🚀 go-pugleaf

gedau@pobox.com (George Dau) writes:

>Andrew Read <aread@xtra.co.nz> wrote:

>]I hope it is alright to post here.

>It's an aus. group, but we'll let you in this time :-)

I am under the impression that the aus.* do cover New Zealand as well.

>]
>]Could someone answer or point me in the right direction.
>]
>]1. Where can I download Linux

>International links are slow. It will take you days to download it,
>even downloading from an Australian mirror will take ages. See if
>you can buy a CD locally, or get a set from here; check out
>http://www.laserbaud.com.au and look for a 4 or 6 CD set with 
>at least the RedHat and Slackware distributions on it.

Below is a list of mirror sites. The Australian ones may help you (assuming
that the NZ to Oz link is faster than the NZ to US link). This list is taken
out of the linux-faq. It is about 1 to 2 years old so may well be out of
date. This faq should be avail on most of these mirror sites so you
shouldn't have too much trouble getting an up to date list - it shouldn't
take long to download an faq from an overseas site. I'm not quite sure
if the faq is called exactly linux-faq but it should be too hard to hunt
down.
I have used ftp.dstc.edu.au : /pub/Linux myself and that is probably all
you will need. Here is the list:

* src.doc.ic.ac.uk : /packages/Linux (UK)
* sunacm.swan.ac.uk : /pub/Linux (UK)
* ftp.ibp.fr : /pub/linux (France)
* ftp.cc.gatech.edu : /pub/linux (US - southeast: Suranet)
* wuarchive.wustl.edu : /systems/linux (US)
* uiarchive.cso.uiuc.edu : /pub/systems/linux (US)
* ftp.cdrom.com : /pub/linux (US)
* ftp.informatik.tu-muenchen.de : /pub/comp/os/linux (Germany)
* ftp.ibr.cs.tu-bs.de : /pub/os/linux (Germany)
* ftp.dfv.rwth-aachen.de : /pub/linux (Germany)
* ftp.informatik.rwth-aachen.de : /pub/Linux (Germany)
* bond.edu.au : /pub/OS/Linux (Australia)
* ftp.cc.monash.edu.au : /pub/linux (Australia)
* ftp.dstc.edu.au : /pub/Linux (Australia: Queensland)
* ftp.sun.ac.za : /pub/linux (South Africa)
* ftp.inf.utfsm.cl : /pub/Linux (Chile)
* ftp.zel.fer.hr : /pub/Linux (Croatia)


>]2. What version should I use
>I use (and like) Slackware, although I didn't like a few things
>that came out-of-the-box, so I had do a bit of fixing to get things
>how I wanted them.  RedHat is the most popular distribution at the
>moment. 

So far I have only used slackware. I found it confusing in places
- as one example it was not always
clear if selecting a menu option would cause an imediate "reaction"
or if you could select several options which would be launched upon
exiting the menu. It is not as easy as installing most windows s/w
(please lets not start a war over this comment - I am just giving
Andrew and other Newbies a warning). It may take several attempts to
work out how it works. The other problem I had was that I didn't know
anything about partitioning a hard drive. You will need to understand
this - so read the dos/win manuals on this topic.

>]At this stage my intention is to learn how to use linux, and I would
>]like to use it on a computer set up to use win95 as well..

>Look up the dual-boot HOWTO document. You will have to reformat your
>drive and re-install Win95, unless you can get another disk for Linux.
>If you want to share one disk, you'll be re-formatting.

There quite a few HOWTO and faq documents on various linux mirror sites.
These are, as far as I understand, the "main guides" for installing and
configuring linux.

Martin.