Noob Installed Mandriva 1 but wants to move up to New Fuller Distro

[VO1BMD]

Good morning from Eastern Canada!

I have been doing a LOT of reading and making progress in getting my FIRST Linux box alive and looking usable... BUT...4 days and here I am...

The nearest LUG's home page is dated 2004 and the other is so messed up you get lost in loops and "page not found"

A friend gave me a copy of RedHat 6.1 (single CD) to try out on a new PC that was given to me to "store" until it is needed again by IT. I tried to load it, looked promising but would always hang when it got to the part of installing RPMs to hdd.

So, I downloaded Mandriva One (a single CD Live that can install a working Linux system) and got it booting and mostly workable (Lost all my Windoze crud but oh well...I am learning!!!). I was hoping to get an Apache server up and running but I kept getting errors (Missing other things it needs to install or some combination thereof) so I decided I need to move up and install a full version of some distro in order to get anything to work properly.

My problem is, I have done a lot of searching but can NOT find how to install Linux on an existing working Linux system! I am leaning towards RedHat just because it seems to have the most hits when I search the Net. Maybe I should stick with Mandrake?

So Basically, my question is:

I have a working copy of Linux on a PC (2.8Ghz Pent Celeron, 256Mb RAM, 80G IDE hdd, Intel D915GEV mbrd, CD-rom, floppy) that has internet access and I want to install a "more complete" distro. What do I need to download and how do I upgrade?

I know this is possible but I may be to green to see the forest for the trees!

Thanks! Can't wait to try this beast out and NOT give Bill any more funding...
Duane
Nova Scotia

[enshum]

Give ubuntu a try http://www.ubuntu.com

ed

[mrrangerman43]

Yeh I'd say Ubuntu or Debian stable you can get the Debian netinstall HERE. If you have broudband/cable ISP the netinstall is the way to go, just download the .iso about 200mb file and burn that into a image. Set your pc to boot to the cd/dvd-rom put it in and away you go. Note: with Debian when it first comes up hit F1 and it will give you a list of options. Pick the gui install if this is your first time, if you don't want to mess with whats aready installed, make a 10-20gb partition to install Linux to.

The Ubuntu disk is a bit more of a download at 700mb.

[michaelk]

Do not bother with Redhat 6.1. Its very old and will not support the latest hardware. Go with Fedora instead for something similar. Lots of different distributions have liveCD versions so try them all and pick the one you want to install to the hard drive. Checkout distrowatch.com

Your going to want to wipe out the existing operating system. Most installers have an option to delete/format existing partitions.

[JamminJoeyB]

Go Slackware. You did say you wanted a "more complete" distro.

Any of the modern distros have packages for Apache and most of the other tools you will need. Thousands of how-to's all over the net on proper configuration of linux and apache will help keep your system safe and secure.