New To Linux

Developing Local

[The Contractor]

OK, so I am a completely new working with Linux locally. I have installed/dual booted in the past, but I never stuck with trying to learn it. I have also been through the Apache, Perl, PHP, MySQL on Windows.

I am purchasing a workstation specifically that comes with Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS pre-installed for development projects (perl, PHP, MySQL etc).

My questions are:

1. any good books to recommend on Linux/Apache?
2. any WYSIWYG HTML editor's worth looking at?
3. how would you rate the RHE WS distro?

Any tips, pointers, or recommendations are appreciated!

[jamie]

hi,

i bought the linux cookbook and linux server hacks from oreilly - both excellent - so much stuff which i use now on a daily basis.

i think when starting out, it doesn't really matter which distro you get. most files are in the same place and the principles of things like apache, mysql, cron, file permissions, using the shell, are the same.

my tip of the day is learn to use the VIM editor - it will save you a great deal of time once you get proficient with it.

good luck

[The Contractor]

Thanks, I'll take your suggestions.

[claus]

info

? -

man

you need

help

;)

(info, man pages, and help are your new friends)

I personally avoid Vi/Vim/Emacs as much as i can - yes they're all very powerful, but they're also extremely awkward.

As for WYSIWYG i still prefer text editors - only i like them a little more polished and user friendly than the above mentioned ones - but that won't help you i guess. So, here's a small list in no particular order:

NVu
Open Office
Coffee Cup
IBM WebSphere Homepage Builder
Mozilla Composer
HardCore Web Content Editor

Oh, and here's a list of 124 WYSIWYG thingies from freshmeat [freshmeat.net] - don't say linux doesn't bring you choice ;)

Actually "wysiwyg" + "html" [freshmeat.net] is perhaps a better criteria - this list has 56 items.

[The Contractor]

hehe...thanks claus
I type too slow to create HTML pages by hand... ;)

[brakthepoet]

Although I don't use Vi/Vim for development, it is nice to be able to ssh to the server and used Vim to correct a small error or make a small change. It's worth learning at least a few of the basic commands for the small tasks.

[2by4]

nano or pico are much easier to use than vim. For newbies especially, but I think I'll prefer nano for a while, it's pretty much the same, except it has its options available to see always. Nvu has a long way to go I think, don't know it's current version, last I checked it was at 0.1 or something, it's probably at 0.3 by now, not ready yet.

Try Kate, that's a very good kde editor.

[flood6]

Quanta+ is a KDE product that is really cool. It tries to be simialr to Dreamweaver. I stripped out all of the WYSIWYG features, buttons, views, and toolbars and it is now a great PHP, CSS, and HTML text-editor. But if you really like the WYSIWYG stuff, it is worth a look.

Gnome has a good editor called Screem. I haven't tried it yet, but it looks like an advanced text editor without WYSIWYG.

Good luck.

[dylans]

If you plan on coding in your future years, I recommend learning to type faster (try typershark, it's fun!) and use VI/VIM.
You'll be that more flexible and efficient.
My 2c.

[StupidScript]

I often use pico for editing on-server ... unless there are long lines, in which case pico breaks the lines during editing which sometimes causes problems (like with scripts) and necessitates further editing (you can fix the breaks ... you just have to ... fix the breaks). I've tried many times to get into vi, but it seems so weird to me.

On my home RH9 box I use the same text editor I use on my Win boxes at work: EditPad Pro, from JG Soft [editpadpro.com]. It works exactly the same on both OSs, so I don't get slowed down by needing to remember where I am. ;)

And I definitely agree with claus. You want to work with cron?

man 8 cron

will help. Wanna get some info about vsftp?

info vsftp

. I keep O'Reilly's "Linux in a Nutshell" handy, too. Chock full of goodies.

<edit>Last tip: Get to know and love your terminal. Some day it just may save your life.</edit>

[sitz]

I often use pico for editing on-server ... unless there are long lines, in which case pico breaks the lines during editing which sometimes causes problems (like with scripts) and necessitates further editing (you can fix the breaks ... you just have to ... fix the breaks).

You can also invoke pico as:

$ pico -w

...which will prevent line-wrapping.

That said, I worked at one job several years ago where the use of pico was considered grounds for a reprimand (and possible tar-and-feathering); it had the bad habit of mangling large files. vi basics are fairly straightforward; once in vi, you're in command mode. This used for, well, entering commands. Search/replaces, text finds, things like that. To get into text-enter mode, hit 'i'. To get /back/ into command-mode, hit 'Esc'. vi gives you all kinds of fun gizmos, like auto-indenting and 'showmatch', which shows which parenthese/bracket/brace you're closing, etc. I generally use 'vim' myself, which is a vi clone with other handy features, like syntax highlighting.

[bcc1234]

If you get through the first three weeks of pain using vim, you'll never want to use anything else. Of course, there is a small side-effect -- you'll be typing :w in any other app you use that involves typing text :)

[StupidScript]

Thanks, sitz!

[danny]

You probably know this, but a quick reminder just in case:

Make sure you have the workstation set up to download and install updates (via yum) before you do anything else!

[ArmedGeek]

"Of course, there is a small side-effect -- you'll be typing :w in any other app you use that involves typing text :)"

Man, that's the truth. I first started using vim in my early days with Linux. I'd broken X and the only text editor on that particular machine was vim. Up until then i'd always used jed. Once I'd figured out the basics, and some of the neat tricks you can do with vim, it became my primary text editor.

I've also had the occasional compile error using Visual Studio because of a :w in there somewhere.