new here.

[carterboy]

hey guys.. recently ive started going to school for computer networking and ive learned quite a lot in the past couple months... but there are a few things id like to figure out that i cant quite understand and i was thinking this was the place to ask for advice.

first off i have a hp pavilion slimline s5000 series. its my first desktop and it was on sale so im looking to maybe make some upgrades to it, like a faster processor, run dual monitors which means another video card, and maybe a external harddrive since i only have 320 gb.

also ive been working alot with vmware and learning SQL, my teacher said that i could bring something to transfer vmware to my home computer but right now i dont have the funds to buy another HDD, was wondering if there was any way to get it off a website that way i can get extra practice of SQL at home..

and also if i do get vmware installed onto my computer i was wondering how hard it would be to install like linux or another operating system onto my vitural machine, would i have to purchase the operating system?

and also ive seen a couple of guys in my class been using some type of software or something and they were called 'backtrack' and 'ubuntu' and if anyone could give me some info on those.. ive researched backtrack a bit and found out it is for linux OS but just was wondering what these were for. thanks for the input guys! if i am wrong about something please point it out and point me into the right direction !

 

[BikerEcho]

about backtrack abd ubuntu:
backtrack is a security testing OS. it is for hacking, it is light and got almost all the tools you need in order to start hacking or testing security.
Ubuntu on the other hand is one of the most user friendly Linux OS. it is a GREAT OS to start lerning about the worl of free sofware and open environment.

allmost all linux OS'es are free. there are some that cost like linux RedHat.
it will be no problem to install linux on a virtual mashine. just serch like: download ubuntu. and you should find an ISO file with the OS.
in most LINUX OS'es (like ubuntu) you can burn it to a cd and boot it up. there will be a menu where you can choose to install ubuntu and some other things, but you can choose to install to you RAM.
that meens that you can try out ubunto without installing ANYTHING on your HDD. ofcorse you can try it out in a virtual mashine, but it is better to install it on your ram. it makes the experience more real.

 

[root]

Redhat fedora is free, it's just redhat AS that costs.
(and I think that technically that is free, you just pay for updates).
if you really want an enterprise level linux, that is completely free and works like redhat then CentOS is the baby for you!

Personally I favour Debian, (which is what Ubuntu is based on). I've currently got the latest release running on an old Cirix 333 box with 128MB Ram, it's fully up to date, running the latest versions of udhcp, bind, apache, mysql and samba, (all I need for basic web development).
I don't actually have a desktop installed (runs from the command line only).
personally i think that is one of the best things about Linux, you can choose what to install.
you don't have to have a desktop, you don't have to have a DHCP client (I removed this as my box has a static address). you are more or less in complete control of what happens on the box.

for setting up virtual machines at home.

you can use microsoft virtual PC.
or you can use VMware player, (or VM ware workstation or VMWare server).

for experimenting, VMware player is going to be a good place to start as it's very user friendly, and a good place to get started to understand the basics of virtualisation/creating virtual machines, (there is also I think more tools to turn physical machines to virtual machines etc).

Vmware player is free, you can dowload it from the VMWare website.

after you've downloaded it then you can create new virtual machines or use existing virtual machines.
I assume that the SQL server you're using at school is already virtual? so you just want to bring the image home?

if it's already running as a virtual machine then you may find that the "disk" of the virtual machine (which is just a file) is already split into lots of files.
this would mean that you don't have to take it home all in one go, you can do it over a couple of days with a USB memory stick, or in one day copying the vmdk file over several disks. (or several CD's or DVD's if you've got a burner for the media available).

whilst your server may believe it has a 1tb drive, that doesn't mean that you'll need a 1TB drive to take it home, a lot of virtual machines are allocated non-existent hardware. (so for example I've only got 4GB of free space on the D drive where my images live, but as far as the virtualised server is concerned it's got a couple of hundred GBs, and continues to run happily -of course if I run out of disk space the virtual server will die, but when you thin provision/over commit (tell a virtual device it has more resources than it actually has) you have to keep a close watch on what is actually available and how any virtual machines you have are actually using it.


are you using Microsoft SQL server at school? or are you using MySQL?

database server distributions pretty much breaks down like this

MS SQL
DB2,
Oracle
MySQL (enterprise)

are all paid for, if you've been using these at school then you'll have to get the image from school (and I assume that your school is extending an academic license for using them to you).

MS SQL has a desktop edition (MSDE), or at least it had, not sure if it still does. it's ok for simple apps, but otherwise it's a pain in the bum.

MySQL (normal edition) is free and can be downloaded from the mySQL website.

some of the syntax is slightly different from MS SQL though

an example that springs to mind if that in MS SQL to select the top ten rows of a table you're write
select top '10' * from table
in MySQL you write
select * from table limit '0,10'


postgre SQL is also free, but I've not used it, so can't really comment.

 

[LukaszR1]

welcome aboard

 

[carterboy]

Redhat fedora is free, it's just redhat AS that costs.
(and I think that technically that is free, you just pay for updates).
if you really want an enterprise level linux, that is completely free and works like redhat then CentOS is the baby for you!

Personally I favour Debian, (which is what Ubuntu is based on). I've currently got the latest release running on an old Cirix 333 box with 128MB Ram, it's fully up to date, running the latest versions of udhcp, bind, apache, mysql and samba, (all I need for basic web development).
I don't actually have a desktop installed (runs from the command line only).
personally i think that is one of the best things about Linux, you can choose what to install.
you don't have to have a desktop, you don't have to have a DHCP client (I removed this as my box has a static address). you are more or less in complete control of what happens on the box.

yeah i just really wanna get the feel for all of it so i might try and sit down one day and download vmware player..



after you've downloaded it then you can create new virtual machines or use existing virtual machines.
I assume that the SQL server you're using at school is already virtual? so you just want to bring the image home?

yeah i already have a virtual machine at school but really all we have put on it is MS SQL.. i really have messed around with it more than that because i really didnt know what i was doing. i have ordered a 64gb flash drive, once it comes in i will try and do like you said and copy a couple files at the time..



are you using Microsoft SQL server at school? or are you using MySQL?

i am using MS SQL at school. we have talked about oracle but he said that the school would have to pay way to much to get keys for every student to use it in the class.


are all paid for, if you've been using these at school then you'll have to get the image from school (and I assume that your school is extending an academic license for using them to you).

and yes SQL is paid for by the school and he said if we wanted to use SQL at the house then we could use the same key that we used at school cause it was good for two virutal machines. and ill try to download some of that stuff that yall mentioned..

but about my computer what do yall recommend to make it faster and to be able to run dual monitors? do new processors/ video cards come out pretty often? again im pretty new to try to mod my computer so ive never really looked into buying new stuff for it. i just figured if im going to spend alot of time in front of the computer then i might as well have it nice and fast lol.

okay well my computer has been super slow. and i think i have a single core processor and i think its just maxing out. so i think i should just go out and buy a dual or quad core processor. if yall have any sugguestions i would be listening for anything!

 

[carterboy]

i downloaded vmware player with ubuntu linux and it works fine but my computer has been giving us trouble with everything.. ive been looking for different processors because ours is only single core and i wanted to upgrade to a quad core or even a six core processor.. is there some kinda list that i can look at for my computer to find out what type of processor i need?