Red Hat

I have a PC with 1.2 GHz CPU, 256MB RAM and 80 Gb HDD. I want to install RHEL5 in that for my home use. I am using FC1 now(works well). I bought a new NIC now which supports kernel 2.6.18.* and hence wanted to upgrade(FedoraCore1 - no support available) now. I have 3 questions:-
Will RHEL5 run in this config without any problem?
Is it possible to upgrade directly from FC1 to RHEL5 without losing (almost) anything?
Can anybody suggest me a better version of linux for home usage (from red-hat)?

Thanks in advance
Sab.

Hello,
I have installed many flavors of Linux on machines that were similar to what you have described.
While 256 MB Ram is not a lot Linux can run in it.
I would reccomend using Centos 5 Linux since it is basically the same as RHEL.

One thing you may encounter is that you will need to install in Text mode and not the gui mode due to the lack of Ram

As for upgrading from FC1 directly to Centos or a newer flavor I ahve not experimented doing that.
I dont think you can do a direct upgrade due to the differences but then again I am not sure. You could always try a newer flavor of Fedora core which may allow you to upgrade in place.

best of luck

I would suggest that you backup your home directory, and shared folders, and prefereably do an install of CentOS / RHEL on the same machine...

Why wouldn't you go with FedoraCore 10, the latest release? It's usually easier to upgrade to a later version of the same distro than switch. (I haven't used RH since FC was split off, so I don't know how well RHEL and FC play together.)

The Upgrading Fedora wiki has information that might be helpful. They say you can actually use the graphical installer with as little as 192MB, though I'm with robertmcol--use the text installer. (Type linux text at the boot: prompt.)

Your main concern with limited memory is which window manager or environment to use instead of the heavyweights Gnome or KDE. I love the very lightweight IceWM, which Fedora supports. But there is also the ever popular lightweight Xfce environment and others.

thanks all for the reply.

Jackson, My NIC specification says it support only up 2.6.18.* I am worried about this as well. What would be the kernel version 0f FC10..?

According to distrowatch.com, FC10 has linux kernel version 2.6.27.5.

The specification was probably written when 2.6.18 was current. They can't vouch for a version that hasn't been released yet, so they could only say it supports up to the current release. But Linux as a rule doesn't drop support for viable hardware that's still being used. It's a pretty safe bet that FC10 will drop in and work.

Thanks Jackson, for the valuable information.

I am going to make a try. Wish me best of luck... :-)