Nervious wannabe new user asks for advice.

[Temlakos]

Dale Sykora wrote:
> thebearwitchproject wrote:
> 
>> Hi
>>
>> I would like to go over to FC3 from Windows, but I am
>> a bit nervious of doing so. I am not exactly software
>> literate, hardware fine and dandy, software hesitant.
>> therefore I would like to ask a few questions, and if
>> they have been asked before please be patient with me.
>>
>> I assume most of my hardware will be compliant, but I
>> will give those details later if they are wanted. My
>> main worry is my ADSL modem and my printer. I have
> 
> Jay,
>     You might want to download and burn a "run from the cd" distro of 
> Linux to check compatibility with your asdl modem and printer.  I would 
> suggest that you try knoppix.  If knoppix works with your hardware, then 
> FC3 will probably work too (or atleast can be made to work).
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Dale

I would tend to support that, except for one thing--sometimes FC3 will 
work where Knoppix won't work, as strange as that might seem. Knoppix 
will, however, test your network interface to see whether it complies 
with open-hardware compatibility standards. The test is simple: if 
Knoppix recognizes it, then almost any other distro of Linux will, 
including Fedora Core.

May I also observe that FC3 is the nearest thing yet to something that 
gives you all the functionality of a Windows system without the Windows 
hassles. At a minimum, FC3 is "Windows-equivalent" in its desktop, the 
automatic mounting of CD's and DVD's and now USB mass-storage devices, 
and in certain applications that distribute with it or that you can 
install on it afterward: OpenOffice, Firefox, Thunderbird for e-mail and 
news, Adobe Reader version 5 (a good enough version for my needs, 
anyway), Java Runtime Environment (or even the full-blown Software 
Development Kit, if you go straight to Sun to get it), program 
development, and even managing your finances. And it doesn't cost you 
one red cent (or penny or centime or pfennig or centavo or lire or yen 
or whatever).

Right now, I'd like to see a slightly less confusing way to mount a 
floppy disk, and definitely a "system-config-iptables" to help you 
configure precisely what zones you want to open (or what Internet 
domains), and precisely what ports, in the precise context you want. 
(First prize would be an option that says, "Recognize this IP address, 
or range of addresses, for all ports required to run Samba or NFS or 
whatever." Second prize is that someone here tell me what ports I need 
to open, and which protocols.) And anyone here who has experience with 
WINE, I'd like to hear from you--I have some special-purpose software 
written for Windows that I'd like to try to load.

Other than that, I have far fewer complaints about FC3 than I have about 
Windows, and that's all I can reasonably ask at any price--especially 
when that price is zero.

Temlakos