*nix install question

Turock · Post by **Turock** » Mon Oct 30, 2006 8:43 am

I want to install some flavor of linux on my pc but not sure if I can. I run win98 mainly because all I do is php/mySQL and web surfing. I'm not much of a pc gamer. I have 4 partitions on my drive now and the E: partition is pretty much empty with about 10Gb free. Would it be possible to use that to do a basic install? and would it dual boot ok?

Post by **windhound** » Mon Oct 30, 2006 3:58 pm

10 gigs is fine. my hdds in my box are only 10 gigs
oddly the newer distros take up a ton of room, fedora core 6 has used all but 1.6 gigs of my drive (though, atleast a gig is in my home directory).. I dont remember FC3 being so large..
but I've installed a decent amount of packages, so yeah..

most distros will detect a windows partition fine and include it in your grub/lilo list. you'll have ~4 seconds at startup to choose windows if you want it, otherwise it'll default to whatever distro you have (unless you ask it to prefer windows, then visa versa)

Turock · Post by **Turock** » Mon Oct 30, 2006 5:09 pm

I'll give it a try in a bit and see how it goes. Last distro I installed was red hat v4!

I have CentOS 4.3 which is a generic Red Hat Enterprise from what I'm told. I'm trying to learn server setup, management, security, etc so that when I move to a dedicated server I won't need to pay someone to manage it for me.

Post by **The Beatles** » Mon Oct 30, 2006 5:33 pm

Unsurprisingly, I'd recommend SUSE. It has a better learning curve, but is just as sophisticated, if not moreso, than RedHat. Although, since 10.1 isn't so stable, you could give FC6 a try, it's also great. I have SUSE isntalled and windy has FC6 installed, so we can both help if something comes up.

Post by **Devari** » Mon Oct 30, 2006 5:52 pm

YaST is quite excellent, the Novell site has a good tutorial on setting up a LAMP server, and a "repaired" version of SUSE 10.1 has been released - I believe the updater may finally be fixed?

Post by **windhound** » Mon Oct 30, 2006 10:16 pm

you need a tutorial to setup LAMP?

yum groupinstall "Web Server"
yum groupinstall "MySQL Database"
should get it up and running on Fedora, ofcourse making sure the services were up and running with system-config-services
Linux? check. Apache? check. MySql? check. Perl, PHP, Python? (for the most part) check.

I avoid SuSe for some reason or another.. donno really why, one of the reasons is if somone asks me what distro I'm using my first impulse would be to say soose (like goose) but I've been told its more like susie (like the girl) and I've also been told its some german name that noone really knows how to say anyways.. I'm also a little discomforted that they released a version of their OS with a rather bad flaw in the package manager, which is uber important for a distro like SuSe...
*shrug*
I just like Fedora, and Ubuntu is quite nice as well

I'd sugguest Fedora over CentOs if you plan to use the box for anything but a dedicated webserver
Fedora has repos like livna that provide packages that Fedora cannot legally include like mp3 playback, dvd decoder, advanced graphics drivers (for 3d accel), various windows, avi, quicktime codecs. Livna may work with CentOS, but eh. Fedora is a bleeding edge version of Redhat, while Redhat keeps with the packages they know are stable and safe.

Post by **Devari** » Mon Oct 30, 2006 10:29 pm

windhound wrote: you need a tutorial to setup LAMP?

yum groupinstall "Web Server"
yum groupinstall "MySQL Database"
should get it up and running on Fedora, ofcourse making sure the services were up and running with system-config-services
Linux? check. Apache? check. MySql? check. Perl, PHP, Python? (for the most part) check.

Oh, installing is easy, but I meant mysql configuration.

Post by **windhound** » Mon Oct 30, 2006 10:51 pm

you have to setup mysql? feels like a silly question
but with both fedora and ubuntu all I did was run the package install, used mysl administrator to put a password on root, add a user, and then used phpMyAdmin to play around with the database (run the install scripts, add/delete rows, edit data etc)
what else is typically needed to get a database running proper?

Post by **Devari** » Mon Oct 30, 2006 10:55 pm

Um, that. There isn't much, but it IS a full graphical tutorial of the whole process - for even the newest of newbies. Here, judge for yourself:

http://www.novell.com/coolsolutions/feature/595.html

I did have to manually edit one config file, though... php.ini didn't properly get the mysql extension listed.

Turock · Post by **Turock** » Mon Oct 30, 2006 11:22 pm

Well the problem is most places that offer dedicated servers do not offer SuSE as an OS, and so far all I looked at today only offer FC3 or FC4, no FC5 or FC6. Some even charged extra for a FC install. While you can supply the OS and they will install it for you, if you need anything to be done to the box after that they charge you. Even for something as simple as a reboot.

The install will be nothing more than a server. Linux, Apache, mySQL, php used to run whatever sites end up there. Not used for anything else.

Post by **The Beatles** » Tue Oct 31, 2006 1:29 am

Oh, in that case, yeah, FC4.

That's one weird hosting though. I'd stay away from any company like that. I mean, you should probably go for full generality and make sure you have a root account. Then you're set. Something like co-location.

Your call though. It's just that so many things crop up that a hosting company that can charge you for trivial actions seems wrong to me.

Turock · Post by **Turock** » Tue Oct 31, 2006 3:16 am

Co-location is for rich people, *laughs*! Nearest co-location data center to me is about 2 - 3 hours away. When co-locating you pay for the bandwidth you use, but the charges are much different than normal. No 100 gigs a month for $3.95 here!

Hosting companies don't spend much on technical help. Thats why they will only support a few different OS's. Majority of them are CentOS 4.x and FC3, FC4, though some still do FreeBSD. With something like a webserver, the OS is really not that big of a deal I don't think. The portion of the OS that applies is pretty much the same through out all of them. I mean you are only dealing with a few apps, apache, mySQL, php. Only the bad hosting companies will nickel and dime you though for support. Its tough to find a good host though.

Post by **The Beatles** » Tue Oct 31, 2006 3:19 am

So you want the same type of OS on your PC as at your host? Not sure I understand the query otherwise.

Post by **windhound** » Tue Oct 31, 2006 3:46 am

it all depends on what you'll be doing with your webserver
really, the only things you should be doing is just what you said.. apache, php, mysql. maybe some cron jobs.

I took over a website for the local hound group, maha, (I really need and kinda want to scrap the layout and redo it. it has many a thing that bugs me. but yeah) and the host (addr) uses freebsd. when I ssh into it I can use my standard *nix commands, navigate about and do what I need to do..

my mom has an account with bluehost now (which is very nice actually, and not priced bad) I forget which distro they use, but it doesnt really matter. Its all the same stuff. apache is apache. mysql is mysql. php is php. it should be all setup for you if your host isnt crap

really, distos are only seperated by their package manager and their support group. if you have root access then knowing how to use yum is a good thing, but you could learn that just by ssh'ing in or if they're nice using vnc of somesort. there's only a few commands.

by co-location do you mean that you own the box, but have it on somone else's network?
I mean, if you need 'support' just post here or google.. I've been using Fedora for 'round two years now, starting with core 3 up to now core 6.. if I cant answer your question then I can find somewhere that does. and a lot of problems are not distro specific, so beatles or devari could help you there

edit: I cant wait till Fedora gets firefox 2 into its repos.. I want that spellchecker!

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