How to learn linux..?

[janfebmar 0]

Hi!

well, im like totally newbie to .nix..

i havent even decided what .nix OS i want to install.

What Os do you recommend? Slackware? SuSE?... etc.

how can i best can learn using it (books or online resources).

any help would be strongly appreciated.

 

Regards

ES

[egorgry 0]

My advise is to dive right in and hit the online resorces. This board has some of the best moderators I've seen on a linux board so this place is a great start. If you are technical and want to learn as much as you can as fast as you can I recommend Debian or Gentoo it's way harder then anything else but you learn so much more. Some people recommend installing a something like mandrake or suse so it's up and running you can start exploring imediatly. BOth have advantages and disadvantages but I prefer to struggle and fully understand everything I've done. It may take a week or two to get a fully working debian system but in the end it's worth it. If you choose to go teh debian way I'll help as much as I can. another great distro is ubuntu it's debian based and it's easy to install. The only distro I stay away form is redhat/fedora I have my reasons.

[SoulNothing 0]

i totally agree with egorgry the best way to learn nix is to jump in as stated

 

slackware is good suse etc.

 

for ease of use guided install

fedora, mandrake suse, xandros

 

for a bit more advanced

something like slackware and others

the biggest thing is will you have a windows partition as well and trying to keep windows on while playing around may teach you alot your going to have to be careful not mess up your windows partition if your keeping one

 

heres three that will get you learning and quickly

 

debian /you can go to ubuntu for easier install but all of the power bit dated software but excellent and stable

arch i686 optimized excellent fast and great support

gentoo never tried this but its supposed to be excellent

 

another one is yoper

i686 optimized as well and great packaging support

 

i686 is for pII and above and setting the kernel or having it optimized to that will make the system go fast.

 

ill toss in my experience with distros

gentoo is great but will take a while to build

debian stable yet a bit dated, but will teach you lot

arch, great easy package manangement optimized for i686

suse, easy friendly install, easy management

fedora, stable, easy install, easy update with apt, plenty of features

mandrake, okay but not my favorite

slackware very stable

 

 

and if you need any help this is a great place to come

[matttah 0]

quickest way to learn is jsut messing up the comp..it will teach you very fast..plus you get to learn so much more then trying to fix it and what not..thats how i learned and i do pretty well=)

Daum

[Dapper Dan 0]

matttah makes a good point! I think we all can substantiate that we've learned the most about Linux and computers in general by messing up! LOL! I know that's when I learned the most!

 

I guess the best advice is, BE SURE TO BACK UP YOUR VALUABLE WINDOWS FILES BEFORE PARTITIONING AND INSTALLING LINUX! That way, you can break things and learn from your mistakes.

 

As far as distos go, I would say start off with either SuSE or Ubuntu. I've been playing around with the Ubuntu live CD for a few days now, and it is VERY easy to learn, is sparse and uncomplicated, yet is Debian-Morphix-Knoppix, so you have access to apt-get, which is an extremely easy way to install one of thousands of packages from the Debian repositories.

 

I'd try the Ubuntu live cd first, just to see how you might like Linux. Then if you think it's something you want to install to your hard drive, go with Ubuntu or SuSE. Both are easy and intuitive to install and use.

[jimf43 0]

Well, as others here know, I'm quite biased. Mepis has tought me more about linux and given me a more stable desktop than anything else I've ever tried.

 

What I think of the current SimplyMEPIS is here:http://mepislovers.com/modules/weblog/details.php?blog_id=10

 

 

[Dapper Dan 0]

Yes, Mepis is a good choice for a new user as well.

 

Hi Jim. Just the other day, I used one of your posts at Mepis to help out someone over at LinuxForums set up a dual boot between Blag and Mepis. It was the one explaining why you can no longer make a Mepis boot disk after RC4.

 

Good to know you're still checking in with us!