After i download Workstation, do I have to download the SPIN on the bootable disk? How about VPN's and/or VPS?

Okay well I have no idea which one I’ve stared with - it came out of the box. I don’t have a VPN - no way to understand how to download one. I have a tenuous grasp on what an “image” is and all I know is that I’ve had to “reboot” Fedora 6 times with my “bootable disk” that I had to create with my image something or other.

Do I need to pay for a VPN? The example would be OpenVPN. When you go through the documentation on Fedora, it says that I need to make certain changes and I just don’t know how to: OpenVPN - Fedora Project Wiki

For example:

  1. Edit vars appropriately.
  2. ./easyrsa clean-all
  3. Before continuing, make sure the system time is correct. Preferably, set up NTP .

If I just type these in then i get an error in return.

Please let us know what do you want to do with a VPN connection.

A VPN connection has at least two end points.

What are the endpoints in your case.

OS ISO images are meant to be booted to install it - it is the primary use case. So how to boot it depends on where you are going to install it to.

For modern computer, we boot USB thumb drive, so we need to write it to a USB drive. In Fedora, we use the Fedora Media Writer to do it.

If we are installing to Virtual Machines, than writing to USB normally is no use. We need to follow the instructions of the particular VM engine on how to boot the ISO file to setup a VM guest.

I prefer to focus on the technical issues on hand. To suggest how Fedora can work better can be a separate and dedicated topic.

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I’m planning on using it for both personal and business reasons. I’m aiming to have my information secured with the VPN. I’d try and use the Server but i’m not even exactly sure how to use that now that it’s installed. I don’t know. I’m on my last day of being able to return this laptop and have just officially failed at using Linux. I don’t seem to have anymore time to return this thing. This community is fantastic - everyone has so mcuh potential to be great. I hope it’ll be easy enough someday for kids to be able to use - until then, the corporate monsters will just keep eating I suppose. Thanks for your attempts to help, Sampson - they’re much appreciated.

Ha I’m trying. I think I have to return this computer now - my g/f is saying that I either move out and leave or return the computer and never speak about Linux again. You’re great - wish I could have some one-to-one training so this would make sense. Even with this stuff installed - I have no idea how to use it. I seemingly am unable to install the Fedora IoT system - which gives me the security to put on a VM and let hospitals use. I was under the impression I could use a VPN for both personal and business use - b/c I work from home and simply wanted my IP address hidden by way of funneling my internet browsing activity through a difft. server (this is also why I wanted the Fedora Server) but evidently there are two end points and who else knows ha. I very much appreciate your help. I wish I could have an hour demo with you so I could wrap my head around this ha b/c right now it’s just scattered everywhere.

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Hi Liam,

Please tell us what are the end points of your indended use of VPN.

VPN is not magic - it will not guard you against all kinds of threats from the Internet.

I understand you got a deadline - to return the machine or keep it. In this case, you just do what you have to do.

May be when you have a permenant machine to try Fedora or any other Linux distribution, you can pick it up more easily without the time pressure.

Good luck!

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What do you mean by end point? I want anything that is pinged against my router and wifi from my ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 8 - which is about to be someone else’s refurbished Thinkpad at this rate - OR my ladies Macbook and any other devices that we use with this router to go to a different server then to the service provider. I don’t know how to answer this question.

I already had a MacBook Air - the gift this year was going to be a new computer to make jumping into web design and development easier - at which point I told her if I want to help her hospital, I’d actually need a laptop that was pretty secure in order to do so and said that I"ve heard the best way to do this is to ditch microsoft and apple and use Linux. She bought me the gift and it’s the last day to return. She’s dying for me to return this now b/c she’s seen the stress that it’s caused which is now spilling into her life and work so honestly - I didn’t realize that this operating system was developed by a community and that there would be hundreds of pages of presumptuous documentation to read through - the presumption, of course, being that I’m familiar with Linux.

-What do you mean by end point?

For the VPN software, you need to tell which VPN server it is connecting to. Your computer (vpn client) and the remote Server (vpn server) are the two endpoints of a VPN connection.

-I want anything that is pinged against my router and wifi from my ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 8

What do you meant by “is pinged against”. Now you have a ThinkPad, a Macbook, a Router/AP, and a “service provider”. What service provider it is? What kind of service it is providing?

According to this paragraph, I can think of a setup like this:

  1. There will be a Internet Hosting company that will be hosting the Internet Application you are developing
    1a. You are looking to sign up to a VPS (virtual private server) from some cloud provider, like Amazon, to host the application

  2. A Fedora (Linux) notebook will be your developing workstation

For a setup like this, the likely setup of the VPN is from your notebook to the VPS. Which also mean you need to setup the corresponding VPN server software at the VPS side - unless it is part of the VPS image.

It will take time to setup an environment like this - if I were you, I will just return the notebook first, and take time to explore alternative ways to do it.

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Okay I will return the laptop and stick with Mac. Thank you, Sampson.

Are you familiar to running a Virtual Machine platform under macOS?

It will be logical next step to install Fedora inside a VM guest, get familiar with it, and keep working on your project.

You don’t need run Fedora on your notebook directly to start.

If you don’t know where to start, Virtualbox is a free of charge platform. While Parallel is a commercial offering focusing on macOS environments.

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Ha this costed $1,500 and five weeks of time that has costed me my livelihood in it’s entirety… I hope to never see the words Linux or Fedora again after this goes in the box to be shipped out.

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