hello
i have a toshiba 4600 and i want to put some form of linux on it. i want to learn linux and thought that a dedicated machine would be a good idea. i bought the laptop second hand and find that the windows 95 has some problems. i tried to install a pcmcia network card and some files are missing. the laptop says insert the 95 cd rom, which i dont have. i thought start fresh and install redhat 5.1 which i found someone else has done. i dont want any of the programs on the laptop. so:
can i wipe the computer and install redhat 5.1 alone?
or do i have to keep windows on there as well?
any help would be greatly appreciated.
my aim is to learn linux and have a laptop that i can put on a home network with the pcmcia card and use the internet as well.
---------- Post updated at 07:57 PM ---------- Previous update was at 07:52 PM ----------
ok i found that redhat i have to buy, is there a free alternative?
would red hat 7 work on an i486
i have a toshiba 4600c, im not sure what is compatible or how to tell.
also, how could i wipe the laptop and install this on its own?
RH 7 would run perfectly fine. However I believe you're confusing RH with RHEL which is the flagship and current release from Red Hat Inc. (although it's not free anymore - you have to pay for support).
I'd suggest you install CentOS which is a distribution based on RHEL... CentOS even claims to be 100% binary compatible with RHEL.
Fedora is also RHEL-based but most of its bundled software is beta, experimental, RC, unstable, etc so there may be a few bugs here and there.