Formatting HDD

[Anne Wilson]

On Friday 17 March 2006 18:10, horse wrote:
> I am fed up with internet malware and have been told that a Linux-based
> program gets little or none. I loaded the complete DVD of Fedora Core 4 on
> my old Fujitsu laptop. It went smoothly. The HDD is 10Gb and FC4 loaded
> about 5Gb!
>
Well done!  A big step forward, then.

> Most of it is superfluous to my requirements. I intend using FC4 on the
> laptop as the only internet-facing computer in my 3-computer network until
> I become more comfortable with FC4. Who knows, I'd eventually like to
> completely migrate away from the evil empire (Microsoft).
>
> My questions:
> 1. How do I format the HDD so I can start with a fresh and minimal
> installation. 2. I only want to access the internet, use Fedora's version
> of Outlook as an email client, use Fedora's 'Word' program, and use Adobe
> Reader.
>
To be honest, although it is perfectly possible to make such a minimalist 
install, it's much easier once you have felt your feet a bit.

I would recommend that you keep the install you have made, for a few weeks at 
least, and try things out.  If you have a 10GB drive I'm guessing that the 
laptop is not so young, and maybe not fast either.  How much ram do you have?  
I've been running FC4 on an elderly laptop with 128MB, but it was treacly.  
I've just upgraded the ram to 256MB and it makes an enormous difference.

The choice between gnome and kde as a desktop is a personal one - wars have 
been started on less!  Kde is more like windows, if that helps.  The programs 
that are designed for kde will run if you choose gnome, and vice versa.  
OpenOfficeOrg2 is the fully-featured office suite, but it's a resource hog.  
Both gnome and kde have office suites that are much less demanding, and may 
well meet your requirements.  Only trying them will tell you.

For your Outlook replacement, try Evolution or Kontact.  Again, both have 
strong followings.

FireFox is a very popular browser, and Konqueror is also very capable.  A word 
of warning, though.  You will have to take separate steps to get flash and 
the like working - people here will guide you.

There is an Acrobat Reader for linux, but you may find you don't need it.  You 
will almost certainly find that you have at least one reader installed 
already - kpdf, gpdf, or gv perhaps.

If you could take a week or two to try them out, you could then do an install 
with exactly the programs that best suit you.  Maybe Fedora Core 5 will be 
your choice then.

Anne
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