Re: Former Zoo'er Newbie Needs Help

[Bruce Smith <bruce@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

> Only thing bugging me about Red Hat is the $80 price tag.  Now, I suppose I
> could get a CD from Cheapbytes, or beg for the latest BS Ware to be sent to
> Illinois. 

BSware is the same thing as a cheapbytes CD, except for the "extra" stuff
I put on the free space of BSware (which you may or may not find useful).

Don't even think of asking for a copy of BSware unless you are willing 
to attend a meeting to pick it up.  I've stuck to my guns by refusing 
to ship it to ANYBODY.  I've already got a number of people ticked at 
me because of that policy, and I don't need another!   :{)

> However, I think some hard copy instructions would do me a lot of good. 

You could pick up a book on Linux.  Or, if you don't mind reading the
manual online, the Redhat manual is included on the CD or available
on www.redhat.com.

> Point well taken about being the most popular.....can always find
> people on IRC talking Redhat, I've gone into the Suse room and not a word
> was being said.

That's one of the reasons I use Redhat.  The other thing I like about
Redhat is they are very good about posting updates to their packages.
(that keeps BSware in business too :)

> > If you're setup is pretty simple fips should not be a problem.  Just
> follow the
> > instructions.  LILO is only a problem if you have REALLY big drives or a
> > strange BIOS configuration.  The boot partition needs to be in the first
> 540Mb
> > of the drive (most of the time),  due to and IDE limitation.  One key to
> fips
> > is to a COMPLETE defrag of any partition you intend to shrink that
> currently is
> > used by Winblows.
> 
> Ahhhhh....this was the thing confusing me the most, about the boot partition
> being in the first 540 MB.  I've also heard reference to being within the
> 1280 cylinder?  This was confusing me.  Is FIPS going to do this for me if I
> specify it or do I have to do some playing around?

If you have LBA BIOS, the 512MB limit goes up to about 8GB.
The LBA BIOS translates the disk geometry so it looks like it 
has less than 1024 cylinders.

--------------------------------------------
Bruce Smith                bruce@armintl.com
System Administrator / Network Administrator
Armstrong International, Inc.
Three Rivers, Michigan  49093  USA
http://www.armstrong-intl.com/
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