First time user

[rustydusty1717]

i'm looking at installing fedora on my computer mainly because i run two game servers. i've used fedora a bit but is it fairly hard to run a game server on it? and is it hard to get used to running this OS?

[forkbomb]

Originally Posted by rustydusty1717

i'm looking at installing fedora on my computer mainly because i run two game servers. i've used fedora a bit but is it fairly hard to run a game server on it?

What games?

and is it hard to get used to running this OS?

Have you any prior experience with using Linux?

Fedora isn't always the best pick for first-time users of Linux, because some people aren't willing to be proactive about learning and expect things to just work. If you're willing to be a good, proactive learner, it can be a great distro to start on. Oftentimes, Fedora will "just work" but sometimes it can be a bit of a bronco/mustang that needs to be tamed. My first "real" distro that I really tried to learn was Fedora (after a three week or so flirtation with Ubuntu) and using it has taught me a lot about Linux.

Also, whether Fedora is good for servers in general is pretty hotly debated around here every few weeks or so. Try poking around for the threads where it's been debated - most of the debates center around the slightly bleeding-edge nature of Fedora and the short release cycle of Fedora. Intersting little discussions sometimes.


It's hard to answer your first question without knowing what game servers you want to run.

[rustydusty1717]

no i don't have any experience with linux. just with fedora a bit. i'm not too worried about how fedora run's server's cause i used to use windows xp pro and it was good enough for me. i run counter strike server's. i don't run them for a business just for my personal use. also how would i go about installing it on my other computer? it had windows on it but it's now crashed.

[forkbomb]

Originally Posted by rustydusty1717

no i don't have any experience with linux. just with fedora a bit.

Well, if you mean "any" literally, you're contradicting yourself. Fedora is a Linux distribution. If you've used Fedora a bit, you've used Linux.

i'm not too worried about how fedora run's server's cause i used to use windows xp pro and it was good enough for me. i run counter strike server's. i don't run them for a business just for my personal use. also how would i go about installing it on my other computer? it had windows on it but it's now crashed.

I suppose vanilla CS has been discontinued for some time... so CS:S I assume?

I don't mean to be argumentative - just curious: if WinXP "was good enough for me," why not stick with it? If you can't reinstall XP on the other machine because you don't have WinXP install media, then I can see why you'd want to look into CS on Linux.

As for installing Fedora, there's pretty extensive documentation maintained by the Fedora project.
http://docs.fedoraproject.org/install-guide/

CS:S dedicated server is supposed to run very well on Linux. Pretty much all the good servers I have seen run on Linux. Whether correlation is causation, I can't be sure because there are too many other factors to control for. Either way I'm sure the code for the CSS server is highly portable so using Windows or Linux probably has pros or cons.


http://wolphination.com/linux/2006/0...icated-server/
There's a guide for setting up CSS dedicated server, but it assumes 1) you've already got Linux installed and it seems to presume 2) that you're already somewhat familiar with Linux. It looks like it takes you through a step-by-step pretty well, but the problem with "recipe" step-by-steps is that they can leave you frustrated if you hit a snag and don't really know what you're doing. Think of it in terms of cooking - say you mess up by adding a little extra sugar; a good cook can probably do something that will make the food still taste good, where a person following a recipe step for step might end up with something atrocious. That's probably a horrible analogy.


As for whether Fedora is a good general-purpose distribution for server boxes, folks around here can help explain the pros and cons of Fedora-as-server-platform. But you probably won't get much help here with setting up the CSS server software, so maybe there's a forum for CSS server admins. Folks on any such boards might even be able to weigh in on good distributions for running CSS.

There are also important access control issues (security) to consider that aren't addressed in the guide mentioned above (shutting down ports you don't want the outside world to see, for example) - that's more general server security knowledge.

(Also, admins: move this to Games subboard perhaps?)

[rustydusty1717]

i don't have much experience with linux alright. i did a few things on a friends box that had fedora installed. i'm just wondering if i could get it installed on my computer and running without too much trouble. i can figure out the whole running the cs server after. just want to get this computer running for once. been trying to re install windows XP on it for weeks and well the recovery cd is wrecked and i've been wanting to try out fedora for a while. i know how to run windows xp fairly well. would it be possible for me to get fedora installed and running within a day or two? also how much stuff is needed to maintain it? as in updates etc.

[forkbomb]

Originally Posted by rustydusty1717

would it be possible for me to get fedora installed and running within a day or two?

Definitely. If you've got the media on hand, one can get Fedora installed in a few hours or less. But we've all bungled installs (ask anybody around here).

also how much stuff is needed to maintain it? as in updates etc.

YMMV. Some people go for full updates all the time, some folks only do security updates. It really depends on how upd-to-date you want to keep.

Note that because of Fedora's release cycle, any given version of Fedora will not recieve official updates 12 months after release (this does not rule out manual updates).

i'm just wondering if i could get it installed on my computer and running without too much trouble.

In my experience Fedora installations are usually trouble-free. It's after the install that I've managed to bust things (almost always my own fault).

It depends a lot on your hardware. What kind of specs are we looking at on the box in question?

[rustydusty1717]

it's an old box. so don't laugh at me haha.

it's a pentium 4 2.5 ghrz, 2 gigs of ram, 300 gb HD. just a descent computer. not looking at running a business off the box. just two 16 slot CS 1.6 server's. not CS:S.

it did it fine on windows XP until it crashed so i'm sure it should run even smoother if i was to install fedora. basically overall is it fairly easy to install, run etc? or should i look at an even more user friendly version of linux? and if so what version is even easier to run?

[forkbomb]

Originally Posted by rustydusty1717

it's an old box. so don't laugh at me haha.

it's a pentium 4 2.5 ghrz, 2 gigs of ram, 300 gb HD. just a descent computer. not looking at running a business off the box. just two 16 slot CS 1.6 server's. not CS:S.

it did it fine on windows XP until it crashed so i'm sure it should run even smoother if i was to install fedora. basically overall is it fairly easy to install, run etc? or should i look at an even more user friendly version of linux? and if so what version is even easier to run?

Oh, I wouldn't laugh at that machine! (In the grand scheme of things, that's not very old. Some folks around this forum are still using PIII machines every day. That's something you'll notice about Linux users - they're not afraid to repurpose an old box with lean specs.) That should be more than enough in terms of system specs, but I'm not exactly sure about the exact requirements of CS1.6 dedicated servers. If you run it without a GUI once you have it configured you can save yourself some processor cycles and memory usage.

I just got a box with similar specs other than the HD size and I'm planning to run about 8 services off of it (should be plenty).

No guarantees about anything, but things should go pretty well with those specs assuming you have sufficient upstream throughput from your ISP. That should be enough hardware to run two servers (make sure each one listens on a different port).

Just make sure that whatever Linux distribution you pick, you pick x86 and not x86_64/AMD64 or PowerPC.

As for Fedora as a server platform, here's a pretty recent thread about whether it's a good idea. I'll link to it here so we don't have to rehash the debate again.
http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=190877

CentOS is also in the Fedora family so the two are very similar and I prefer CentOS and other distros for servers. Note that CentOS doesn't have a very big community but you can sometimes get CentOS support here if you put it in the "Linux Chat" sub-forum and note that you're using CentOS. CentOS, Redhat, and Fedora are very similar (in fact, CentOS is basically RedHat without the branding and trademarking) in basic structure but differ in the "newness" of their software (Fedora often has beta or even alpha software in its official repositories which isn't always a good idea for servers).
http://centos.org/

[rustydusty1717]

i've got 10 mbps download and 1 mbps upload. it ran the same server's fine before so it should run them just as fine if not better on fedora. would you say a guy that's pretty good on XP would be able to run linux alright. i will have a lot of learning to do of course. also how would i go about installing it? would i have to burn the files to a CD and then put the cd into my other machine and install from there? just to make sure you know but the computer is completely crapped out. i thought it was the HD so i got a brand new HD and turns out it's my windows disc so as of right now it has a corrupted windows install basically.

[forkbomb]

Originally Posted by rustydusty1717

would you say a guy that's pretty good on XP would be able to run linux alright. i will have a lot of learning to do of course.

Yup. If you keep yourself open-minded about learning, you can get past any problems you run into.

also how would i go about installing it? would i have to burn the files to a CD and then put the cd into my other machine and install from there?

You need to download install media (.iso files) and then burn them as raw images to CD or DVD. (If you use DVD install media make sure whatever machine you're using can boot from DVD - check the BIOS or documentation for your motherboard.) Then you have to make sure your BIOS is set to boot from optical media first.

Downloads of install media are usually available over direct ftp or http download but BitTorrent transfers are also available for most distributions.
http://fedoraproject.org/en/get-fedora

But you can't just burn the .iso as a file - you need to burn as a raw image using your favorite burning software. The built-in Windows XP burning functionality doesn't support raw image burning as far as I know so you need special softare. I like InfraRecorder for burning images from Windows (it has a Burn Image function under the Actions menu).
http://infrarecorder.sourceforge.net/

[rustydusty1717]

okay i'll try and get that done tonight. then tommorow pop the CD in and give it a go. which do version of fedora would i download? obviously not the x86 64 so do i download the I386 or ppc?

[forkbomb]

Originally Posted by rustydusty1717

okay i'll try and get that done tonight. then tommorow pop the CD in and give it a go. which do version of fedora would i download? obviously not the x86 64 so do i download the I386 or ppc?

Yes, long story short, i386 for your Pentium 4. But, yes, a Pentium 4 can run anything from i386 up to i686 (i386 through i686 are sometimes abbreviated as x86 but that can get confusing).

I could get geeky and explain that I think some Pentium 4s can run x86_64, which is really a 64-bit extension for the x86 instruction set, but most people don't care about such geeky hair-splitting. But i386 is a safe bet and will work on pretty much any Pentium 4.

Definitely not PPC. PowerPC is the processor architecture that was used on "older" Macs before Mac switched to using Intel. (PS3s can run PPC Linux distros but that's not relevant for your situation.)

[rustydusty1717]

do i need to download all those files including the DVD one and netinst or just the disc 1 - 6 files?

[rustydusty1717]

bumpity bump bump

[Hlingler]

Patience, rustydusty. They're all either eating dinner, watching the Olympics, walking the dog(s) milking the cows, or slopping the hogs. Or something. Someone will get back to you later.

V