Thanks to Temlakos! I also got much from this mail. thanks again god bless you! ----- Original Message ----- From: "Temlakos" <temlakos@xxxxxxxxx> To: "For users of Fedora Core releases" <fedora-list@xxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Friday, February 11, 2005 10:55 PM Subject: Re: FC3 vs. Windows 2000 > STYMA, ROBERT E (ROBERT) wrote: > > Dear Fedora Advocates, > > My brother in law will be returning from Iraq > > in another couple of months and one of the things > > I am doing for him is to build him a computer. He > > is not technically adept and his computer activity > > is pretty much limited to looking at his email > > on yahoo and a little web surfing. Sometimes he > > prints an email or two. > > > > I am vacillating on building an FC3 machine or a W2k > > machine. > > First, Windows 2000 is obsolete even by Microsoft standards. They will > sell you a Windows XP license, which costs much more. Worse yet, Windows > XP is very resource-hungry in comparison to any distribution of Linux, > or even in comparison to Windows 2000. > > Second, having plug-ins for every kind of multimedia file one might > encounter is highly over-rated. True enough, the Musical Instrument > Digital Interface (MIDI) still has not been ported to Linux. Equally > true, much of the sound content on the Web is in the form of MP3 files, > and MP3 is not an open-source protocol. (Actually, however, RealPlayer > 10 for Linux will play MP3's without a hitch, since RealPlayer paid the > freight for an MP3 license.) But your friend has to ask himself whether > "a little Web surfing" will necessarily include every kind of sound file > that's published. > > Third, you can get plug-ins for Mozilla and Firefox very easily--at > Mozilla's own site, or from the FreshRPMS, Dag, Dries, and AT > repositories. (You can also point to the Livna repository, but its apps > aren't built from the same source code as those on the others, so Livna > doesn't mix well with the others.) > > All of which is to say that you're better off going with Fedora Core and > /especially/ FC3. > > Now I wouldn't so much say /no/ need for anti-virus software. Instead I > would suggest that you install ClamAV, the open-source anti-virus > solution for GNU/Linux and similar platforms. I use it myself. Of > course, Linux is a lot easier to secure from viruses than MS Windows > ever will be. You can get ClamAV from any of the popular repositories. > > You can obtain the Java Runtime Environment directly from Sun > Microsystems, or from a Fedora-compatible repo. The first alternative > would let you get the latest version. > > As for codecs to play most Windows-compatible multimedia files: Install > mplayer, or the Linux Movie Player, and then follow this link: > > http://rpmfind.net/linux/RPM/falsehope/home/rathann/apt/7.3/RPMS.stable/mpla yer-codecs-win32-2.0-1.i386.html > > It has a link to download an RPM that will install all the codecs you > need. Then again, there's another link somewhere out there that has a > tar-ball for installing those codecs--more on tar-balls below. > > The best thing to do, then, is: > > 1. Install FC3. > 2. Configure Firefox for Web pages and Thunderbird for e-mail. > 3. Search Google on the following key words: dag, dries, freshrpms, > at-stable, livna, gstreamer, and fedora.us. Most of these repos will > give you specific lines to configure the file yum.conf and the file > sources in etc/sysconfig/rhn, so that you can use up2date and/or yum to > keep your applications up to date, and use yum to find new packages. (Go > to http://fedoranews.org/tchung/gyum/fc3/ and learn how to get a > Graphical User Interface front-end for yum, written especially for Fedora.) > > All of these repos offer apt, the package-transfer system developed > originally for Debian and then rewritten for RPM packages for the > Conectiva distribution and now available for all RPM-based distros. > > Apt works with a GUI-based front-end called Synaptic that lets you see > at a glance which packages are available in the repositories you set > up--but yum will let you set the machine up to fetch and install updates > /automatically/ either every morning when you start up, or every night > if you leave the machine on 24x7. > > And to answer your basic question: Yes, you /can/ obtain plug-ins and > other applications in a small number of places. The days where you had > to chase all over the Net to find all the apps you need are long gone. > > So you install an additional package-management system, either yum or > apt, and configure a few repositories for yum or apt to search for new > packages and updates. > > Then you can fetch just about anything you need, either from the > repositories or directly from some of the developers. > > In the extreme cases, you can fetch the tar-balls and build your extra > applications right on the system. Advantage: as long as you have the gcc > compiler family and the linker (gmake), you can build anything, and when > you do, you get a custom build for your hardware. Disadvantage: > time-consuming and a slightly steeper learning curve. > > Good luck! > > Temlakos > > -- > fedora-list mailing list > fedora-list@xxxxxxxxxx > To unsubscribe: http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list > >
