Red Hat doc sucks

[sandwichs]

I downloaded red hat 7.1, I did a custom install and selected EVERYTHING.
Everytime I try to learn something about it by reading red hat documentation, howto's, etc... no folders or files are where they say. As a newbies, this is really frustrating because so far, I haven't understood ONE thing completly. There is always something, somewhere that doesn't work. It's been 2 weeks that I've been trying to run apache on red hat... no results. I tried to run the windows version on ME.. 5 minutes and it was up. Also, when I post something on here, it seems that the people that answer assume that I know what I'm talking about...Hell no, if I knew, I wouldn't post stupid questions, I'd be helping the ones that don't know.

[subnet_rx]

coming from a person that just spent a week on how to get my cable modem working in Linux, when it was up in Windows in less than 5 minutes, I know how you feel. I think the documentation at RH is scarce because it's not their product. They give good documentation compared to other distributions in my opinion of their own software.

Linux is different that way, you get Windows, you get Microsoft products only. You download Linux for FREE, and you get up to 3000 other software products that have agreed to be open source. Only problem is, the documentation is going to come from the vendor's site, not the distributor.

My advice: Check Apache.org, and check LinuxDoc.org And get on Red Hat's Apache mailing list, it will be far more helpful b/c ppl that read it, will have installed Apache on Red Hat themselves. Ever tried to find help for a Windows problem? The software maker will often give you support for one of Microsoft's products. This philosophy shouldn't be restricted to Windows.

In short: Know where to look.

[sandwichs]

well, I downloaded redhat from the redhat page...shouldn't their docs match the product???

[subnet_rx]

I don't think they should have too. Including someone else's product is a service to you. It's Apache's requirement to fully document thier software. Which, there's really no shortage of Apache help on the web. why should Red Hat write another one?

[sandwichs]

simply because there are some newbies (like me) that have no clue if apache is installed or not in redhat and if it is,.. how to start it etc...redhat includes apache on their cd but what they say about it is wrong

[subnet_rx]

three questions:

Did you install it during the installation setup?

Have you visited Apache.org?

Have you signed up for the Red Hat Apache Help mailing list?


I really don't think you realize what kind of documentation it would take to support all the programs that come with Red Hat. Your probably talking about over 500 documents, somewhere around 5000 pages, and new releases of probably 100 of them every month or so. They would have to have a whole department just for the typing.

[sandwichs]

Did you install it during the installation setup? maybe... it says www server on the install... I read that it is apache

Have you visited Apache.org? yep but I don't what I need to look for

Have you signed up for the Red Hat Apache Help mailing list? nope... I'm going to look into it..
The problem is mainly that I don't know what to look for
btw... thanks for your time

[Niminator]

try

/etc/rc.d/init.d/httpd start

while logged in as root. If it comes up saying 'ok', then you probably have it running. Then just open a browser and type your ip address into the address bar.

If that doesn't work, let us know. You might have to open a port in xinetd.

By the way, all of the files being served are at /var/www/http.

This is all from memory, so I might be wrong on the details. For example, that directory holding your web pages might actually be /var/www/httpd.


Also try 'man apache' and 'man httpd' for more information on the actual web server.

Also, the 'linuxconf' tool might help. It's a gui for configuring various aspects of the Redhat system.

And please post back here if any of this stuff works :) Feedback is good. :D

Also, don't be discouraged. Remember that you're working with a very old type of operating system. All of this stuff conforms to understood unix standards. Basically learning how to do one thing in Linux actually enables you to do esseveral additional things, because the standards are held by almost everyone. Good luck!

[ 23 September 2001: Message edited by: Niminator ]

[sandwichs]

thanks for your reply
with the command /etc/rc.d/init.d/httpd start I got the foloowingStarting httpd: [date] [alert] httpd: Could not determine the server's fully qualified domaine name, using 127.0.0.1 for serv er name

[Balamut]

I completely agree with you. Linux docs is outdated completely. Some HOWTO`s in my Mandrake Spring 2001 RE are of 1999-8 year. It exasperates me.

I`ll dare to advice to have a look on this http://dsl.org/cookbook/ Not the hel of a doc but as a ABC it helps. Common tasks, common commands etc.

And to your question abuot apache: what about http://blkangel.dhs.org/pub/linux/Linux_Unleashed_3rd_Edition/ch51/846-848.html Is it of any help?