getting Linux there would ensure getting all the necessary pieces of their install. Do you have to know what you need in advance at a RPM distro? If something’s missing, can you find out by running sha1sum?

I have more, but will post this much while I continue writing

yum (console updater/installer, solves dependencies) and up2date (graphical updater, solves dependencies) both work great for me.

Fedora comes with a choice of GNOME, KDE or XFCE. You have to select to do a custom install to install those. I would recommend installing both GNOME and KDE.

RPMs are like setup EXEs. Very easy. And you can go to http://rpm.pbone.net/ if you need something not avaliable on yum.

To use yum:

Open a terminal in root (Super User) mode. Type:

-For first use:

yum check-update

-to install:

yum install

The Fedora site says Linux partitions need to be formatted in VFAT. Never heard of VFAT—is it the same as FAT32? (I hope.)

Don’t have a CD burner but I’m assuming there’s a way I can make a boot-floppy & install to the Linux partition from images saved to a different partition.

From the Fedora site I got the impression that it’s best to get the files via BitTorrent. Never used it before, but I installed it earlier tonight. Do you recommend going that route?

When installing Fedora you can use the Disk Druid utility to add a / partition and a /swap partition to your 30 gig. Very easy utility.

what/where is yum? Looks like it's a program but ...

I have GIMP for windows but don't think I encountered yum in getting it-- did get the GTK+ lib files, but I assume those are a bridgee allowing XP to relate to GIMP & irrelevant to what we're talking about here...

Arg, oh arg... found in Fedora documentation:
Installation from Diskettes
There is no option to install Fedora Core from diskettes.

Now, I can understand not being able to put the install on diskettes, but surely there's a way to make a boot diskette & from there install from hard drive (like windows used to need a floppy boot in order to install it from a CD).

Got the answer to the VFAT part--
"In Fedora, vfat includes a range of file systems, such as FAT-16 and FAT-32, found on most removable media. External hard drives usually contain vfat (FAT-32) file systems."

Their documentation is a bit dated-- xp doesn't support fdisk anymore

Hey Meowy,
I got on the Fedora IRC- no need to go thru the excrutiating details here-- I think I'm pointed in the right direction now. Yesterday I had no idea where to start. Thanks for the thread. Will update you on this project!

The EXT3 filesystem seems to work faster then VFAT. You can select what partition type in Disk Druid.


You're welcome.

At this point I can pass on a useful bit. In installing Fedora from hard drive, booting from floppy is no longer an option. If you don't have a CD or DVD burner, a USB flash drive is an option- minimum size for the boot image 16 MB (commercial MB)
(gotta get one before I can proceed- at least they're cheap)

Your computer doesnt boot from CDs?

I always install from an ISO image burned to a CD.

I know it's hard to imagine, but I don't have a CD burner- no way to get the image onto the CD
A flash pen is way cheaper than getting a CD burner & some blanks

Whuuhooooo!

Meowy!
Got the USB flash, the bits are torrenting (hopefully faster later)... it's my favorite past-time...doing a bunch of things I never did before, not totally clueless, but but mostly not knowing WTF I'm doing

Ahhhh.
(Don't be surprised later when I screw it all up & start whining-- really I love it!)
Thanks for all the help.

You'll be glad. :o)

Also, once you're up and running, you ahould check out the KDE-Redhat project at http://kde-redhat.sourceforge.net/ It really takes KDE to the next level (strongly recommended by me). Fedora is based off Redhat. When installing the project, be sure to exit out of X by doing Ctrl-Alt-F1. Then login as root. And type what you would to install it.

[plug]A screenie of my Fedora desktop: http://home.gwi.net/~mjonson/fedoraaug1905.png

aimzzz,
The best Linux that I used was Suse. You can do an FTP install using only a boot disc to make the FTP connection. I imagine you could use your USB drive as the boot disc if you want to.

Check out this site for instructions for the SuSe 9.2 ftp install:
http://support.novell.com/techcenter/tips/10028.html

You are going to need to download the boot cd first.
Here is the site link that I used to receive the install:

IP: 140.221.37.130
Directory: /pub/suse/i386/9.2/
(use if needed (note I did not have to use this) User name = anonymous / Password = your email address)

The install process took a while because of the FTP install, but not that bad. In Suse you get all your updates and apps using Yast. Very quick and easy.

I think she's already downloading Fedora.

I don't see why anybody wouldn't like it.

Thanks, tjesterb,
I am already in the middle of getting Fedora. Both in this thread & on the Fedora forum I've seen that alot of people who are into Linux lean strongly to one incarnation or another & usually have good reasons for their preferences-- all in all a good thing. If something really annoys or crashes or works great, there's a choice. I'm not a Windows basher, but it's true that we only get one take on that concept.

I'm going to keep your comments in mind-- I have a huge amount of storage & no matter how things go with Fedora, it would be pretty interesting to see how different groups of designers have approached Linux. It's win-win (unless I do something really strange here...)

It's win-win (unless I do something really strange here...)

hehe....

You'll have a good time.

As much as I see that Linux has some definite advantages over Windows (File structure, stability) and I like the whole open source approach, I found that the applications that I needed just weren't there. After the initial install and some configuring, I found I was almost always booting into Windows. Eventually I always need the disc space back, and the Linux partition is the most dispensable.
I hated to lose the Suse partition (just reclaimed that a couple weeks ago) as I found it the most workable for me.
Hope your Fedora install works out for you, I have friends who swear by it.
We're working on a plan to convert some workstations at work over to RedHat (if for nothing else than to reclaim over 40 XP licenses for the office people to use)
I've been reading up on BSD. I want to set up a FreeBSD file server next winter, if I can get hold of the hardware I need.