I’m trying to load Fedora 8 on a Pentium 4 system with a CD but no DVD drive and am having troubles getting the necessary iso files.
I am looking for a distro that is split into CDs and is a full distribution rather than simply a naked operating system. I’ve tried the recommended application (jigdo) but that is extremely slow and doesn’t seem very reliable.
Does anyone know where I can find the full 16 or 17 CD set to download that does NOT require jigdo?
Thanks
Testy
I’m sorry that I don’t have anything useful to contribute - I just wanted to ask clarification of this part - I’m trying to work out whether you mean that you’re still looking for a Fedora-based distro, on CDs, or if perhaps you mean you’ve given up on Fedora and are looking for any distro on CDs (I think you mean the former, but I’m in just enough doubt to make it worth asking).
Mangetout
Thanks for responding regardless and maybe you can provide some guidance anyway. You guessed it correctly, I’m looking for a complete distribution of Fedora version 8. I’ve got an XP Pro system that I want to put Fedora on and completely remove XP. I need Fedora 8 as it will read and write to an NTFS file system.
So far I’ve tried to get the 17(!) CD set through jigdo but found it unreliable. Right now, I’m trying for the DVD complete install but that am forced to use bittorrent. Unfortunately, my Internet provider (Orbit Satellite) absolutely HATES bittorrent and tends to drop my connection every 30 minutes or so. If they just throttled it, that would be OK but I have to manually reestablish the connection so that isn’t going to work.
I seem to have worked myself into a corner here and need to figure out a way around these various issues.
If I could find the CD sets available for download somewhere, I could use Getright or something similar but Fedora doesn’t seem to be offering that. I’d be happy to buy the set but the shipping would take forever top get to Saudi and bringing data CDs into the Kingdom is occasionally an issue.
Thanks again
Testy
I can’t think of anything useful to try - I use Shareaza to handle torrent downloads and it automatically refreshes the sources as it goes, but if your ISP is disconnecting you periodically, that’s not going to help (do you mean they drop your actual internet connection, or just interrupt TCP conversations?)
BTW, if you’re completely removing XP, why do you need NTFS writing capability?
Mangetout
Orbit drops the entire connection. I get a bubble-message in the corner telling me that the network cable is unplugged and any network activity comes to a halt.
You make a good point about why do I need NTFS capability. I have 3 drives in the machine and didn’t want to do a complete format on them but I think it’d be best if I go ahead and back these up and then just use the Fedora 5 I have on hand.
A new problem. :mad:
A friend just brought a 500GB drive to the house and I’ve connected it. Strangely, the thing shows under CONTROL PANEL > SYSTEM > HARDWARE > DEVICE MANAGER > Hard Drives. Oddly enough, it doesn’t show on MY COMPUTER or Windows Explorer. The thing is brand new and seems to be working, it just doesn’t show up.
Thanks again
Testy
Mangetout
Just in case you’re still reading this. S I piddled around with the disk, rebooted, reseated, etc. and the thing started working. I’m formatting it now. OTOH, I hate things that mysteriously start working. I never know why they didn’t work to start with or whether they’ll stop again for equally mysterious reasons. Oh well, I’ll wring the thing out and when I’m over my paranoia I’ll just do some backups and then whack all the disks.
Thanks again.
Testy
I would. The journalling filesystems available in most Linux distros are better than NTFS (actually, this might be arguable from a technical merit POV, but in terms of the decision over which file system to use when installing Linux, NTFS, is not the best choice - it’s only quite recently come to be supported, so it’s probably more likely to suffer from unpatched bugs than something like EXT, which has been around a while). If you’re likely to be exchanging files with a Windows installation on the same machine, you could always create a FAT32 partition to act as a staging area, accessible to both OSes.
I’ve seen that sort of thing happen before when either the drive wasn’t fully supported by the BIOS, or the master/slave jumper settings were wrong. A faulty or badly seated cable could also do it.
Mangetout
I absolutely agree about getting rid of NTFS. I’m in the process of rejecting Bill Gates and all his works and plan on posting a (probably lame) Pit thread about it when I get done. 
On the drive, I think it was just a poorly seated cable. At least, that’s what I keep telling myself.
Best Regards
Testy
Best of luck with the transition - I’d have made it more completely myself if it were not for having to support a bunch of Windows stuff at work.
What kinds of applications do you anticipate using your PC for? - (I might have some suggestions for useful Linux apps).
Mangetout
Slide shows, light video editing, Open Office type stuff, plus Java and C/C++ programming. One thing I’ve never seen a suitable UNIX ap for is the video editing. I use VideoMach under Windows and the thing is great. I can take any number of videos in different formats using different codecs and cut/paste bits of them into a single video.
Aside from that, just the usual web browsing, downloading and similar.
Thanks again
Testy
For video editing, I’ve found Cinelerra good - it happens to look and feel quite similar to EditStudio - which is the Windows video editor I happen to use. I had some problems with codecs on Linux, but I think that could have been resolved with a little patience.
Mangetout
Thanks for that. I’ll give it a try. Despite the objections of Orbit Satellite, I’ve gotten just over 40% of the DVD image for Fedora 8. Another couple of days and I’ll have it.
Thanks again
Testy