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jasong
04-23-2005, 03:00 PM
Guys, I'm not even sure where to begin on questions, so I suppose I'll ramble a bit and maybe you can figure out where to give the advice.

Because of my brain disorder, I live with my parents and basically only have a medium-sized bedroom to put things into when I purchase them. Add to that the fact that since I get help from the State government and if you even take a few baby-steps from what is normally considered dirt-poor they snatch the rug out from under you until you're back to being poor. When you put those two things together, you get someone who knows the importance of money but has no incentive whatsoever to plan for the long-term(at least at the moment). The biggest issue is medication(who pays for it), which makes it preferable to only work part-time, since the government looks at it's bottom line the way most chess programs look at a chess game(only caring what will happen in the short-term). Solution: Keep your net worth low and eat out a bunch when it goes up.

Because of this, everytime my bank account gets up around $800-$1,000, I get an itch to make a major purchase. I'm hoping that when I get my new job, wherever it is, it'll happen a lot more.


Okay, here's my question. I'm hoping to get a job that pays significantly more money and I want to build a farm. At the moment, I have one Windows machine in my bedroom. But since Windows charges per computer, I'm hoping to either get a retail(Right word?) Linux distro that'll handle all my Windows files and maybe I can learn about compiling. Or...I'm wanting to start a Linux cluster that can interface with my Windows machine, with the Windows machine as either a server, or both sharing an Internet connection with each other. How the new computers will get on the Internet is another concern.

IronBits
04-23-2005, 03:13 PM
Mandrake is a good one to cut yer teeth on. Free :)

jasong
04-23-2005, 03:20 PM
Originally posted by IronBits
Mandrake is a good one to cut yer teeth on. Free :) My biggest concern is the actual installation. From what I've read in the latest Computer Power User magazine, retail(?) versions are what's recommended, especially for a newbie like me.

Scoofy12
04-23-2005, 03:26 PM
mandrake is a retail distribution. if you continue to use it they want you to pay something, or join the mandrake club, or however it is they generate revenue these days. i've heard SuSe is good if you really have to buy something but...

despite the fact that its not retail i've also heard good things about Ubuntu, based on (IMNSHO) the best distro/system of them all, Debian (which is probably not recommended for newbies)

Fozzie
04-23-2005, 03:57 PM
it's dead easy and with SMB you can easily see your Windos files.

jasong
04-23-2005, 05:15 PM
When it comes to the retail versions, what exactly is patented, if anything? When I read in my new mag that Linux can be bought retail, I got confused. Would I be buying a package I could legally get for free?

meep
04-23-2005, 05:55 PM
Is redhat still free?

If so that is a sound distribution - I am only familiar with it when I used it between ver 6 and 9 ish, how and what it looks like now I do not know. Fedora or sommit like that its called now...

All in all that used to be an excellent distro with excellent features and a large community behind it.

PCZ
04-23-2005, 06:02 PM
Jasong
go here (http://www.linuxiso.org).
Read the Forums there it might help you decide on a distro

meep
RH Free version is called Fedora.

PY 222
04-23-2005, 09:12 PM
I deploy alot of Fedora Core 1 and Fedora Core 2 and both are good distros to get a start on. Heck, its also good enough to do some serving if you are into it.

But for a totally newbie, I would definitely recommend Mandrake.