newbie questions about linux

[aznx]

hi guys, I'm a complete newbie to linux and would like to try it out. can anyone recommend a good linux os for beginners? I'm currently d/ling mandrake 8.1. I also want to know if mandrake will support my hardware, if anyone knows please reply:

abit kt7-raid
amd t-bird 1.0ghz (200)
256mb pc133 crucial ram
ibm 60gxp 40gig
asus geforce 2 GTS
sound blaster pci 512
kingston NIC
logitech mouse
Plextor 12/10/32 IDE cdrw

And I'm also running my harddisk off of my HPT 370 raid controller. Does it require me to install the drivers prior to installing linux? (like win2000 and winxp) If so i cant find any drivers for it. for win9x i dont have to do that, i can install the drivers after i installed the OS.

Alos I'm on ADSL. Does linux have a pppoe dialer?

Thanx in advance.....

another thing.....what kind of file system does linux use? can i keep my current windows OS, can i partition my hdd to add another one and install linux on it?

 

[n0cmonkey]

file system is generally ext2fs, so you will need space for a couple of these partitions and a swap partition.

There are HPT or whatever drivers available for linux, but I wouldnt bother with any raid features. All of the other hardware loks good, although without knowing the chipset of your nic I couldnt tell you if it is supported or not.

It does have a pppoe dialer, but I dont know anything about it.

 

[aznx]

my kingston is: Kingston EtherRX KNE111TX PCI Fast Ethernet Adapter

I'm not running any raid features, just have the hdd on the raid port.....do u know where i can get the raid drivers? the highpoint website doesnt have any raid drivers for mandrake only other linux os's like readhat and turbo.

"file system is generally ext2fs, so you will need space for a couple of these partitions and a swap partition."
so you're saying i need to make 2 partitions? will mandrake do it automatically for me? or do i have to run partition magic?

 

[n0cmonkey]

<< my kingston is: Kingston EtherRX KNE111TX PCI Fast Ethernet Adapter >>



Its probably supported, but I dont feel like looking it up



<< I'm not running any raid features, just have the hdd on the raid port.....do u know where i can get the raid drivers? the highpoint website doesnt have any raid drivers for mandrake only other linux os's like readhat and turbo. >>



Mandrake 8.1 may support it out of the box, Im not sure. But the redhat drivers should work just fine.



<< "file system is generally ext2fs, so you will need space for a couple of these partitions and a swap partition."
so you're saying i need to make 2 partitions? will mandrake do it automatically for me? or do i have to run partition magic? >>



If you have freespace on the hard drive Mandrake will walk you through creating the two partitions. If not, create a couple gigs at the end of your drive or something for linux, then let Mandrake walk you through it

 

[aznx]

thanx for your help nocmonkey.

well i just stoped the d/l for mandrake because it was too slow and couldnt find a fast mirror. Currently d/ling redhat linux, hopefully i can get everything to work out ok.

thanx again for your help

 

[aznx]

there's four cds to redhat, do i need all four? there's cd1, cd1, powertools, and srpms

 

[n0cmonkey]

You should just need cd1, but Im not positive, they should mention it on their site. Id grab atleast cd1 and maybe cd2. But with RedHat 7.1, you have to make a /boot partition within the first 8GB of your hard drive.