At Sun, 16 Jan 2011 10:19:54 -0500 CentOS mailing list centos@centos.org wrote:

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-----Original Message----- From: centos-bounces@centos.org [mailto:centos-bounces@centos.org] On Behalf Of Parshwa Murdia Sent: Sunday, January 16, 2011 9:52 To: centos@centos.org Subject: [CentOS] Troubles for an non-IT beginner

hello,

I am absolutely new, means from non-IT sector but have attraction (developed recently) towards linux and have chosen the centos distro for the installation as an OS in my home PC for personal use. I went to the page:

http://isoredirect.centos.org/centos/5/isos/i386/

But don't understand amongst the variety of options there. I also don't know the technical terms like md5, etc...., can

i386 is for older technology PCs. The x86_64 is for newer PCs

You can ignore the other folders and files.

...

one directly give me the link for down loadable Cent OS 5.5 (which is latest) and better if it is the torrent download. I guess there would be only one file of .iso format which is to

The DVD version would be only one ISO, the CD version will use multiple 1 of X.

The x86_64 release takes two DVDs, but the second DVD just has OpenOffice language packs.

...

be burned and installed. If I am wrong, please let me know.

--

Regards, Parshwa Murdia

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How can I know that I have to use i386 or x86_64, my machine is not very

new though

Do some research on your computer - who makes it, what model number, what cpu, how much ram?

i386 is 32bit, x86_64 is 64 bit. If you have 4 gigs of ram or more, you'll likely want the 64bit.

On Sun, Jan 16, 2011 at 6:40 PM, Digimer linux@alteeve.com wrote:

If your computer has a 64-bit CPU then you can use x86_64. This makes it

easier to access memory above 3GB, and many new applications are now available in 64-bit. If your CPU is older, it may only support 32-bit. In this case, you must use the i386 (i686) release. Some commercially ported applications, like Adobe's Flash player, work best in 32-bit.

My computer is 32 bit and has 2 GB of RAM with 250 GB of HDD which I want to have with Cent OS.

If you are completely new to Linux, may I suggest you start with Fedora or Ubuntu? CentOS is a wonderful distrobution, but it is aimed at somewhat more advanced used. It is also designed for servers, so the software is much older (and more well tested). One of the downsides of this is that the latest version, 5.5, may not support some of your newer hardware.

Fedora and Ubuntu doesn't have stability and for all the family members, once they are familiar with, they should work at that but Fedora expires soon (searched at net), so for stability and all factors, Cent OS would be good, i Guess so! It could be used for home PCs too, I hope so.

In Linux, each distribution focuses on particular needs. Most generally, you have a split between server-oriented distributions (CentOS, RHEL, Debian, etc) and desktop-oriented distributions (Fedora, Ubuntu, etc). The newer distributions will have much better hardware support, applications with the latest features and will generally be much more user friendly.

Enjoy your venture into Linux! I came to Linux about ten years ago and have never looked back. After ten prior years in the Windows world, Linux made computers fun again. :)

Can you provide me the direct link for torrent of Cent OS 5.5 (one CD is enough?)

On 01/16/2011 01:43 PM, Parshwa Murdia wrote:

On Sun, Jan 16, 2011 at 6:40 PM, Digimer <linux@alteeve.com mailto:linux@alteeve.com> wrote:

If your computer has a 64-bit CPU then you can use x86_64. This makes it
easier to access memory above 3GB, and many new applications are now
available in 64-bit. If your CPU is older, it may only support 32-bit.
In this case, you must use the i386 (i686) release. Some commercially
ported applications, like Adobe's Flash player, work best in 32-bit.

My computer is 32 bit and has 2 GB of RAM with 250 GB of HDD which I want to have with Cent OS.

If you are completely new to Linux, may I suggest you start with Fedora
or Ubuntu? CentOS is a wonderful distrobution, but it is aimed at
somewhat more advanced used. It is also designed for servers, so the
software is much older (and more well tested). One of the downsides of
this is that the latest version, 5.5, may not support some of your newer
hardware.

Fedora and Ubuntu doesn't have stability and for all the family members, once they are familiar with, they should work at that but Fedora expires soon (searched at net), so for stability and all factors, Cent OS would be good, i Guess so! It could be used for home PCs too, I hope so.

In Linux, each distribution focuses on particular needs. Most generally,
you have a split between server-oriented distributions (CentOS, RHEL,
Debian, etc) and desktop-oriented distributions (Fedora, Ubuntu, etc).
The newer distributions will have much better hardware support,
applications with the latest features and will generally be much more
user friendly.

Enjoy your venture into Linux! I came to Linux about ten years ago and
have never looked back. After ten prior years in the Windows world,
Linux made computers fun again. :)

Can you provide me the direct link for torrent of Cent OS 5.5 (one CD is enough?)

I'd have to search through the CentOS mirror list to find it. Given the geographic spread of the mirrors though, you would be best served to search yourself for one near you.

As for distro stability, it is true that Fedora/Ubuntu is not *as* stable as CentOS, but I use Fedora for my daily use laptop (I'm a sysadmin/programmer) and I've never had a major issue. By all means, try CentOS, but if you run into problems, please give Fedora or Ubuntu a try before abandoning Linux. They are much more up to date and have a much nicer user experience and hardware support.

On 01/16/2011 02:35 PM, Parshwa Murdia wrote:

On Sun, Jan 16, 2011 at 8:32 PM, Digimer <linux@alteeve.com mailto:linux@alteeve.com> wrote:

I'd have to search through the CentOS mirror list to find it. Given the
geographic spread of the mirrors though, you would be best served to
search yourself for one near you.

Ok.

By all means, try CentOS, but if you run into problems, please give
Fedora or Ubuntu a try
before abandoning Linux. They are much more up to date and have a much
nicer user experience and hardware support.

Means, it is pretty sure or the chances are there that problems would come when we would use Cent OS??

Well, the user programs will be a fair bit older. So things like OpenOffice, Firefox, Thunderbird and what have you will be missing features now considered "standard" in modern systems.

The kernel is, if I recall correctly, 2.6.18 that has only been patched to fix bugs and security features. The modern kernel is 2.6.37, and a *lot* of hardware has come along in the years in between. For example, it's unlikely that things like bluetooth, most wireless interfaces, modern video cards, etc, will work.

Another option, if you are concerned about the short life cycle of Fedora, would be to look at Ubuntu 10.04 LTS. The 'LTS' means "Long Term Support" and will be supported for a fairly long time. 10.04 was released last April, so it will be quite up to date.

On 1/16/11 1:32 PM, Digimer wrote:

As for distro stability, it is true that Fedora/Ubuntu is not *as* stable as CentOS, but I use Fedora for my daily use laptop (I'm a sysadmin/programmer) and I've never had a major issue. By all means, try CentOS, but if you run into problems, please give Fedora or Ubuntu a try before abandoning Linux. They are much more up to date and have a much nicer user experience and hardware support.

Note that ubuntu has an 'LTS" (long term support) version that splits the difference between the really fast moving releases and ones that go unchanged for a decade. I was pleasantly surprised a short time ago when I fired up my dual-boot laptop into an old install of ubuntu 8.04LTS and it asked if I wanted to upgrade to the newer 10.4LTS release, then proceeded to do it, automatically and successfully.

There are, however, big differences in administration commands between Ubuntu and Centos - but if you are just starting out that probably doesn't matter.

On 1/16/11 12:43 PM, Parshwa Murdia wrote:

Fedora and Ubuntu doesn't have stability and for all the family members, once they are familiar with, they should work at that but Fedora expires soon (searched at net), so for stability and all factors, Cent OS would be good, i Guess so! It could be used for home PCs too, I hope so.

CentOS will work for desktop use but it is not ideal, especially as it gets older. With only a few exceptions, the support updates have only bug and security fixes to the package versions shipped in the original release of the major distribution version number without adding new features. This is a good thing if you run servers with a lot of your own programming that depends on the exact behavior of the libraries from that version, but it is a lot less important for an individual user that wants the newest features from all of the available packages.

If you still want CentOS and aren't in a big hurry, you might wait for the CentOS6 release which should be coming soon. CentOS 5.x has packages from around the Fedora 6 era. CentOS 6 should jump that up to be similar to Fedora 14.

At Sun, 16 Jan 2011 18:31:04 +0100 CentOS mailing list centos@centos.org wrote:

On Sun, Jan 16, 2011 at 5:02 PM, Robert Heller heller@deepsoft.com wrote:

...

i386 is for older technology PCs. The x86_64 is for newer PCs

How can I know that I have to use i386 or x86_64, my machine is not very new though.

How old is it?

...

The x86_64 release takes two DVDs, but the second DVD just has OpenOffice language packs.

It would be great if you get me the direct link like amongst http://ftp.iitm.ac.in/centos/5.5/isos/i386/ which one? Further, without knowledge only, it took only one CD when I downloaded Fedora, here more than one CD is there? We cannot do it later by using some command like yum. Please elaborate.

There is one DVD and a bunch of CDs. The files have names that identify what they are. You want the one with 'DVD' in its name (there is both a direct download and one link for torrent (the link name as 'torrent' in it). The ones in the above directory are for 32-bit machines (i386). Look in

http://ftp.iitm.ac.in/centos/5.5/isos/x86_64/

for the 64-bit versions.

You might want to start by downloading one of the Live CDs and using that to see if your system's hardware is supported.

On 01/16/11 10:40 AM, Parshwa Murdia wrote:

CentOS-5.5-i386-LiveCD-Release2.iso http://ftp.iitm.ac.in/centos/5.5/isos/i386/CentOS-5.5-i386-LiveCD-Release2.iso

is having complete OS 5.5 for 32 bit, but where could be obtained the torrent link for this particular file?

the LiveCD does not have the installer, its more of a demo.

the 7 CDs are the complete system, but you can install with just the first one by choosing the minimal packages, and then use yum to install other components.

At Sun, 16 Jan 2011 20:37:29 +0100 CentOS mailing list centos@centos.org wrote:

On Sun, Jan 16, 2011 at 8:03 PM, John R Pierce pierce@hogranch.com wrote:

the LiveCD does not have the installer, its more of a demo.

...

the 7 CDs are the complete system, but you can install with just the first one by choosing the minimal packages, and then use yum to install other components.

Then only the first one should I download, the first CD and rest are generally not required as you say, could later be installed too with the help of yum install?

In theory yes. The thing is the 'minimal install' would be very minimal indeed. Probably no GUI or any of the other 'goodies' you might expect to have. This would be fine for a fairly experienced IT person, but might be somewhat 'hard' for a novice user.

If can only manage to download *one* *CD* (either can't deal with a DVD or don't want to download 7 CDs), then you should download the netinstall CD. This is actually a very *small* iso image. Assuming you have a decent Internet connection, the netinstall CD can install packages directly from the Internet.

Or you can simply order the 7 CD set (or single DVD) from CheapBytes.com.

On 17/01/2011, at 8:38 AM, Parshwa Murdia wrote:

On Sun, Jan 16, 2011 at 8:03 PM, John R Pierce pierce@hogranch.com wrote:

the LiveCD does not have the installer, its more of a demo.

But then what's the utility of that live CD?

It doesn't need to be installed onto the hard-disk, so it basically a try-before-you-install sort of option. You'll be able to play with it to some degree, to see what it's like, but you'll find it to be much slower because its running from a CD.

Parshwa Murdia wrote:

On Sun, Jan 16, 2011 at 8:03 PM, John R Pierce <pierce@hogranch.com mailto:pierce@hogranch.com> wrote:

the LiveCD does not have the installer, its more of a demo.

But then what's the utility of that live CD?

It's meant to be used to test if the distro likes your system, or test if you like the distro.

Do you know what a 'Live CD' is? Boot your computer from it; it'll run the OS - but only in RAM or from the CD. It won't change anything on your hard drive.

On Sun, Jan 16, 2011 at 12:31 PM, Parshwa Murdia b330bkn@gmail.com wrote:

On Sun, Jan 16, 2011 at 5:02 PM, Robert Heller heller@deepsoft.com wrote:

...

...

i386 is for older technology PCs. The x86_64 is for newer PCs

How can I know that I have to use i386 or x86_64, my machine is not very new though.

...

The x86_64 release takes two DVDs, but the second DVD just has OpenOffice language packs.

It would be great if you get me the direct link like amongst http://ftp.iitm.ac.in/centos/5.5/isos/i386/ which one? Further, without knowledge only, it took only one CD when I downloaded Fedora, here more than one CD is there? We cannot do it later by using some command like yum. Please elaborate.

x86_64 is the common set of configurations and libraries for 64-bit computers. You should be able to look up the model number of your computer, or the motherboard and BIOS at boot time. Or you can grab a live CD, such as the CentOS 5.4 or Ubuntu live CD, and boot with the 64-bit live CD to determine if it's compatible with your system.

If you can, use 64-bit operating systems. There are some lingering compatibility issues, but you can make much more full use of your hardware with a 64-bit operating system, and virtualize a 32-bit operating sytem if you need it. You cannot do the reverse.

There are other architectures, which a home PC is unlikely to have. These include ARM (common in some fascinating netbooks and smartphones) and sparc (no longer in production, Sun computers got bought).

Wrong on the demise of the Sparc. Oracle just posted a massively record breaking TPC-C benchmark using their new Sparc T3 servers, something like 30 MILLION TPM.

Oracle has very publically committed to keeping SPARC strong, which is good news for those of us believe in diversity in the compute-verse. Even so, SPARC is also supported by Fujitsu, so as they... "[SPARC's] demise has been greatly exaggerated."

There's also Power aka PPC, formerly used in Apple Macintosh computers, and still used on large scale IBM AIX Unix servers, the Power series. These also are very high performance.

Just a minor nit here, POWER is not the same thing as PPC. PPC branched from POWER with strong influences from other vendors and technologies. PPC has since evolved into a mostly embedded platform, though later POWER releases are (mostly) compatible with PPC.

One of my former employers (a fossilized System V UNIX vendor) was part of the alliance that worked on a common UNIX implementation for this processor family, which sadly, never came to fruition.

thus John R Pierce spake:

On 01/18/11 10:51 PM, Geoff Galitz wrote:

...

...

Wrong on the demise of the Sparc. Oracle just posted a massively record breaking TPC-C benchmark using their new Sparc T3 servers, something like 30 MILLION TPM.

Oracle has very publically committed to keeping SPARC strong, which is good news for those of us believe in diversity in the compute-verse. Even so, SPARC is also supported by Fujitsu, so as they... "[SPARC's] demise has been greatly exaggerated."

...

There's also Power aka PPC, formerly used in Apple Macintosh computers, and still used on large scale IBM AIX Unix servers, the Power series. These also are very high performance.

Just a minor nit here, POWER is not the same thing as PPC. PPC branched from POWER with strong influences from other vendors and technologies. PPC has since evolved into a mostly embedded platform, though later POWER releases are (mostly) compatible with PPC.

the Power6 and Power7 have the altvec and most of the rest of the PPC extensions. when you compile for the power, if you are using gcc, you generally specify ppc as the architecture. With IBM's XLC, of course, you specify Power 4 or 5 or 6 or 7. Power 5 and later have extensive virtualization support native in the hardware, enabling LPAR partitioning of servers.

of course, this has nothing to do with centos, as far as I know, RH gave up supporting Power,

No, they didn't. RHEL6 is available for IBM Power:

http://docs.redhat.com/docs/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/6/html/Release_No...

and Sooshay was the official IBM distribution. with Novell imploding, I'm not sure what happened with Suse.

On 16/01/2011 16:33, JohnS wrote:

On Sun, 2011-01-16 at 10:55 -0500, Adam Tauno Williams wrote:

...

You can ignore md5 for now - they are just for verifying that the file you've downloaded has not been modified.

You should not tell him to ignore it but tell him how to use it and what it is for.

"md5sum my.iso" Validate the ISO Image and compare it against the checksum on the down load site. If the checksum is wrong trash the ISO and fetch another.

+1 I was about to explain this, but as usual, someone beat me to it :)

John

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