Linux NewBie - Information Request

[Monty Ireland]

Please help me!
This is what I want to do?
1. I have a cable modem feading my wireless lan
I need you advice .. which version of Linux
will best support this endevor.
2. I will be installing DB2 on my linux server.
3. I will be installing Oracle on my linux server.
4. Develop software for both DB platforms using
JAVA, C, & PERL.
My backround:
15+ yrs of software development
10+ yrs of dbms development
Comfortable on MVS UNIX and WIN platforms
Looking for any advice, books, URL's, etc...
TIA

[Frank Carver]

Pretty much any version of Linux will be able to do what you require. The differences come in other aspects:
Do you want a GUI? Do you want a Web UI for configurations? Do you want other operating systems on the same box? Do you want other development languages and tools? Do you want other servers and network software? How secure do you need your system to be - is it inside a firewall or will it be the firewall? What sort of hardware will you be using - CPU type? IDE/SCSI/USB/Firewire/parallel/etc. drives? and so on.
If you can tell us any more about what you already have, or what you are considering we should be able to help with more precise recommendations.

[Monty Ireland]

To cut to the chase...
I need to build for the fun of it
a unsecured development machine.
Here is my wish list:
1. find an old intel box someone is throwing away
if you know of any please let me know.
2. linux will be the only OS
3. install all linux dev tools
korn shell, perl, java, & c are a min...
4. install the following servers
apache, tomcat, db2, oracle
5. connect box to the internet (10 meg per sec)
with cable or wireless
6. GUI is optionial
any ideas would be greatly appreciated
If you know of any New England based
Linux Install Fests please let me know.
Thanks In Advance...

[Greg Brouelette]

Ok, I use Mandrake Linux and I've done a lot of what you need on it. It's pretty easy to get apache and tomcat running. It comes with a C++ compiler and various developer tools (PERL is included). I've never set up DB2 or Oracle on Linux though so I can't advise you there.
Gui: I use Gnome but Mandrake comes with Gnome, KDE, Blackbox, Sawfish, etc. So you can easily have several window managers installed. You can even have different users using different window managers.
Cable modem: Easy, I have a router right after my cable modem that has an internal IP of 192.168.1.1 I just set up my Linux box to use that IP as it's gateway.

Here's a tip I learned the hard way. When installing Mandrake go to the "Pick individual programs to be installed" portion and then go into the "development" section. BE SURE to de-select Kaffe. The installation of Kaffe installs a java and javac program of a very old version (I think it's JDK 1.1.6) directly into your /usr/bin directory. Since that directory is in your path before your /usr/shar/JDK1.4.1 directory (where you will probably install Java) the older version get executed instead of the one you want.
You can buy Mandrake pretty much anywhere. But I tend to buy mine from www.cheapbytes.com for about $6 plus shipping.
Hope it helps

[Monty Ireland]

Thanks for the inforamtion...
Enjoy the rest of the summer...