Developer Forum

Hi guys:

I would like to learn how to use Linux now! Could you please tell me
what differences between Red Hat Linux 9 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux
are? As a discontinued product, Red Hat Linux 9 is more economically
efficient...since I am just want to learn the basic concept about it
now, is it OK for me to practise Red Hat Linux 9 first, rather than
buying Red Hat Enterprise Linux? Are they similar for a newbie?

Thanks

Fei

The difference between RH and RHE is $$$.

If you want to learn RH, get RH. If you want to learn Linux, get
Slackware.

http://www.yqcomputer.com/

nb

As I'm sure others in this newsgroup will be happy to discuss in detail,
the Red Hat-based distributions may not necessarily be the best systems on
which to familiarize oneself with Linux, since they tend to "protect" the
user from some of the details of the underlying system. If you really
want to "learn Linux", I would recommend Debian or, as notbob suggested,
Slackware.

That said, there are two points that I should make regarding Red Hat, if
that is what you really wish to use:

1. Red Hat 9 is outdated, so don't use it. If you want a free Red Hat
operating system, you might try Fedora Core 6, but be forewarned that
Fedora has a (possibly deserved) reputation as Red Hat's running beta
for RHEL. So...

2. Red Hat Enterprise Linux can actually be had for free, under the name
of CentOS (aside from the name change, the only difference being
that CentOS isn't officially supported by Red Hat). Download it here:

http://www.yqcomputer.com/

--
Mark Shroyer
http://www.yqcomputer.com/

Thank you so much Mark!

Fei
"Mark Shroyer
"

Thank you nb!
Could be a stupid question - I think Red Hat Linux (both 9 and
Enterprise) is a branch of Linux and is widely used in the commercial
world, right? I am a business student and not a programmer, so....

Thanks

Fei


"notbob
"

BYW, I want to install a duo system in my laptop - with Windows, FC6 is
OK, right? If I download from any website which provide FC6, a stupid
question - is there virus if I download it from a "unofficial"
website? I heard that no virus attached in open source software, but
still a littlie bit unsure...

Thank you so much!

fei

"Fei
"

In comp.os.linux.misc Fei < XXXX@XXXXX.COM >:





Rubbish, you can learn Linux as well with RH. Just don't waste
your time with some admin GUI, learn how to use vi(m) and the
shell.



RH 9 is dead, RHEL is commonly used in the commercial world, just
check out what commercial $$ software and major hardware vendor
support, you should find RHEL in most cases supported.


FC 6 should be fine. You compare md5 or whatever checksum is
provided for the downloaded .iso file and you should be fine if
it matches the pointed out checksum.

Presuming you are running doze, since you use groups.google and
top post, there are tools to verify checksums for doze available.

Ensure you burn images probably to make them bootable, iirc the
Fedora docs should guide you through the needed steps.

Good luck

--
Michael Heiming (X-PGP-Sig > GPG-Key ID: EDD27B94)
mail: echo XXXX@XXXXX.COM | perl -pe 'y/a-z/n-za-m/'
#bofh excuse 164: root rot

I really really really don't mean to start a flame war, and I do value
slackware and debian, but for my own curiosity, exactly what can you do in
slackware that you can't do in RH/FC or on an rpm-based distribution? Of
course RH has all these GUIs that sometimes are annoying and hide stuff
from the user, but you can still do everything at the prompt. If you can
find the shell, that is ;)

Or, if you can find all the files necessary to change one minor
function. The kicker for me was when RH changed the /etc/issue file
on RH 5.2 or 6 or whatever. RH changed a simple message file into 3
interactive files that would overwrite /etc/issue to RH's default
message everytime one rebooted. I was pretty green back then and it
took me awhile to figure out what the Hell was going on. Why? To
what point? Whatever the reason, RH borked a simple message file into
an insidious "we, not you" control issue. That's when I bailed. If
RH wants to own your computer like M$, let 'em own someone else's.
Slack lets ...nay, demands!... I control my own computer. Suits me
right down to the ground. ;)

nb

Oh, well, I think FC has found good middle ground between pre-configuring
the system and letting the user do it. Honestly, I don't mind the least
bit that NFS sees all partitions exported by my other machines, right out
of the box, or that the printer, network, sound card, etc. are up and ready
to go upon install. If I want to change something I can, and I do. The
problem with automatic configuration is that if something goes wrong, then
you do have to dig under the gui, or piles of scripts, as you said. By the
way:

1) root:~> ls /etc/iss*
/etc/issue /etc/issue.net

2) root:~> cat /etc/issue
Fedora Core release 6 (Zod)
Kernel \r on an \m



One thing that I find most annoying is that FC/RH seem to go to great
extents to hide the shell under layers of menus upon menus, on top of more
menus, all different from one release to another. Seems their notion of
user friendly amounts to hiding the shell. If MS does it, why won't FC?
Or is it the gnome people? That, and the top panel in gnome drives me
crazy with each install. But's just me being picky.

Yes, they all evolve and not always for the better. I was just
sniveling about the enormous amount of bloat in the latest release of
Slack. It's up to 3G, ferchrysakes. Most of it multiple offerings of
the same apps. Browsers, email clients, editors, multimedia apps,
etc, are offered 3-6 times over, both in gui and cli versions. At
least I'm still offered several methods of choosing which programs to
install and Slack is still the rock solid distro it's always been.

nb

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Never having used RH, I can't really comment on that, but I do know
that the gnome configuration seems to change with every release. It
also seems to be less friendly in that regard with each release. Soon
gnome will become useless at this rate.

Happy to use my Debian ;-)

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Thank everyone here and I think I get more than I expect, although I
cannot understand all of them :-)

I am so sorry, just a quick follow-up question - I have checked Redhat
website, it is said that FC is for programmers, and Redhat Enterprise
is for business. I think others you guys mentioned, like Debian, are
for professional programmer? I would like user interface and
concentrate on learning some commands, not development or
administration.

Since I am a business student, I would like to learn the right version
which can be used in future (Maybe). So what I learn from FC, e.g.
commands and programming, can be applied in Enterprise, right? If FC is
totally different from Enterprise used in commercial world, is there
any others?


Thank you so much! Sorry to bother you!


A helpless person who wants to learn Linux - Fei


"W Paul Mills
"

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RH is saying FC is for programmers to encourage you to buy RH.

Debian has a reputation of being hard for newbies, but not sure
that it is deserved. And it's not just for programmers. Debian
is very much a group project with many "developers." Debian
has high standards for "freedom." It may be a bit harder
to install initially, but tends to be easy to maintain.

No bother, as am unemployed, caught in middle of a contract
dispute.


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Linux is linux. The commands are the virtually the same in FC, RH, Debian,
Slackware, etc. There is no one program that will run in FC and won't run
in Debian, say, or viceversa. There are some things that differ from one
distribution to another, but you shouldn't be worried that what you learn
in FC won't work on RH. To me, the choice of the distribution is mostly a
matter of taste. Any of the Linux distributions can be turned into a
server, or a multimedia station, or a workstation, or an office pc, or all
of the above combined. You just have to select the right bundles
of programs.

I'm guessing that "FC is for programmers" refers to the fact that it is
bleeding edge - really the testing ground for RH, while RH is supposed to
have more stability. With RH products I believe you also get customer
support. With FC you may get once in a while a program that crashes, or
some other problems, that you would have to identify and fix.

You worry too much. Pick one and try it, then if you don't like it try
another one. Although this will only give you a superficial idea, look
here:

http://www.yqcomputer.com/

Oh, and another one to try is SuSE.