[valis]

okay, I've got it narrowed down to fedora core 8.0. I've got 3 options; 386, 86-64, and ppc.

As the last 2 are 64 bit and apple respectively, am I correct in assuming I want to d/l the 386 version? Seems to me there should be something in between, but that's just me.

Plans are to d/l, burn an iso, partition the drive, and create a dual bootable system.

tia,

v

[valis]

okay, got that sorted out....next question; planning on using 10-15 gigs as the partition; that should be sufficient, wouldn't it?

If not, what amount is recommended on a dual boot system?

thanks,

v

[lotuseclat79]

Hi Tim,

Linux usually needs at least two partitions, and three:
/boot partition
/ root partition
swap partition
i.e. at least a / root and swap partition where /boot is part of the / root partition.

I have two disks (actually 4, but the two 40GB disks are slaved each to an 80GB disk):
Disk /dev/sdc: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x60276028

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdc1 * 1 9728 78140128+ 7 HPFS/NTFS

Disk /dev/sdd: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x5fd95fd9

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdd1 * 1 13 104391 83 Linux
/dev/sdd2 14 9538 76509562+ 83 Linux
/dev/sdd3 9539 9729 1534207+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris

You can do the math, and I assume you have only one disk (Note the Id for swap=83, otherwise=83 for the /boot and / root partitions.

You might just checkout the links in member saikee's posts in this forum for informaiton on dual-boot, Grub, etc.

-- Tom

[valis]

question:

will the install itself create the partitions, or do I need to do that manually? I'm going to *borrow* partition magic from a buddy of mine, but I'll only have it for one night.....so it looks like 10 gigs should be plenty.....and yes, I do only have the one drive, haven't had a reason to get a second one in there yet, but as I'm also working on getting vhs digitized, methinks I'm going to need another one rather quickly.

appreciate the assistance, tom.....linux is something I am totally unfamiliar with, not even having sat down in front of a linux box, so I gots me some learning to do. Should be fun, and I was pointed at fedora core so I could tinker with it and bust it and then fix it ......

[lotuseclat79]

Hi Tim,

You'll probably have to resize your windows partition first, then allocate your Linux partitions and point partition magic to the partition(s) you allocated for Linux - is my guess - never having actually done it myself.

Fedora uses SELinux contributed by NSA, so the security should be fairly good - uh, why FC8?
I thought I saw a notice recently that FC9 was available.

And, when Ubuntu 8.04 LTS Hardy Heron gets released on April 24th, you can sign up at either web site for Ubuntu or KUbuntu, and get 1 of each distribution snail mailed to you for free (to add to your budding Live CD collection - no music included! ).

Also, if you go with Fedora there is the fedoraforum.org to ask questions about it.

-- Tom

[valis]

went with fc8 as fc9 is still more beta than anything else.....besides, I'm just stepping into the pool now, and this will give me something to play with, plus the added bonus of learning how to do an upgrade a few months down the road.

I think all I'm going to have to do is partition the windows drive to ~10 gigs, maybe less, for linux, and then use linux to create the other three partitions necessary, as you said.....I've got it downloaded, thinking about using knoppix's qtpart to partition windows, but a bit leery of it. Partition Magic has worked for me in the past a few hundred times, so I'll probably just do that.

We'll see. If you don't hear from me in for a while, you know it didn't work. Probably partition it either Wednesday (no night class) or next weekend, so I can return the PM to the owner.

Thanks again for your help, Tom, this is something I'm looking forward to.

[valis]

tom:

was reading your fantastic tutorials on the iptables command (very well done, I may add), and am curious as to how that pertains to fedora core. For that matter, rather curious about the main differences between, say, ubuntu and fedora core. From what I've read, they seem pretty similar on the outside, but then again, so do ford and chevy, and I have yet to see a chevy take a 351 cleveland and make it work.

here's a good breakdown, and I'm assuming it's accurate, which re-enforces my belief that fedora is what I want; something I can tinker with. I am, however, concerned about security, especially as I am a malware expert on another forum, and have no desire to fix my own pc while I'm busy fixing others.

thanks,

tim

[lotuseclat79]

Hi Tim,

Different strokes my friend - good link. I just know what I am doing - as for n00bs - yeah, I was one once.

Uh, on Fedora (FC3), I installed Guarddog - I liked the DMZ that you could setup.

Now, I run exclusively on an Ubuntu Linux Live CD. With 1GB RAM, my security is pretty much iptables. Since the file system on a Live CD is built in memroy along with the OS load, none of my 4 disks are mounted which serves to keep them unexposed to the Internet when I am connected (56k dialup). I can further spin them down with the sdparm command which I had to download from one of the Ubuntu repositories.

-- Tom

[valis]

yeah, I got that from reading your tutorials; you keep everything in ram, which is volatile, so when no juice, everything goes away. I've backed up my drivers and keep a back up disk of all my data anyhow, so I'm good to go there. Will probably try it out on a spare rig here at work first, once I get some time.

Basically just want to know if my setup (behind a router, ran the port scans, and I'm invisible to the internet as well) and the usual windows-based security measures is going to open up a honeypot for the linux side.....are there apps for firewalls that exist for fedora core? I would assume that there are, but going to have to do some looking for them, I think.

thanks again for all your help tom. Can't really say this isn't fun, as it's new and challenging.

[lotuseclat79]

Hi Tim,

The Guarddog link in my previous msg is one such firewall app that worked for me on Fedora.

Firestarter is another Gui oriented open source firewall for Linux - not just Ubuntu.
From Wikipedia:
Firestarter is a free and open source personal firewall tool that uses the Netfilter (iptables/ipchains) system built into the Linux kernel. It has the ability to control both inbound and outbound connections. Firestarter provides a graphical interface for configuring firewall rules and settings. It also provides real-time monitoring of all network traffic for the system. Firestarter also provides facilities for port forwarding, internet connection sharing and DHCP service.

Firestarter is licensed under the GNU General Public License.

Also, checkout Gnome Lokkit which is RedHat related (at least at that link for Fedora 8).

-- Tom

[kickback999]

I completely agree with that link you posted. Anyway,
I was once in the same boat as you. I installed fedora core 3 without ever before having seen a Linux desktop. Even then it was a painless task; just as easy if not easier than installing windows.
Fedora (they dropped core from the name a while ) has the SELinux firewall built in, which is pretty good, also if you feel the need for an anti virus (old Windows habits die hard) there is avg free for linux.
Firstly, I would recommend the dvd installer version if you have the time to download it as it includes pretty much everything you might need on a pc.
If you haven't already sorted out the partitions, just use partition magic to seperate free space so its not in any partition (the maximum amount of space you are willing to spare, but 10 - 15gb should suffice) and then run the installation.
Everything therein is pretty much foolproof and the installation is very simple. When you get to the partitioning just tell it to "Use free space on selected drives and create default layout"

[valis]

thanks tom and kickback (hope that's just a moniker and not a suggestion).

I've got it d/l and iso'd onto a dvd; now just need to partition my hd for about 10 gigs or so; I read somewhere that they reco much more than that, but then again, that guy was using his laptop for linux about 99% of the time, and windows ONLY for office presentations, so that's probably why he had his partitions set so high.

Do I need to create all the partitions necesssary for linux now, or can I create them after the install?

[lotuseclat79]

Hi Tim,

I think you can probably do either per what kickback said.

-- Tom

[kickback999]

The install will handle that.
You should come to a screen asking about the partitions: whether you want them to use all the hard disk or all the free space, or if you want you can customise the partitions. If you select use all free space it will sort out all 3 Linux partitions automatically. e.g. Boot is pretty small anyway, It will give typically about 1gb to the swap partition and the rest to root.

[valis]

just remembered that you can shrink the partition in recovery console. <slaps forehead>

I'll probably allocate 20 gigs for linux, then figure out how to partition it whilst in the linux ox for all the ext3 partitions I need.

I should probably keep this off the internet until I get the iptables figured out; dunno what viruses are out there for linux, but while I have a pretty good router, the only firewall I have is software, and while it's fine on my windows network, I have no desire to create a linux honeypot while I fart around trying to figure it out.....