Which distro on Server? How to install Also?

[RGELLIS]

Hi, i'm writing to ask about which linux distro to use on my server, im relativley new to linux, so it will be a big learning curve, until i can get the hang of terminal.

The server is a RM Systembase FX Dual Pentium Pro with 200MB ECC RAM, DPT SCSI Controller, x2 9gb 10k rpm SCSI drives and a SCSI CD drive, the only thing standard really is the floppy drive!

The problem is the Tyan Pro S6116 (i think? probably not) it wont boot from cd. So is there a floppy that will enable the install of the distro? If so please explain and show it to me!

Thanks in advance

Ruan

 

[mBernhardt]

I had a similar pc that would not boot from the cdrom for whatever reason I never bothered to figure out.

sbootmgr.dsk

Follow the link contained here. (direct download!)

This will "force" the pc to boot from whichever source you choose.

Write it to a disk with something like this.

 

[RGELLIS]

Your'e a Legend!

Thankyou for that! I'm thinking Slackware with no GUI, but are there any Distros that can be remotely controlled for a GUI if the server is just running a Terminal? or would it just have to be telnet based?

Thanks in advance

Ruan

 

[Sevoma]

Well it is possible for a server to run with no gui and have gui administration. I had a centos server that I administered with another linux box. I launched what I thought was a console networking tool (I was new to centos at the time), and then a gui pops up on the box I was using! It seems that if you have gtk libraried on your machine (problably needs to be *nix), you can run the gtk based progs over ssh or telnet.
I am not sure what it is called. Mabey someone else can find out.

 

[Law]

same, have your server running in runlevel 3, use web gui configuration and SSH over a remote computer. That's it, except for the part where you have to do all of the stuff in the shell first to get it up and running...

 

[RGELLIS]

Yeh, thats exactly what i want, funnily though I am getting a copy of CentOS 4.3 tomorrow! So I hope that I am able to get the gui up and running on a seperate tux box! I need a guide

The reason i need a terminal based system is that I doubt the GPU in it could handle anything of KDE or Gnome its a ISA 2mb card, dont know much about it, but it cant handle about 1024x768 and only do 800x600 with 256 colours, 1024x768 is only 16 colours

Ruan

 

[jakec]

Yeh, thats exactly what i want, funnily though I am getting a copy of CentOS 4.3 tomorrow! So I hope that I am able to get the gui up and running on a seperate tux box! I need a guide

Ruan

http://www.howtoforge.com/perfect_setup_centos_4.3, Even though it says it's for a 64 bit system, it shouldn't make a difference

Hope this Helps,

Jake

 

[RGELLIS]

Thanks very much, I just hope the floppy that lets any device boot shows my SCSI cd-rom becuase i tried installing ubuntu, but initially it didnt show the drive :S. Ill have another try, otherwise I may have to put in an IDE Optical drive for the FD software to work!

Ruan

 

[RGELLIS]

I cannot at the moment get my motherboard to boot from CD, I have tried with the floppy disk mentioned, although it does not bring up my CD Drive SCSI or IDE, so i need a way to boot to CD from my BIOS or from a floppy?

The motherboard is a Tyan Titan-Pro Socket 8 with Dual Pentium Pros. It should work, but it doesnt! Any help would be appreciated

Ruan

 

[Law]

BIOS set to boot CD before hard drive? Did you burn the image correctly?