I want to learn Linux recently.

First use Google (or Google Linux (http://www.google.com/linux) to read up on Linux and look at various screenshots to get a feel of it.

Then choose a distribution to try, Ubuntu is a good place to start and read up on that specific distro.

Ubuntu Forum - http://ubuntuforums.org/

Once you feel comfortable, download and install it and try it yourself.

The only only real way to learn is to use it.
 
i'm starting to learn linux. What i've done is get an old computer which i had sitting around and installed ubuntu 6.06 on it and just playing around on it. If i stuff it up i can just dump it. Then when i understand it enough and comfortable with it i will most likely install on my main computer.
 
I used linux for a while .. lots of good and free programs on it ... but its problem(for me) was its incompatiablity ... i used it for round 6 months.. slowly fadded out, cause i had 2 change OS to play games .. etc... but if u dont play game's its pretty good. if u just wana play music or etc ... more stable than windows. so i deleted it ..

I know this doesnt help but just putting my 2cents in
 
i'm starting to learn linux. What i've done is get an old computer which i had sitting around and installed ubuntu 6.06 on it and just playing around on it. If i stuff it up i can just dump it. Then when i understand it enough and comfortable with it i will most likely install on my main computer.

How successful this is really depends on the machine you use to try Linux on. I started out on a second pc I had but had endless problems, so decided to install on my main pc and it worked perfectly.
 
How successful this is really depends on the machine you use to try Linux on. I started out on a second pc I had but had endless problems, so decided to install on my main pc and it worked perfectly.

it is able to run 6.06 drapper drake on it. I've tried a few things and seems ot be handling it.
 
I'm running Ubuntu 6.06 to good effect on the following box:

eMachines 420
Intel Celeron 2.6GHz
512mb PC2700 Micron RAM
80GB WDC800 IDE HDD
nVidia GeForce FX5200 - Having issues with this, I'm using the integrated atm
A pair of unknown optical drives, but they are both burners.

I've tried installing the nVidia drivers via Synaptic Package Manager with little sucess, everytime I re-enable the card in the BIOS I get a couple of screens to do with X Sever and then it boots into the console mode. As soon as I switch to integrated again it's fine though.:confused:

P.S: Ubuntu 7.04 (Feisty Fawn) BETA is out, I'm downloading it now:)
 
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Just installed Feisty Fawn and if you like the effects in Vista then Ubuntu now offers them, there are a few bugs but it looks good and I spent 5 minutes playing around with it. It ran well with the integrated graphics but still wouldn't work when it came to my 5200.:(
 
im running ubuntu on...

450mhz intel pentium 3
(no idea about the ram) around 200mb (i guess)
12gb hard drive

I had to use a alternate install cd though.
 
the best thing i can tell you is the "in a nutshell" books. That's how I've learned lots of things. They walk you through it, and are very simple and to the point. Very well written, for sure.
 
Which distribution should I use?

Linux comes in many flavours/distributions. Some Linux distributions serve a very specific purpose, others are more targetted at 'the general user.' Notice I didn't say 'desktop user.' While Linux is being used on the Desktop more and more you'll never find me equating it with Windows 9x through XP. If I had to make a comparison between Linux and Windows I'd compare it more to Windows 2000 Server or Windows 2003 server. Regardless of which Linux distribution/flavour you choose, you still normally have a lot of server functionality which can add a layer of complexity.

Okay, that was a mouthful.

Most (but not all) Linux flavours/distributions were originally based on one of the following distributions:

* Debian GNU/Linux
* Red Hat Linux
* Slackware

There are distributions that are not based on these (I believe Gentoo is not, the package manager with it is more like FreeBSD's ports system).

All three of the distributions noted above have a different method of installing software at the command-line level. Debian-based distributions use apt-get and dpkg, Red Hat-based distributions use yum and rpm, and slackware (last I remembered used source tarballs). Of course if you know a bit about programming and compiling source code, you can download programs and compile the source code for any distribution.

Again, a mouthful. Bear with me, it gets easier.

While Ubuntu Linux (Debian-based) has really gained popularity in the past few years I think Mandriva is a better choice for people who intend to run Linux on the same hard drive as their Windows XP OS. Mandriva has always come with a graphical partitioning tool that lets you graphically resize your hard drive to make space for Linux.

A word of warning! Make absolute sure that you defragment your Windows XP partition before you attempt to resize the partition. I also recommend backing up to an external hard drive. USB enclosures are pretty cheap.

If you want to run an Apache web server I've found that CentOS is a good choice.

On notebooks I have 3 recommendations: Ubuntu, SuSE, and Debian. On relatively modern notebooks Ubuntu and SuSE are pretty good choices. It's been my experience that installing wireless drivers tends to be easier on these systems (at least in the past). On older notebooks (Pentium I) I recommend Debian GNU/Linux simply because it doesn't have a lot of overhead and it's possible to install over a network using a boot floppy. That said, many people find Debian GNU/Linux generally more difficult to install than other Linux distributions.

Incidentally, if you're running a computer shop that recycles old computers I recommend The Working Centre Linux Project distribution http://wclp.sourceforge.net/. This distribution was designed to provide a desktop (originally on 486 with 16MB RAM) for lower end systems. It completely takes over the hard drive without asking, so don't install it if you're planning on doing any kind of dual boot scenario. There are instructions for setting up a NFS file server and distributing Linux via the NFS file server and boot floppies in the administrator instructions. Of course, since I was one of the developers of this distribution I'm a bit biased. It's NOT a good choice if this is your first time installing Linux or if you intend to use your machine for anything other than Linux.

There are literally hundreds of Linux distributions! A good place to look and see if there's a distribution tailored to your tastes is Distrowatch at:

http://distrowatch.com/

At home I run Fedora Core 6 on my Lenovo 3000 C100 notebook. At work I run a SuSE Linux 10.1 file server that is connected to our Active Directory Server to allow for domain logins.

Cheers,

Charles
 
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