Linux

[Yrrek]

Basically, what I want to know is if I'm missing anything? Anything else I should be doing before actually going ahead with the installation? Also, are there any good, freeware firewalls and anti-virus packages out there that I should be using for Linux, since I've never really bought the whole "security through obscurity" thing.

I would make sure you have a seperate computer with connection available (if possible) during this time so you can hang out in a redhat channel on IRC to ask questions when needed. If you have never partitioned a drive before, it can be rather confusing, but I recommend doing it yourself as opposed to letting the installer automatically partition as it will just erase everything and use the whole drive.

Another thing to look for is a Fedora Core 6 installation guide or article that you can print off. It should be pretty easy to locate and will help tremendously.

Lastly, unless you are going to be running an email server to Windows boxes, don't worry about anti-virus. One, you don't need it, two, you won't be able to find one.

As for the firewall, I have not used firewalls much, the only thing you really need to do to secure your system at home is to make sure you have a good solid root password. I recently read that for a password to be considered secure it now needs to be 15 characters long, including numbers, letters (both capital and not), and special characters. Another thing is to not install something unless you plan on using it. For example, most of the server applications you probably won't use this go around. So don't install FTP, Apache, SAMBA, etc. unless you are certain you will use them. They are easy to install later if needed. Absolutely don't use telnet for remoting either, use SSH.

That about sums up everything I can think of off the top of my head. Here are a few links to good GNU/Linux resources. Good luck and let us know how it turns out!

http://www.linux.com - Good reference site
http://freshmeat.net/ - Lots of software packages
http://sourceforge.net/index.php - More software packages
http://www.linuxdevcenter.comnux/cmd/ - Command Reference
http://www.linuxdevices.com/ - Another good reference site
http://www.linuxpackages.net/ - Even more software packages
http://www.linuxquestions.org/ - Excellent help forums
http://www.openaddict.com/page.php?43 - Good article detailing what to expect when making the move to GNU/Linux, but apparently is currently down. =( Keep checking that link!
And finally:
http://www.linuxrsp.ru/win-lin-soft/table-eng.html - This is a huge list of tons of programs that are common in Windows, so that you can find it's equivalent in GNU/Linux. I suggest perusing that for a good idea of some things to look for.

Good luck!