On Sat, 31 May 2003, Rick Orr wrote: > Over the years I have managed to FAX from: DOS [3.3-6.22], > WIN 3.1/95/98, EFAX & FAXmachine(s) ... all methods worked.
We generally need to fax something on the order of twice a year or so. I've faxed from DOS, Red Hat 5.1, and the HP500C fax/copier/printer. Other than that, my wife took the stuff to an Office Max, Staples, Kinkos type place. Now THAT's the easiest way to fax... get your wife to do it! ;-) > Since I am not frustrated by my WINdoze98SE [highly customized ver] > & I have this 90Mhz/64MbRAM/1.2Mb HDD/[assorted CDRoms & video cards] > puter lurking about it would seem I need to get frustrated by a Linux > install :-) > > I have a CD with RedHat 5.2. > > Should I go with that for a start or??? > > Any pointers appreciated [no I will not "deltree\windows" on this > present machine] ... Sure, you *can* install RedHat 5.2 but you'll find it more "challenging" than one of the later distributions. Plus, anything you want to run that's not on the install CD will be much more difficult to find. RedHat 5.2 was current about '97 or so and is no longer supported. RedHat 6.x has also been declared obsolete by RedHat... it was just this spring that they stopped issuing errata, security updates, etc. for 6.2, and they plan on "end of life'ing" all 7.x revisions at the end of this year. That said, 5.x was about the last major revision where it wasn't automatically assumed you'd be installing Gnome or KDE. With a 90Mhz machine you'll do fine with X and a lightweight window manager, but you certainly don't want a Desktop Environment weighing you down. You could install Netscape 4.x for those times when you need it, but you can get by most of the time with NS 3.04... I have PINE set to launch Arachne when I click on mail links, but Arachne 1.66 is able to handle fewer and fewer pages as time goes on. If you do decide to go with 5.2, anything you install should be updated to at least the last version available at http://www.redhat.com/support/errata/archives/rh52-errata-general.html Later Linux distributions do better at autodetecting your hardware, so are easier to install... but the later the version, the more bloat it wants to install. The 5.x versions could still put a basic OS, a few tools, and some X stuff in about 90MB. I'd personally recommend going with 6.2 though. It's better at detecting your hardware, and it's only been "obsolete" for a few months, so isn't quite "caveman" yet. I think you can put a fairly minimalist 6.2 (with X) install in about 105MB. Same goes for the security/errata updates... before going online with the new install, upgrade everything that needs it to the latest available on the redhat site. (Servers open to the world need to be updated even beyond that.) Find out which daemons are running (there will probably be some on by default). # netstat -tupan This will be the most important security step you take: Look for "LISTEN" after issuing that command, and shut down any services you don't need. (Most of them) Plus there are still a few of us around running 6.2, so answers are more abundant than for 5.x. ;-) -- Steve Ackman http://twoloonscoffee.com (Need green beans?) http://twovoyagers.com (glass, linux & other stuff)
