[sf-lug] Seeking a convert...part 2

[jim stockford]

    I'd like to second Rick's suggestion re CentOS.
    If Mark is getting messages asking for floppy
disks, he's using old software, either RH9 or
something he's downloaded. There's no relation
between floppy and RAID at install time, other
than maybe some RAID tools are in some RPM
that's expected from a floppy drive.
    CentOS is a few bucks from either Spidertools
or CheapBytes and is robust.
    Fedora is cutting edge and without guarantees;
a good choice to get a look at possibilities in the
next RHEL release (RHEL 5 is coming in summer
2006), but not my choice for a server machine.
    With CentOS 4 (did I mention CentOS?) you get
easy-to-use RAID and LVM tools: "it just works".


On Jan 5, 2006, at 11:56 AM, Rick Moen wrote:

> Quoting vincent polite (vpolitewebsiteguy at yahoo.com):
>
>> I gave the wrong address for Mark. It is mbiggi at cooley.com. My faux
>> pas...Or whatever you are supposed to say...
>
> Not a problem, but the best way for this to proceed would be for Mark 
> to
> join this mailing list.  Otherwise, either everyone has to manually Cc
> him on all postings, or someone has to forward the traffic -- and any
> postings Mark tries to send to the mailing list will get held for
> moderator approval by Jim (as being from a non-subscribed address).
>
>> I'm working at this law firm, temp job. And the Senior IT Specialist
>> is looking to convert some of the server duties to Linux. I don't
>> pretend to understand all the details. When he tries to install RH
>> 9, Fedora 3, on the DNS server, he gets a message asking install the
>> a file from a floppy. Mark Biggi is the victim of this inquiry. Make
>> sense? It has something to do with the RAID. Love to learn something
>> new.
>
> Clear as mud to _me_, at least, I'm afraid.
>
> I know DNS, and I know Red Hattish systems (albeit I'm a little rusty),
> and I know most varieties of Linux RAID (there are many, some hardware
> based, some software done entirely with the Linux "md" = multi device
> driver, and some BIOS-assisted "fakeraid") -- but I have no idea what
> the "a" file is, in this context.
>
> By the way, I would heavily discourage RH9, and lightly discourage
> Fedora Core 3, for this purpose.  There are much better choices of the
> RH-ish persuasion, if one leans that way:
>
> o  RH9:  Support/updates ceased on 2004-04-30.  In theory, you can 
> still
>          get some updates from the Fedora Legacy project, but their
>          coverage has been spotty and unreliable.
> o  FC3:  Released 2004-11-08, and scheduled to be transferred to
>          Fedora Legacy project in mid-January.  (See comments above.)
>          Also, FC3 had significant SELinux problems that were fixed
>          only with the FC4 redesign.
>
> Mark could certainly use FC4 -- which is functional if a bit aggressive
> in pushing technological progress (beta-ish), bearing in mind that it's
> a test platform and has a rapid end-of-life schedule.  (FC5 is planned
> to out in March.)
>
> I would urge Mark to also consider CentOS, which is Red Hat Enterprise
> Linux in all but name, community-recompiled and supported.  There are
> both RHEL 3.0 and 4.0 variants.  http://www.centos.org/
>
> -- 
> Cheers,
> Rick Moen                      "vi is my shepherd; I shall not font."
> rick at linuxmafia.com                               -- Psalm 0.1 beta
>
> _______________________________________________
> sf-lug mailing list
> sf-lug at linuxmafia.com
> http://linuxmafia.com/mailman/listinfo/sf-lug
>