Redhat 9 installation

Red Alert

Here's the scene:
At the moment, i've got a Win XP Pro PC. I'm planning to build a linux box out of an old P2 400MHz motherboard that's lying around, and the OS of choice is going to be Red Hat 9 as i've used this for quite a while, however College and a few more interoperability issues forced the switch on my main machine to XP.

So here's a few bits and pieces i could do with a bit of help on:

(1) - The linux box itself is going to have to be headless, apart from when i'm doing the initial install. I simply don't have the space to have a second keyboard/monitor for it. Would VNC or Remote X (to the windows box) be better for running GUI based applications, given that i have the Cygwin X-Server on the XP box?

(2) - What would be the best install to do? I was thinking of just doing a 'server' installation and installing only the graphical apps i want to use. With this in mind, should I install the full X-window system and just leave it deactivated, so that all the libraries will be there anyways.

(3) - Is SSH activated by default in RH9?

Thanks a million.
Peadar.

zAbbo

If you can get your hands on Mandrake 9.2 which allows you to select what packages get installed on install, plus has URPMI mthod of download files.

scojones

Support for redhat won't be around for much longer, (april me thinks) so i'd suggest going with a different distro. How good are you at playing with linux? If you're not too bad i'd suggest going with debian for this one, or slackware. If you don't have much linux knowledge then i'd do what bazH said, and go with mandrake.

Rambo

(2) - What would be the best install to do? I was thinking of just doing a 'server' installation and installing only the graphical apps i want to use. With this in mind, should I install the full X-window system and just leave it deactivated, so that all the libraries will be there anyways.

(2) install you favourite X-windows, gnome ,KDE maybe both have X-windows start at startup
and set vnc to start very easy with KDE ,install only the apps you need
the server will install apache,dns,sendmail something you may not need.
do remember to install the Kernal headers and development tools because you
need for compiling drivers and files you may download

(3) - Is SSH activated by default in RH9? YES

Originally posted by bazH
If you can get your hands on Mandrake 9.2 which allows you to select what packages get installed on install, plus has URPMI mthod of download files.

How do you found mandrake better then redhat ,REDHAT does all that
what makes it better ??

zAbbo

Red Hat doesnt allow individual package choice during installation, and doesnt have URPMI

Has Ntfs support out of the box, more control during installation i find

dahamsta

Originally posted by bazH
Red Hat doesnt allow individual package choice during installation

Yes it does.

tommycahir

Originally posted by bazH
Red Hat doesnt allow individual package choice during installation

course it does it gives you an option to choose which packages to install or to select your own packages..

we just recently installed a server in our lab and set it up using rh9 and didnt insatll any the x windows stuff and we just ssh into it after setting up usr accounts

rh9 very simple to install as a server. alot easier than debian ( which wouyldnt pick up our network card at all or recognise half the stuuf in the server)

deimos

Me would go with the original words of Debian or Mandrake depending on experience.........

Red Alert

Thanks for all the help everyone!
Looks like it might have to be Debian then!