[AuckLUG] questions - best PC setup

[Bill Keesing]

On Sun, 14 Jan 2007 20:29:09 +1300, "Vincente Aggrippino" <vaggrippino at gmail.com> wrote:
Vincente Aggrippino wrote:
> On 1/14/07, Daniel Pittman <daniel at rimspace.net> wrote:
>>
>> "Chris Marshall" <cmarshall at actrix.co.nz> writes:
>>
>> ...
>>
>> If you do install Linux it is generally much easier to work with as a
>> complete install, so taking over one of the two machines entirely will
>> likely be less trouble -- not least because it makes data exchange
>> between the two operating systems happen over the network, which is less
>> trouble. :)
>
>
> Just an alternative perspective to this.  If you do mix Windows and 
> Linux on
> your home network.  You will need to familiarize yourself with Samba 
> (ref:
> www.samba.org).  This is a valuable skill to have.  There are 
> interfaces and
> tools that are supposed to make it easier, but they don't always work as
> expected.  Samba can be complex, but it is well documented.
>
> Oh... make sure you do have a home network, if you don't already have one
> :)

Also be aware that Samba will not work with Fista until the Samba code is rewritten to compensate for Macro$luts changes that are supposed to make the OS secure (insert Tui's advert here).

>> And is Red Hat 7.3 (bought in 2003) good, or am I better off
>> > installing a later / other version?
None of the Redhat releases are being supported any more.

Any of the current distro's should be fine. The most popular are the Ubuntu variants and Fedora. Both have just had new releases with Ubuntu 6.1 and Fedora Core 6. But I must admit I am also partial to Suse.