1. Buy a good PCI/Video card, not expensive. A generic S3 Virge/DX with 4Mb RAM should be adequate, even if you plan to play Quake.
2. Sound, if you equip your computer with it, is most easily installed, in my experience, for Creative/Soundslaster Products. The NEWEST should be avoided unless you like to spend a few hours on the web finding beta drivers and instructions. (No SBLive, get a good AWE 64 for the ISA Bus and it should work out all right.) Save sndconfig for one of your later steps. And if you get some weird error messages running it from a console or desktop, try booting into single-user mode and running sndconfig.
2.1 With hardware in place, Run Install. I recommend you select "Custom" or else run Upgrade off the CD right after install and make sure the network management workstation stuff gets loaded.
3. Get X running and kfm(by clicking on the "Home" icon on the panel at the bottom of the screen). Point kfm to http://www.linux-mandrake.com and look on the left side of the screen for the "Updates". Go there, then find a mirror, still using kfm. Once you are where the updates are listed, open another window of kfm with your home directory. Select all the update files you want and drag them to your home directory. Yes, you'll get "Copying files" instead of "Downloading" messages, but I believe you'll think this is prety cool. Those files are .rpm.gz so you will have to click on console which will bring a command line window up at your home directory. (Don't do that until the copy is finished.) DISCONNECT from the Internet (by closing the kfm window or by stopping Kppp).
Then enter
[noise @ /home/noise]$ su
password: *give the root password here*
[root@ /home/noise]# gunzip *.gz
Logout
login as root
return to your user's home directory and open the home folder there
Single-click the first .rpm file. KPackage will open a window and you can click "Install" after ticking "replace files". On printtool, also unclick "Check Dependencies"
After all of this, you should have a fairly stable system and stable Netscape to work with.
4. The setup for remote SAMBA printers does not work. I haven't
had time to verify if it is the "filter" script in /var/spool/lpd/lp (or
whatever printer name you use in place of lp) or the script filter that
is copied to /usr/bin/smbprint. I have a fix, an *ugly* one,
where I add these lines to
.config in the /var/spool/lpd/printername directory
server=remoteservername
service=remoteprinternameonserver
In my case that was
server=TESTRIG
service=HPBIG
for \\TESTRIG\HPBIG as accessed by the windows machines in the LAN
ALSO, the /var/spool/lpd/lp/filter file will need editing. In the "if" toward the end of the file where it checks for "SMB", change the text
${FPIDIR}
to
/usr/bin
so the new filter added to the filter path will be /usr/bin/smbprint
5. I haven't found any package that will masquerade other LAN machines onto the internet. Supposedly it can be done through ipchains scripts, but I haven't made any work yet. I did use PaNTs which is supposed to work for RedHat 6 but I can't get anything through it on port 80 (web access).
SO far, those are the annoyances, gotchas, etc. Naturally, the little caveats such as "don't go surfing/chatting as root" I have omitted.
Civileme
John Aldrich wrote:
Hey, all.... just picked up my copy of Mandrake 6.0 from the computer store
(figured I might as well, since no one is going to burn me a copy of the ISO
image <G>)
My machine will be a Dual-PPro 200 with 192 Megs of ram and about 10.7 Gigs
of drivespace. I haven't picked up a video card yet, but that's the next
purchase, along with a "generic" PCI ethernet card.
Question is, what should I look out for with regards to installation
headaches on this system? I understand Mandrake has a 6.1 version out now
(not available in the local stores, apparently.)
This is really going to be a "training" machine for me to teach myself Linux
Admin skills. Anything I should watch out for with this?
Thanks...
John
-- Civileme Say: "He who buy on leading edge know what it feel like to slide down razor blade of life."
