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bbcmicro

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Joined
Apr 2, 2006
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I finally bit the bullet and bought a copy of 'Learning Red Hat Linux' with a copy on CD enclosed (Fairly old, 1999, but it was only £5 at Oxfam)

The learning curve for the CLI shouldn't be too hard, it seems fairly similar to DOS, but bigger. Much bigger, as in mustard seed to pomegranite.

I succesfully installed Red Hat, but it couldn't autodetect my video card or monitor. After tinkering around breifly during installation I found a setting it liked. But I don'.t

When X/Gnome (Still can't differentiate) starts, It displays less than 1/4 of the screen, all blown up out of proportion. I can't really do anything. Is there a way to set this up at the command line, before X loads or perhaps go back to the Video installation part without doing the rest.

I don't have a graphics card, just onboard video on my Optiplex gx150 motherboard, using a dell e177p monitor (I think)

Any tips?
 
That computer is wasted with such an old version of linux. One that new deserves a new version of linux. I would reccomend ubuntu, its great for people new to linux. It is a very powerful Debian based - 1 CD distro. It should have almost no trouble with your graphics setup, but if so, we can fix that. You can download it for free from this UK mirror:

http://ftp.ticklers.org/releases.ubuntu.org/releases/6.06/ubuntu-6.06.1-desktop-i386.iso

or, if you prefer a .torrent:

http://ftp.ticklers.org/releases.ubuntu.org/releases/6.06/ubuntu-6.06.1-desktop-i386.iso.torrent
 
I know that it is out-of-date, but the book is written step by step scpecifically for red hat.
Although, now I think about I can actually see what would greatly differ from version to version, which isnt much in general. Stuff like commands and windows managers and the like can be kept and changed respectively.

Thanks for the recommendation, I'll check it out tomorrow, its getting kind of late over here.
 
Let me also recommend Kubuntu, it's also a very nice distro for learning Linux (I call it the Blue Buntu). When you really want to get down and dirty go with Slackware or Zenwalk. Have fun!

Nathan
 
bbcmicro said:
When X/Gnome (Still can't differentiate) starts, It displays less than 1/4 of the screen, all blown up out of proportion. I can't really do anything. Is there a way to set this up at the command line, before X loads or perhaps go back to the Video installation part without doing the rest.
Click to expand...

With X/Gnome running, try pressing either Ctrl-Alt-Keypad_Plus or Ctrl-Alt_Keypad_Minus.
That cycles through other resolution settings, if there are any.
You might find another one that works, but it's just not coming up by default. If not, you can bail out by using Ctrl-Alt-Backspace.
It's crude, but it will work for now.

Otherwise, from the CLI you might try either "Xconfigurator" or "redhat-config-xfree86".
Only one of them will work, depending on how old a version you're running.
(Which you can find out, BTW, by doing "cat /etc/redhat-release")
I haven't fiddled with X in a while, and I don't have a RedHat system close by, so I can't steer you much further than that right now.
I'm sure you'll figure it out. :)
 
I am getting around to this, btw, I've just run out of CD-Rs and'll walk into town when I get a coupla quid and buy summore!
 
Success!
Ubuntu installed like a dream, configuring itself for everything, all I had to do was sit back and watch, thanks for that tgunner!

Whats even better is (most unusually) it detected my wireless internet adapter and I now have the internet in my room for the first time in 6 months!

Finally I can watch all the stuff on the internet that has sound, pc downstairs has hardware problems!

Thanks y'all,

Matty.
 
wow, a 1999 version of red hat. man that sounds like somethin i'd put on my 386 lol.

good reccommendation of ubuntu. it's a very good distro. i prefer plain ol' debian myself, but yeah ubuntu might be a little easier for a linux n00b. :)
 
It's really disorientating to use for a while, I'm hoping that'll wear off. It's so similar but so different to windows!

I can see one reason why Ubuntu is so popular with n00bs like myself, they don't let you log in as root without going all around the houses! I suppose there are a lot of other restrictions too. Also, the directory structure is wierd, and I can't (at the moment) figure out logically where files are. I think'll I consult a book over that one.

The only problem so far getting is Totem (and basically all other media players) to work and get codecs. I had a quick look on google but it's all chinese to me at the moment. I think that's something to try when I'm a little more adept.

I think I will go back to that red hat at some point, purely for experimentation but only when I can use Ubuntu efficiently first!
 
bbcmicro said:
It's really disorientating to use for a while, I'm hoping that'll wear off. It's so similar but so different to windows!

I can see one reason why Ubuntu is so popular with n00bs like myself, they don't let you log in as root without going all around the houses! I suppose there are a lot of other restrictions too. Also, the directory structure is wierd, and I can't (at the moment) figure out logically where files are. I think'll I consult a book over that one.

The only problem so far getting is Totem (and basically all other media players) to work and get codecs. I had a quick look on google but it's all chinese to me at the moment. I think that's something to try when I'm a little more adept.

I think I will go back to that red hat at some point, purely for experimentation but only when I can use Ubuntu efficiently first!
Click to expand...

after a bit of use, the directory structure makes tons of sense. it confused the hell out of me at first, too!

i've never really used totem, but for a good audio-only player try using XMMS... it's like a perfect winamp clone pretty much. great program. nothing to set up either, as long as you have a working sound daemon installed (which you almost certainly do already) it'll work right "out of the box".
 
bbcmicro said:
I finally bit the bullet and bought a copy of 'Learning Red Hat Linux' with a copy on CD enclosed (Fairly old, 1999, but it was only £5 at Oxfam)

The learning curve for the CLI shouldn't be too hard, it seems fairly similar to DOS, but bigger. Much bigger, as in mustard seed to pomegranite.

I succesfully installed Red Hat, but it couldn't autodetect my video card or monitor. After tinkering around breifly during installation I found a setting it liked. But I don'.t

When X/Gnome (Still can't differentiate) starts, It displays less than 1/4 of the screen, all blown up out of proportion. I can't really do anything. Is there a way to set this up at the command line, before X loads or perhaps go back to the Video installation part without doing the rest.

I don't have a graphics card, just onboard video on my Optiplex gx150 motherboard, using a dell e177p monitor (I think)

Any tips?
Click to expand...

Try a manual config with the XFconfig86 program
http://www.treachery.net/~jdyson/infosec/linux/XF86Config_Demystified.html
 
The Unix/Linux disk structure is really FANTASTIC. Basically, your entire disk world starts with "/" and builds from there. Most of them have a standard "mnt" subdirectory. That's where they like you to create more directories and then use those directories to "mount" other file systems.

Example:
cd /mnt
mkdir winders
mount -t vfat /dev/hda1 /mnt/winders
cd winders
ls -l
and here are all your windows files and directories

goes on and on, you can mount "pub" on other servers and access the other server as if it was your local drive. Or in my case, I have other linux distros on the same drive so I do like "mount /dev/hda6 /mnt/debian" and there is the entire root drive of another linux installation.
 
Thanks for the tips,
I'm using Ubuntu right now, Its great having the web in my room again, I dont have to run up and down the stairs clutching CD-Rs, pen drives and floppies.

xmms sounds like a good idea, if someone can link me to a download (Official site is down) and gimme instructions how to install? (extracting and whathave ye)

I personally miss installation wizards, but once I learn how, I think I can cope.

Matty.
 
bbcmicro said:
Thanks for the tips,
I'm using Ubuntu right now, Its great having the web in my room again, I dont have to run up and down the stairs clutching CD-Rs, pen drives and floppies.

xmms sounds like a good idea, if someone can link me to a download (Official site is down) and gimme instructions how to install? (extracting and whathave ye)

I personally miss installation wizards, but once I learn how, I think I can cope.

Matty.
Click to expand...

just open up a terminal window, then type su and hit enter. then enter your root password.

after that just type apt-get install xmms and that should take care of it. if it installed successfully, it should be in the applications menu under "multimedia"

you can also type aptitude in the terminal as root and you get a nice clean easy-to-use interface to install all kinds of software pre-compiled for ubuntu. aptitude is awesome!
 
Hmm...
I get error;
E Couldn't find package xmms.

Yes aptitude is pretty cool!

After a few months I think linux and I are gonna get along like a house on fire. With DOSbox and WINE of course, for those useful Pac-Man clones and minesweeper that no machine should be without!
 
I installed xmms by using Applications>Add/Remove...

Works fine playing MP3's, podcasts galore!

Got a prompt to install 45 updates....I thought, 'Why not? I have broadband!' nearly finished now.
 
Glad it's working for you! To install my needed codecs for mpeg, avi, mp3, I used easyubuntu. It worked like a charm! It also installs flash, support for rar archives, and the drivers for either ATI, or nVidia graphics cards. If you feel like trying it, paste this code into the command line:

Code: 
wget http://easyubuntu.freecontrib.org/files/easyubuntu-3.023.tar.gz
tar -zxf easyubuntu-3.023.tar.gz
cd easyubuntu
sudo python easyubuntu.in

*I think that their site is currently down, so if the code doesn't work, you can try it again later.
 
I went to the ubuntu wiki site and looked up easy ubuntu, it looks exactly like what I need. I had previously managed to install flash but was having no luck with java, realplayer, etc. etc.

But the site is still down.... :(
 
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