VANITY -- Best version of Linux? Apache? Perl?

08/13/2002 | by Lazamataz

[Lazamataz]

I'm putting together a Linux box. Want to run Apache and maybe a perl interpreter. Does anyone have a suggestion as to the best version of Linux? Where do I go for that best version? How about Apache? What is the best perl development environment?

Keeping in mind, of course, that Free is Good.

[Mr_Magoo]

Naaaaa,

That is reserved for Winblows vs. Big Mac.

:-)

[oc-flyfish]

I have a question for everyone... how do I access my file server (Win2k, NTFS) from a workstation using RedHat Linux 7.3?

[ShadowAce]

Linux can read NTFS partitions, but not write to them. The interface is still being worked on.

If you want to read it, set the permissions for the /dev/hd?? device to allow reading by your user, and then mount it under a directory. It will be readable. My system is set up that way, as well. If you're talking about network drives (on other machines), you'll need to configure Samba, I believe, to mount them up.

[B Knotts]

Probably through Samba. I haven't used Red Hat for years, but I suspect that the standard kernels support smbfs. There is likely a tool in your menus called Komba2 or xsmbrowser, which will let you browse and/or mount Windows SMB shares.

Otherwise, you can do it the old-fashioned way:

mount -t smbfs -o username=<your username> //SERVER/share /mnt/server/share

The last item there should be set to wherever you want to mount the share on your Linux machine.

[oc-flyfish]

Ok gotcha. So using Samba I can read and write to the network share?

[ShadowAce]

I'm not real familiar with Samba yet, so I'll let B Knotts answer that question.

My belief, though, is that you won't be able to write to an NTFS partition. Hopefully, I'm wrong.

[B Knotts]

Yes, assuming your username has read/write access on the Windows machine.

The NTFS issue would come into play if you were mounting the drive or partition directly (on the same machine), but with SMB, the file system is irrelevant.

[John Robinson]

WWIV rocked.

[oc-flyfish]

Haha! I also ran RemoteAccess for a while and was sysop to a couple of other sites. Gee... we really are dating ourselves aren't we?

Did you ever play TradeWars? If so, I bet you and I mixed it up a couple of times!

[oc-flyfish]

If I want this network share to be available when the system boots, is there a way to do this? Will the username and password be hidden or in plain text?

[Duke Nukum]

I'm not anti-linux either. Or anti-Sun, really.

I'm just pro-sanity.

And right now, I don't know what I'm going to do for my next machine. I'm considering Alienware and Falcon-NW, but with the insanity of XP out there, I'm seriously considering a Mac and OSX for my next gaming rig. Even if I have to wait three years for current games. I'm about two years behind already.

Although, I did snatch up WarCraft III as soon as it came out. And, I'm not sure I trust people who say how good OSX is. Maybe they were taken over by Zontar, or something.

So, there's lots of insanity out there and very few non-insane/non-doubious choices. I can't help but hope that Sun will do for Linux what it did for keyboards. It would be like clearing out some of the underbrush.

[John Robinson]

My first BBS was an EBBS-64 (Commodore); I later upgraded to EBBS-128; then switched to a Macintosh running a port of WWIV (an early Pascal branch, I believe, pre-ANSI color); I also experimented with something called "Nova" on the Macintosh. Finally ended up running Wayne Bell's WWIV on a PC XT compat. I retired my BBS sometime in early 1990, at I believe version 3.10 of WWIV. During that time, I participated in a couple different WWIV networks.

Had plenty of doors on my PC WWIV, and TradeWars 2000 was one of them, though it wasn't networked in any way (I don't think that was an option at the time?) It was good, one of the best, but not my favorite.

After BBSes, I found a whole new way to waste time. Playing in the mud was the second best use for the Internet I had found. (Anonymous FTP was the first!)

[B Knotts]

I don't know of a good way to do that. There probably is a way; I just haven't done it.

[John Robinson]

I used a guest account (no password) and a magic invocation of smbmount in /etc/rc.d/rc.local

[amigatec]

I used to run a CNet-Amiga BBS. I built a KILLER Amiga just to run it.:-)

I used to play Tradewars as well. Yes those were the days

[oc-flyfish]

Ah... the good old days! I wrote a couple of doors that worked on PcBoard, RemoteAccess, and WWIV.

I never got into Mud... I was too busy figuring out how to write decent Cobol code on the DEC VAX at Cal Poly, Pomona. :-)

[oc-flyfish]

Huh... Do people not normally connect to network shares when using a Linux environment? This seems insecure...

[oc-flyfish]

I think I still have the registration code for Tradewars somewhere in a filing cab. Remember the dreaded Ferengi?

[John Robinson]

That's pretty funny, the gods of the mud I played (PhoenixMud) all attended Cal Poly Pomona. I'd go down there occassionally to play paintball.

[John Robinson]

I most often host shares on my Linux computer, and not connect to others. You can use a password to connect to a share, but you're prompted to enter it. There are probably secure ways of automatically connecting with a password (that is not prompted), but I don't know them.