I have used Linux before, but the computer that I had some problems. I worked with it and then slowly lost time to work on it (You know how it is) and it is really old. So I havn't used Linux since Mandrake 8.2.

Anyway, I can get an HP computer (filled with junk, spyware, ect) cheap. It has 256mb ram (will upgrade) and a 30g hd. (That is all the specifics that I remember but the rest was good). I want to wipe the HD and install Linux. Here are my questions:

-I have Mandrake 8.2, can I get it upgraded to 10?
-Any "must have" software?
-Any other ideas?

I have a large computer background and I have had some experience installing OS's.

Thanks!

Edited for spelling, other stuff.  

I first started out on Mandrake 8.2. 10.0 is light years ahead. If you want to upgrade, the best thing would probably be to just download the iso images and burn them to disk. Boot the computer using disk 1 and you are well on your way to a new installation.

Any reason you're hot for Mandrake?  I've been using Knoppix and Morphix lately, which are based on Debian, as well as Debian on some servers I was helping people out on, and the ease of maintenance is fantastic.

Debian has a maintenance system called APT (apt-get for command line, aptitude for curses-based tty, maybe others  for GUI) which is just wunnerful.  Need a new package installed, it downloads it over the network and sets it up automatically.  Dependencies are noted when you select the package to install.  Need to reinstall or update ("upgrade"), same deal.  Uninstalling is a breeze.

I used to be a big fan of Mandrake because of the pretty GUI, but Debian's ease of maintenance is so far beyond dealing with RPMs that there's no way I'll go back.

And Knoppix and Morphix are wonders unto themselves.  These are "Live CD" distributions, where you don't even have to install them onto a hard drive -- you don't even need a hard drive in the machine.  Boot from the CD, they automatically detect your hardware and set up drivers properly on the fly, detect your network, and load a basic set of applications into memory.  Everything is done from CD to memory without touching the HD.  Whenever you reboot, the system reverts to a clean state straight from the CD, so there's never a worry about viruses or worms -- they can't save themselves anywhere.  But you *can* mount your HD or flash drive, save anything you want to it, and have it available next time.

Morphix is based on Knoppix;  it is designed to be "morphed" by the user. You can burn a second session onto the CD-RW to add packages that they didn't include in the default distribution.  The reason I use it is because, due to ideological constraints, Knoppix doesn't include nVidia drivers, while Morphix says "screw ideological purity, those suckers are useful!" and puts them in.  Of the two, Knoppix is a little nicer out of the box if you can use it;  if your machine is nVidia based (like mine is), you'll have to use Morphix instead, or else you'll have to load Knoppix to HD, add the nVidia drivers, and burn it back onto a new CD-R.

http://www.debian.org/
http://www.knoppix.net/
http://www.morphix.org/

ETA: Debian has a minimal CD of only 180MB available, which does most of its installation over the network.  You can also get the full CDs if you have an unreliable connection and don't want to do the network install.  See the Debian installation pages for the various tradeoffs of the various installation methods.

Also, Debian has three basic levels -- stable, unstable (but reasonably well-tested), and cutting-edge.  You can install the stable distribution, then upgrade one or two packages if you need the latest for them.  Or you can live life dangerously and go with the latest and greatest of everything.

Quoted: Any reason you're hot for Mandrake?  I've been using Knoppix and Morphix lately, which are based on Debian, as well as Debian on some servers I was helping people out on, and the ease of maintenance is fantastic. Debian has a maintenance system called APT (apt-get for command line, aptitude for curses-based tty, maybe others  for GUI) which is just wunnerful.  Need a new package installed, it downloads it over the network and sets it up automatically.  Dependencies are noted when you select the package to install.  Need to reinstall or update ("upgrade"), same deal.  Uninstalling is a breeze. I used to be a big fan of Mandrake because of the pretty GUI, but Debian's ease of maintenance is so far beyond dealing with RPMs that there's no way I'll go back. And Knoppix and Morphix are wonders unto themselves.  These are "Live CD" distributions, where you don't even have to install them onto a hard drive -- you don't even need a hard drive in the machine.  Boot from the CD, they automatically detect your hardware and set up drivers properly on the fly, detect your network, and load a basic set of applications into memory.  Everything is done from CD to memory without touching the HD.  Whenever you reboot, the system reverts to a clean state straight from the CD, so there's never a worry about viruses or worms -- they can't save themselves anywhere.  But you *can* mount your HD or flash drive, save anything you want to it, and have it available next time. Morphix is based on Knoppix;  it is designed to be "morphed" by the user. You can burn a second session onto the CD-RW to add packages that they didn't include in the default distribution.  The reason I use it is because, due to ideological constraints, Knoppix doesn't include nVidia drivers, while Morphix says "screw ideological purity, those suckers are useful!" and puts them in.  Of the two, Knoppix is a little nicer out of the box if you can use it;  if your machine is nVidia based (like mine is), you'll have to use Morphix instead, or else you'll have to load Knoppix to HD, add the nVidia drivers, and burn it back onto a new CD-R. http://www.debian.org/ http://www.knoppix.net/ http://www.morphix.org/

I like Mandrake because it is payed for. I think these are free but I don't like the idea of booting from CD. Brings back bad memorys of 5 1/4 (?) Floppy Disks. I will look into those.

ETA: If they boot from disk can't I "get both".

Quoted: Ask me tomorrow. I am a debian developer.

I will ask you in 4 minutes.

Quoted: I like Mandrake because it is payed for. I think these are free but I don't like the idea of booting from CD. Brings back bad memorys of 5 1/4 (?) Floppy Disks. I will look into those. ETA: If they boot from disk can't I "get both".

Not sure I understand.  You can always donate to pretty much any of these projects if you want.  Mandrake can be downloaded free too, although they prefer it if you join their "club" (I've donated, but I refuse to sign up for a monthly automatic billing to my credit card!).

If I understand your second question, yes, you can install something on your HD, even Windows or BeOS, and then boot from the CD to run Knoppix or Morphix whenever you feel like it -- it's extremely useful as a rescue disk, or for any time that you want to isolate your HD.  (There's also "tomsrtbt" (Google it) for a bootable rescue floppy -- a whole working Linux system in 1.44MB.)  That's actually what I normally do;  I have Windows to run MS-Word for working from home, and I run Morphix whenever I want to hook up to the network, so that nothing can infect my HD.  (And I use a scratch drive for any downloads, so that I can wipe it and reinstall from a Ghost image any time that I get a trojan, like yesterday with the Alizee videos. )

Not so drunk as to turn your hard drive into a floppy before you insert it into the docking station.

Quoted: too drunk and I am with two women. try tomorrow.

What exactly do you intend to use this box for?   IMO, some distros lend themselves better to server operations, and others to workstation.  So, knowing your planned usage is an important part of any such decision.

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Ask me tomorrow. I am a debian developer. I will ask you in 4 minutes. too drunk and I am with two women. try tomorrow.

and you're wasting time posting on arfcom ?!

I use slackware. With swaret, I can keep updating to the current release.

I also have mozilla suite installed and openoffice for word processing. Gaim for instant messaging.

I have also found, with 500MB of memory, I never touch swap, so you probably wouldn't need much of a swap if any unless you will do alot of memory intensive tasks.

Quoted: What exactly do you intend to use this box for?   IMO, some distros lend themselves better to server operations, and others to workstation.  So, knowing your planned usage is an important part of any such decision.

I want it to be a workstation for everyday use and some programming.


I have already donated $75.00 to Mandrake but if it is good enough I guess I will donate to somewere else.

I've been using Mandrake since version 7.0 and haven't seen a good reason to switch to another distro.  APT is a great tool for Debian updates but URPMI which is what Mandrake uses has come light years ahead of what it was back in the 8.0 days.  Basically URPMI works in the same manner as APT meeting dependencies very well.  

I personally wouldn't upgrade from 8.0 to 10.0 especially if you are a KDE user.  KDE 3.2 (wasn't it 3.2?) broke the menues of anything prior.  If it were me I would save anything you must have and then reformat.  Also Mandrake 10.1 went gold on the 15th.  I would expect in the next day or so ISOs should be available to club members or you can do a network install which is quite painless provided you have a decent connection.

Currently using Mandrake 10.1 Community

-I have Mandrake 8.2, can I get it upgraded to 10?
-Any "must have" software?
-Any other ideas?

Why would you pay for Linux? The install ISO's for many distros can be downloaded for free (the original reason for many people moving to Linux). Just download them, burn them and install the OS on your computer.

Try here: http://www.linuxiso.org

I'd personally install Redhat Fedora or SuSE - Suse if you prefer more GUI based admin or Fedora for more flat file based admin. Both are free and have free updates

ETA: As to the upgrading to Mandrake 10 - just download it from the site listed above and install that if you want to stay with Mandrake. No cost involved

Quoted: Why would you pay for Linux? The install ISO's for many distros can be downloaded for free (the original reason for many people moving to Linux). Just download them, burn them and install the OS on your computer. Try here: http://www.linuxiso.org I'd personally install Redhat Fedora or SuSE - Suse if you prefer more GUI based admin or Fedora for more flat file based admin. Both are free and have free updates

+1. I dig Fedora, myself. Yum rocks!!!

Quoted: Anyway, I can get an HP computer (filled with junk, spyware, ect) cheap. It has 256mb ram (will upgrade) and a 30g hd. (That is all the specifics that I remember but the rest was good). I want to wipe the HD and install Linux. Here are my questions:

Make sure it is really, really cheap.  Yours sounds like it might be a Pentium III and I don't think I'd pay much more than $50 for one.  New PCs are so cheap it is barely worth buying used unless the used machine has some special features like upgraded video or SCSI.

PS.  I will use P-III machines and am trying to set up a couple of old P-III machines for home use.

GunLvr

As a fellow Mandrake user I think I answered the upgrade question but as to additional software, what exactly do you want to do with your box?  Are you looking at running any kind of server, using it as a firewall or just as a desktop.

Server software:

Apache (of course)   Web server
ProFTP                   FTP server
MySQL                    Database
Exim                       Mail server (everyone uses Sendmail but it is a bitch to configure)
SpamAssassin         Spam filtering

If you are running a dynamic type website follow a LAMP type setup
Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP/Perl

Desktop/Workstation/Firewall

Firestarter               Front end for firewall using netfilter/IPTables
nmap                      Port scanner to be used on your systems ONLY
Ethereal                     Packet sniffer to help identify network traffic
EtherApe                More of a network traffic identifier

Firefox                     Web browser
Thunderbird              Email
GAIM                       Instant messenger
XMMS                      MP3 player
MPlayer/Totem         Multimedia players

Much of this is part of the distribution but may not be installed by default.  With Mandrake provided you have your install sources all set up you can install software simply with the following command:

As root
urpmi name_of_program_to_install

Quoted: Why would you pay for Linux? The install ISO's for many distros can be downloaded for free

Same reason some people donate to their church -- to support the community.

Quoted: Ask me tomorrow. I am a debian developer.

NO LIE??  I used Debian for YEARS!

Awesome!

tag

You have to register your copy of Mandrake to get the updater to work, registrations is like $20.00/year per machine. Aside from some quirks about installing from SCSI CD-ROMs, Mandrake 10.x is pretty decent for a workstation. I use Fedora for sources, but the distro is a little rough for my tastes, tho that can be fixed easily enough.

Slackware is the bomb for nearly any server role; but you have to know what you're doing to set it up.  

Xandros is another pay as you go workstation-oriented distro that is stone-simple to setup, and it is has a very no-nonsense interface.

Morphix and Knoppix are awesome distros; I often use them for troubleshooting otherwise unbootable PCs. (There is a Windows-based LiveCD called BartPE that is also very nice if you have to get at data stuck on a RAID array built in Windows, also very useful for Virus/Trojan/Spyware/AdWare scanning)

Smoothwall has been a fun hobby for me these past two years; highly recommended for a firewall distro.

I have SuSE Linux Professional 8.1  .  I had it running on an HP which I've sold (put it back to Windows ME for the buyer)  and I've gone to MAC.  If anyone wants to fiddle with Linux, the one I have is yours for the asking.  They probably are up to 8.3 by now, but if you have high speed net, their updates were alwqays free.  E-mail me.  Somehting like a 1911 mag in trade to defray shipping cost would do it.

You have to pay to get the Mandrake updater to work yes but you don't have to use the updater to update your system.  Just update manually using the Mandrake update utility or create a cron job to check every day.  Not really an issue.

Suse is now at version 9.2 by the way.

It's nice to know there are more of my ARFCOM bro's using linux!

Quoted: Quoted: Anyway, I can get an HP computer (filled with junk, spyware, ect) cheap. It has 256mb ram (will upgrade) and a 30g hd. (That is all the specifics that I remember but the rest was good). I want to wipe the HD and install Linux. Here are my questions: Make sure it is really, really cheap.  Yours sounds like it might be a Pentium III and I don't think I'd pay much more than $50 for one.  New PCs are so cheap it is barely worth buying used unless the used machine has some special features like upgraded video or SCSI. PS.  I will use P-III machines and am trying to set up a couple of old P-III machines for home use. GunLvr

It is FREE!