"JJG" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > OK, I see all good messages here and I believe that everyone is in touch > with what I am trying to do and my newbie mistakes.
Hey, we're all in touch with our inner newbie here. :) > Let me start out with that I have attempted Linux before. I wanted to share > my broadband connection across my LAN and learn Apache. I did a bunch of > research on IPchains, read up on samba, spent more time on learning "using > linux as a firewall" than I care to admit. As you suspected, I went for > "the latest and greatest distro" which at the time was Red hat 7.0, only one > week after release. I read the install was "much improved" and I "would be > up and running in no time". (Ha! :) Bummer you ran into problems. With a little bit of preparation, you should be able to get some quicker results this time around. Hopefully, you still remember some of that stuff. > I read up on partitioning and I thought I knew what partitions I wanted for > my application. Redhat thought it new better and picked partitions (mount > points?) different than I had expected. I disregarded redhat and went with > the partitions I thought best. There are a lot of schools on partitioning, and some folks probably get pretty excited about the subject. There is debate about how big exactly various partitions should be. But first, let's keep in mind WHY you want to partition. Typically, you want AT LEAST two partitions. One for swap space, and another for the Linux filesystem. SWAP: The recommendation I've seen (and use) for size of the swap space is 2 X RAM. Apparently, any less really doesn't gain you anything. Up to 1 X RAM size, and Linux is just mirroring physical memory. This is something that has been optimized, fixed but has apparently become an issue in the latest kernels again. If anyone cares, I can try to find some references for this, but I think 2 X RAM size is a good general recommendation. Maybe more if your system is tight on RAM. Keep in mind, if memory and swap fill, you won't get much done, so better to err for more here. In our LUG, some guys routinely throw a half-gig at swap for heavy production systems with the thought that running out is NOT a good thing. Too little is a bad thing, too much is wasteful. LINUX FILESYSTEM: You COULD put everything else on one large Linux (ext2) partition. If you have a lot of space on a drive and just want to keep things simple, this works fine. The problem is when you fill up various parts of the filesystem, odd and unwonderful things begin happening. Filling up root (/), in particular, is a bad idea. So a common recommendation is to split various parts of the filesystem that are prone to filling up into separate areas (partitions) so they don't step on each other. The guidelines I've used are for each of the following to be split off: 1. swap - HAS to be separate 2. / (root) - Should be large enough to accomodate some growth, but not overly huge. Linux isn't that big. 3. /var - Lots of things like printing and mail spool files and log files go here. 500MB if I've got lots of disk space, but 250MB generally seems to be PLENTY, especially if you make sure log files don't grow out of control. 4. /tmp - Temporary file space, used by various programs. 200MB is usually plenty. Again, I give it 500 if I'm on a huge drive. 5. /home - User home directories. This is where user files get stored. By default, if you're using Samba to store user files on the server, this is where a user's "My Documents" will get pointed (assuming you've set it all up that way). In my case, that's where the vast majority of disk space gets used. This is also the "most important" stuff, so I want it backed up and protected. Consider allocating most or all of your SCSI RAID space for /home. 6. /usr - "Non-core" system and program files. If you're going to be putting a lot of stuff (X etc.) on, /usr might get fairly large. Balance between /usr and /home based on how much you'll work at the actual Linux console versus from Windows machines accessing it. If you do find that one partition or another is filling up, all is not lost. By using symbolic links (see "man ln"), you can point (link) a portion of the filesystem to another physical partition. For example, I once found that I had undershot on the size of /var, as Debian stores udpated packages under /var/cache/apt/archives and I'd been updating frequently. I simply moved the contents of /var/cache/apt/archives to /usr/shared/debian (my partition for /usr had a LOT of free space) and created a link via "ln -s /usr/shared/debian /var/cache/apt/archives". Everything works fine, and my package cache can grow to a huge size without filling up /var. Whatever you do, be sure to write it down somewhere in case something goes amiss. Print out the contents of /etc/fstab or do "mount -l" once it's all running. > Anyway, Linux installed but X failed. I > wasted many hours floundering around at the prompt trying desperately to > remember some Unix commands from school and fix X. That's a miserable way to learn. > I jumped from linux site > to linux site reading everything I could (Man, there are alot of Linux > sites, one could easily get lost). After much digging I came up with > something like "The diamond video card with a weitek chip is unsupported". > Don't quote me on those specifics but whatever video card I had was at > fault. Yeah, that's why I'd STRONGLY suggest reading up on the hardware you're considering BEFORE undertaking a Linux install. Some CAN work with some effort, and some simply WON'T. Others work like a champ. The low price of a new, supported card is well worth the frustration saved. > By this time I was about 3-4 times over the time allotted so I put the > project down for another day with more time. About a month or so later I > stumbled across a brand new linksys cable/dsl router for $5 at a garage sale > and the linux project was dead :) Hehe, Those lil' blue boxes ARE pretty impressive. > Sooo, here I am today. I no longer need internet sharing or ipchains > (unless linux can do it better than a linksys router and Zone alarm running > on all the clients.) "Better" is always one of those flag words. I like the fact that my Linux firewall/gateway can do pretty much whatever I want to with it. I've done some routing labs, VPN, and mutli-DMZ configurations for various projects that could ONLY be done with something like Linux. But for 99% of what people want, the little Linksys will probably be just fine. If nothing else, you can slowly work up to what you want to do with Linux, then replace the Linksys when you're comfortable (and not before). As to Zone Alarm, I do think that having those sorts of tools in one place (the firewall/gateway) rather than each desktop (PCs) makes good sense. Single point of management, reduced maintenance and software load on desktops, etc. If you're at all interested in security, Linux can provide some VERY impressive intrusion detection (IDS) and logging tools, either in line with, or replacing the Linksys as the gateway/firewall. > But I would still like to run samba for file sharing > and learn apache. That's a good target for getting started. The Samba/Windows interaction is interesting. Try not to commit to any one configuration until you've had a chance to play around a bit. I've got my systems set up so each user can move between any of three desktops, and all their preferences (including desktop settings) and files are available from each using the Windows "roaming profile" feature. > The best hardware I could scrounge up for the task is below: > > Agenda full tower case 300 watt power supply > > AIR 586EP Motherboard with onboard SCSI (Adaptec 7870P) Do a bit of research and make sure that the SCSI controller is well supported. (More on SCSI below). > 2 PCI slots and 5 EISA > AMI Bios Date 12/15/93 > > The processor is a Pentium running at 66 mhz > > 32 meg ram That all sounds quite promising! > Diamond Speedstar 64 PCI (Cirrus Logic Chip CI-GD5434-HC-C) (This is not t he > same Diamond I had problems with, I put that in a windoz box.) Again, do a bit of research before embarking. I've got an old Diamond Speedstar and it works fine, but I don't do X with it. I wouldn't expect any problems, but do check. > I have 2 nics in the box from the last go round, but I believe I only need > one now. Let me know If I should remove one nic to simplify things. The 2 > nics are: > > 3com Fast Etherlink XL PCI 3C905-T4 > Linksys Ether16 Lan Card ISA One will suffice for now, and adding another later is no big deal. Keep the 3Com in for performance reasons. That card is well supported. > I have 3 full height SCSI drives. After I finish off a little more sheet > metal work and add another fan, they will all reside in the full tower. A couple of things: 1. I assume it's a BOOTABLE controller? Again, check into any hardware compatability issues BEFORE starting. You may find some oddities with that controller (i.e. need to pass parameters on boot). 2. SCSI drive partitions are identified differently. Rather than hda1, hda2, you'll have sda1, sda2 (someone correct me if I'm wrong). A small thing, but it can be annoying if you don't catch it. > I figure the boot/OS drive will be a Maxtor P1-17S (1.76 GB) > The 2 drive's I'd like to software raid are identical Seagate ST410800N (9.1 > GB unformatted) I know RAID exists, but can't say I've done much with it. > Other Miscellaneous hardware include: > > your standard 1.44 floppy > > A Sony SCSI CDrom CDU-55s Again, this will be identified differently if it's SCSI. Probably something like sdd (4th SCSI device). > 2 serial, 1 parallel > > Logitech 3 button mouse. > > and a CTX 17" monitor CTX 1765S Good stuff... > I am currently in need of a loooong 50 pin SCSI ribbon cable w/ about 5-6 > drops. Anyone have one they want to get rid of? I have one, but I'm keeping it! You might try Dalco or someplace similar. > I think I have answered all the questions. Anything else? Are you considering any particular distribution at this point? Again, this is the subject of many a holy war, so the following is only MY perspective. Take a look around and assess the level of outside help you'll have available. If there's an active Linux User's Group (LUG) in your area, do the advanced users there tend to lean to one distribution or another? Does your favorite nephew who's a Linux bithead have a preference? Does the bookstore seem to be stocked with titles that match what you want to do with a particular distribution? As an example, I found a GREAT book on setting up small office servers entitled "RedHat Linux 6 Server". Now I know a lot of people really dislike RedHat. It's not my favorite either, but it IS widely supported, both online and in print. I find more books specifically oriented towards RedHat than any other, at least locally. Also, despite what folks may say, RedHat is STILL Linux. There's NOTHING that can be done with one distribution that can't be done in any other. The difference is in the TOOLS provided out-of-the-box. What's MOST IMPORTANT is how you'll be able to learn, and that is going to be based on what support is available to you. The good news is that 90%+ of what you learn using one distribution applies to all others, especially once you get down to the CLI level. The underlying differences tend to be in configuration tools and file system layout (and ease of migration between releases). In my case, this book focuses specifically on using Linux on a small, networked workgroup server. It covers working with disk partitions, multiple network adapters, Apache and Samba in good detail. It also has sections on tuning and security Although I'm a Debian user, I found the information in there still applied for the most part, so I still picked it up. If you find a good reference that describes a particular distribution to a level of detail that you're comfortable with, consider going that route. You may wind up switching down the road, but at least you'll get things working and understand them to the point that you'll know WHY another distribution is superior. My personal priority is on ease of maintenance and security. My Linux systems are on the Internet 7X24 via my broadband connection. I want to be able to update easily between releases (distribution updates and core packags such as Apache). I DON'T have a lot of time to audit code, and to recompile security fixes, especially when they're rolling out quickly. And I REFUSE to run packages with known bugs or unstable status, hoping nobody will notice. Based on those needs, I've chosed Debian. Upgrades between package releases and even full distribution updates is particularly simple with a broadband connection. I do "apt-get update" to read the latest package info in, then "apt-get upgrade" or "apt-get dist-upgrade" and everything I've got installed (and nothing more) is updated. I do a bare minimum install, then install EXACTLY what I want via "apt-get install". apt-get is very good at NOT breaking things on upgrades, or at least giving fair warning. There's VERY LITTLE overhead with Debain (relatively speaking:). A typical server configuration (less user files) is under 200MB, and I could pare it back considerably if I didn't want my convenience tools. However, Debian takes the approach of "it's not ready 'til it's ready", so their releases of new and exciting packages tend to lag behind the leading edge (not good for those who want all their multimedia toys). The install is also less friendly than some (no GUI whatsoever), and the default package manager (dpkg) is NASTY for newbies (IMHO). However, with a good reference or other source, you might consider Debian if this sounds appealing. Are you expecting to use X extensively? X tools are evolving rapidly, so documentation may be out of date. X also tends to be one of the most frustrating areas for newbies. I avoid it, but the tools can be handy for getting going. (FWIW: I do plan on migrating my desktops to X, but I'm not quite there yet. The family is still Windows-dependent, at least for now. I'm hoping the final release of StarOffice 6 will help.) I much prefer a non-GUI configuration for servers, as I want all available performance for serving clients. > As for that C64, It is still up in my attic, in it's original box, in > perfect condition, with a few other hardware goodies and many shoeboxes of > software. One day when I have a ton of free time (like when I am retired > ;-) I will drag it our and fool around. Did you check out Or's links to a web server running on a C-64? It's connected via a serial SLIP link to a Linux box. THERE's a project for ya! :) - Bob To unsubscribe from SURVPC send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with unsubscribe SURVPC in the body of the message. Also, trim this footer from any quoted replies. 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