[Welly Wu]

For those of you who are contemplating Linux, please take a look at these introduction to Red Hat Fedora CORE 4 SELinux websites:

Red Hat Magazine: http://www.redhat.com/magazine/
"Meet Fedora CORE 4:" http://www.redhat.com/magazine/008jun05/features/fc4/
Fedora status report: http://www.redhat.com/magazine/008ju...fedora_status/
Fedora NEWS: http://www.fedoraNEWS.ORG/
Fedora NEWS Weekly News Issue 1: http://fedoranews.org/wiki/Fedora_Weekly_News_Issue_1

There are a few interesting books for those of you who are book nerds like myself:

Red Hat Fedora & Enterprise Linux 4 BIBLE

Red Hat Enterprise Linux & Fedora 4: The Complete Reference

Red Hat Fedora 4 Unleashed

Sams Teach Yourself Red Hat Desktop 4 All In One

I am reserving all of these books over the telephone right now at my workplace. They are all going to be published and made available to the general public next month. I will try to overview all of the books and read the first along with the last chapters of each book. Then, I will post my impressions as to which book I feel is right for both novices, computer undergraduate / graduate students, and Linux veterans contemplating Red Hat. I will buy only one, but I will try to keep everybody who is interested in RHFC4 SELinux abreast of the strengths and weaknesses of each book.

 

[Welly Wu]

http://www.distrowatch.com has RHFC4 SELinux at #3 Linux distribution!

 

[pennylane]

Welly Wu,

I'll be very interested in hearing what you think of those books (I will probably end up buying a linux book in the next month or so).

One more question regarding running things with WINE and such (ie, foobar). I imagine it is slower than running things meant for linux. Is it noticeably slower? Is it a big deal for programs like foobar that don't take up too much of your system's resources?

Also, I plan on installing the linux for 64 bit CPUs... Is that version of linux 64-bit? If so, will using WINE, or any other program like like that give any problems the programs are 32-bit (I would think they're 32-bit at least)?

 

[Welly Wu]

Actually, with RHFC4 SELinux, you have different options for running Microsoft Windows (or Apple OS X) applications:

XEN: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/Research/SRG...xen/index.html which is a multiple OS independent piece of innovative software that is included in RHFC4 SELinux. It runs applications at near native OS speeds

WINE: I haven't seen the RHFC4 SELinux version available yet, but my experience with RHFC3 SELinux + WINE is that it runs Windows applications just as fast or faster than in Windows itself

Both RHFC4 SELinux and XEN / WINE have 64bit single core Intel EMT64 or AMD Athlon64 support along with dual core Intel EMT64 and AMD Athlon64/X2 support built right in. If you have the money and hardware, you could build yourself a dual core 64bit computer that can run Microsoft Windows on one processor along with RHFC4 SELinux on the other processor at the same time using XEN virtualization. Or, you could run pure RHFC4 SELinux on two cores at 64bits each and utilize the symmetrical multi-processing 2.6.11 kernel that can support well over 8 GB of RAM.

 

[pennylane]

My friend said he had trouble because to wipe the master boot record, he had to reformat the entire drive. He said because of this and other reasons, upgrading linux or replacing it entirely was a pain when it was on the same hard drive as windows. He had this issue with fedora core 3.

It would be much more convenient for me because of hard drive size to install linux on the same hard drive as windows. Will this be a problem in fc4?

How about other flavors of linux?

How do you replace/upgrade linux? Was it a problem in fc3?

 

[Stephonovich]

Quote:

Originally Posted by pennylane My friend said he had trouble because to wipe the master boot record, he had to reformat the entire drive. He said because of this and other reasons, upgrading linux or replacing it entirely was a pain when it was on the same hard drive as windows. He had this issue with fedora core 3. It would be much more convenient for me because of hard drive size to install linux on the same hard drive as windows. Will this be a problem in fc4? How about other flavors of linux? How do you replace/upgrade linux? Was it a problem in fc3?

Wiping the MBR shouldn't be a problem... from Linux...
Code:

[left]dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hdX bs=512 count=1[/left]

Or you could boot with one of the many tools available that basically does that. Or if you have a Windows CD (2K and XP anyway), use the Administrative Console and use fixmbr and fixboot.

As for dual booting with Windows, no, it's not a problem. It's usually best to install Windows first, as it has a nasty habit of overwriting the MBR without telling you, and also insists on being in the first partition of the HD. IIRC, Fedora includes GParted, which can re-size partitions for you (and has a GUI - parted can do the same thing, but it's console only, and can be interesting to use), so you don't have to bother with 3rd party utilities. Basically, install Windows, then Linux. Or you can do like I do and have a seperate HD for Linux. As a bonus, set apart a small partition on the 2nd disk to use as the swap space for Windows, which should give you a decent speed boost.

 

[Welly Wu]

Quote:

Originally Posted by pennylane Welly Wu, I'll be very interested in hearing what you think of those books (I will probably end up buying a linux book in the next month or so). One more question regarding running things with WINE and such (ie, foobar). I imagine it is slower than running things meant for linux. Is it noticeably slower? Is it a big deal for programs like foobar that don't take up too much of your system's resources? Also, I plan on installing the linux for 64 bit CPUs... Is that version of linux 64-bit? If so, will using WINE, or any other program like like that give any problems the programs are 32-bit (I would think they're 32-bit at least)?

I have decided upon my RHFC4 SELinux book: http://search.barnesandnoble.com/boo...72327074&itm=6 .

I chose this book because it is targeted toward new Linux users who have absolutely no background experience other than Microsoft Windows and it is the least expensive + the shortest book available at my work. I have begun reading it and so far, I recommend it as a good, short, and easy to understand in plain English guide to RHFC4 SELinux.

On another note, RHFC4 SELinux is fully compatible with dual processor and dual core 64bit Intel ENT64 + Pentium D along with AMD Athlon 64 X2 processors. The 64bit coded applications are fairly representative as well. Microsoft Windows has just gone to 64bit, but the driver support and hardware compatibility along with the applications needs to get worked on. They will do it. Microsoft Windows Vista is going to be expected to support multi-core 64bit processors and a memory address space in excess of 4GB.

My dream is to custom build a desktop PC for Christmas 2006. I feel that will be the right time because dual-core, 64bit AMD processors, double layer DVD burners, DDR2 SDRAM, PCI-Express, 10/100/1000 GB ethernet, SATA II support, 802.17 WPA2, and the expectation for software developers to rev up for the sale of Microsoft Windows Vista (64bit code, multi-core awareness, etc.) will be all there and the price will be affordable (i.e., < $2,000 USD). My Toshiba Satellite 1405-S171 is already 3.5 years old. I will buy 4 SATA HDDs of equal sizes: 1. Microsoft Windows Vista, 2. Red Hat Fedora CORE SELinux, 3. FreeBSD, 4. Apple OS X? Of course, I will buy textbooks at my work for each one. This is not for gaming but for intense learning with respect to building my first desktop PC (using an expertise guide such as ArsTechnica.Com system guides and filling in my own hardware to achieve this demanding multi-OS dream) and for learning about multiple OSes. So, $2K for the hardware and software (Microsoft Windows Vista, Office Professional 12, Apple OS X) in Christmas 2006. I feel that is an appropriate amount to allocate to achieve my dream of learning more about computers.