just installed linux for the first time, questions

[zision]

I just installed RedHat7 tonight on an old hard drive I had. installation went smoothly. now I have questions. everything I'm using came with the workstation install, I'm using Gnome.

1. how can I get the scroll wheel on my optical intellimouse to work?

2. this drive is my secondary master, how can I access my main windows drive from in here? mostly just for mp3 access.

3. is it really so dangerous logging in as root? it's a pain having to switch to root every time I want to change something.

4. are there any good alternatives to netscape? I hate netscape with a passion.

5. what are some good linux forums to ask questions? this forum is so mixed, I figure there may be forums specifically for newbies like me.

6. Why won't netscape keep cookies? Every time I visit a site and tell it to remember my password, later it's gone.

 

[SUOrangeman]

Visit Linux Newbie and read/search the forums for a day. I'nm sure your Qs have been answered there a few times.

-SUO

 

[zision]

looking around on that forum answered the last of my questions I have right now, thanks. not sure if I'm going to keep this installed though, I don't really have much of a reason to use it. win2k works well for me.

 

[Damaged]

1) as root use your favorite editor to edit the /etc/XF86Config file. If you're running XFree86 3.something, then add/edit the following lines under the Pointer section:

protocol "IMPS/2"
ZAxisMapping 4 5

If it's XFree86 4.something then use the same protocol, but do:

Options "ZAxisMapping 4 5"

2) as root, make a mountpoint. Something like mkdir /mnt/win, now mount -t vfat /dev/hdxx /mnt/win. Where hdxx corresponds to the correct drive and partition on that drive (probably hda1 in your case).

3) Yes. It's really dangerous to be root all the time. There's really no need to be. Get out of the habit now.

4) Opera has a beta out, and Netscape 6 is out now and people seem to like it much better. I think there's something that comes with KDE as well. I don't use KDE though.

5) See SUOrangeman's response.

6) You need to modify the permissions on your /home/<username>/.netscape/cookies file so that it's world writeable. Although it should work not being that way it doesn't appear to. Don't ask me why. As that user, assuming you're in your home directory chmod 666 .netscape/cookies. It isn't going to hurt anything. No real risk here.

Oh yeah! As far as the wheel mouse goes try using imwheel. The wheel will work in native gtk+ apps, but not motif stuff (e.g. nutscrape). imwheel will make it work there.

 

[zision]

I got most everything working. I'm still logging in as root. is there a way I can give my user account more access? I hate having to switch to root all the time.

 

[Damaged]

Look, all you need is a root term. Log in as a user, then bring up a terminal and su and enter your root password. Much better. Just remember that that term is root.

Heck, there's only two reason I use X: 1) Graphical web browser; and, most importantly; 2) Multple terms! Before X we used screen. Screen still rocks!