Haruna

hi guys, i have centos 5.2 on my laptop pc, can't install adobe flash player on my pc. as in i tried using the terminal to do it but it just wont work, dont know if someone can help me with the commands to use or what to do please.
Also i cant open files stored in a directory, i.e after opening the directory with the cd command, please what should i do to open files with extensions like jpg, pdf, doc e.t.c Please any help no mater how small will be appreciated. thanks alot

reed9

First, if you don't have a really compelling reason to use CentOS as a desktop distribution, switch to something else. If you like Redhat/CentOS way of doing things, look to Fedora 11. It will make your life much easier.

I like to point people to this little article about the woes of CentOS on a netbook. (Which also applies to notebooks.)

If you really need an enterprise distro/Red Hat clone on your netbook, then I recommend Scientific Linux.

But to answer your question, here is a guide.

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techieMoe

I very much disagree with this statement. Could you elaborate on why you would recommend that someone dump a stable distribution based on Redhat Enterprise Linux for a bleeding-edge, less-than-stable test distro? How will this make one's life easier?

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techieMoe

Why are you trying to open image files (JPG, PDF) in the terminal?

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reed9

Yup.

1. Desktop-oriented distros running a modern kernel have better hardware support. He's running this on a laptop, and will probably run into trouble with Redhat and Redhat clones. The #1 response I see around the web when people have trouble running Redhat/CentOS as a desktop distro, is "Why are you using enterprise linux as a desktop. It's not meant for that." Which I think is somewhat baloney, since it's marketed as a desktop as well, but the point remains that you will likely have more trouble with things like wireless cards and webcams than you would with Fedora or Ubuntu or whatnot.

Also, the poster is obviously not experienced with Linux, and while Fedora isn't the most newbie friendly distro out there, it is moreso than Redhat.

2. It's easier to install non-free software such as media codecs and flash on a desktop-oriented distro. Or maybe I should say, there are more guides, forum posts, blogs, etc. about doing so. More community support.

3. If the poster really wants an enterprise oriented distro or needs a Redhat clone, I think Scientific Linux is a better alternative. Obviously this is up for argument, but I agree with the conclusions in the article I linked to by Caitlyn Martin. CentOS has historically been slower to release security updates than either RHEL or Scientific Linux. Scientific Linux is backed by Fermilab and CERN, meaning if you need long-term stability and support, there is less risk with Scientific Linux than the community developed CentOS. This is more of a concern for someone using it in their business, but I'm making the assumption that someone interested in using enterprise linux will share these concerns to some extent.

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techieMoe

What do you base this statement on? I've run CentOS on my laptop just fine, and know several others who have as well. If the hardware on a laptop is particularly obscure, he/she will have the same trouble on ANY version of Linux they try. It's not confined to Redhat clones.

Again, what are you basing this on? NDISWrapper and Madwifi work just fine in Redhat Enterprise and CentOS, as do the built-in Intel drivers in the Linux kernel.

That's your opinion and I'll heartily disagree with it. I never recommend what's essentially a beta product to a new user. They're more likely to run into issues that aren't their fault (buggy new versions of programs, random crashes) on Fedora than they are on a more vetted platform like Redhat Enterprise.

Yes, but if you're going to go down that route, why not suggest Ubuntu or Linux Mint?

I don't disagree with the suggestion of Scientific Linux.

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reed9

The latest CentOS uses the 2.6.18 kernel. Many more drivers have been included in the kernel since then. It's not just if he's running obscure hardware, it's if he's running newer hardware. But it may be that everything will work fine. Perhaps I should phrase it more carefully, "If the poster runs into hardware troubles, it may be easier to run something with a more modern kernel than to try and get it working under CentOS."

Beyond that, I base the statement on the number of posts I've seen where people have trouble running CentOS on a laptop, which do not have simple fixes, and where in many cases the problem would not exist or be easily fixed if they were running something like Ubuntu. Again, I refer to the articles by Caitlyn Martin, which sum up what I have felt about CentOS for awhile, and which appear to mirror many other people's experience. But this is certainly based only on anecdote and opinion. I'm sorry if I gave the impression it was anything but opinion.

Since the poster is using CentOS, I mentioned Fedora. I do think Mint is a better choice, or Ubuntu 8.04 for a reasonably well tested long term release distro. My bad for only mentioning Fedora.

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