Where to start with Linux advice needed

Dramen

Dramen

New Member
Next year I'll be studying Linux and I know nothing about the OS except it can be tricky and has a penguin as a mascot.

Does anyone have any links they have found useful (apart from the obvious Google hits) or advice, information, pro's and con's etc that will help prepare me for the course because I've been told that many students have dropped out because It's been too hard a subject. My school is the only one in New Zealand that offers it as part of the degree program so passing it will be a real asset for the future.

Also I plan on putting Linux on my Dell 1525 Inspiron laptop as preparation, after I replace the fried hard drive, and would appreciate any words of wisdom with that as well, not specific installation stuff, just pitfalls or advice in general.

I guess I just need to know if it's really as scary as people are telling me or something pretty cool to get into.
 
Try one of the Linux Live Cd's to try it out.

I run Puppy Linux on a old PC that doesn't even have a Hard Drive installed. I save the current use settings on a Thumb drive and use that for storing stuff.
 
the recent releases of linux have been extremely user friendly. the only real things you need to learn are the terminal commands. almost everything can/is done through the terminal. way different than windows... but they aren't that hard to learn :) just install ubuntu 10.10 on your current windows/mac machine using the wubi installer included in the live cd downloads.
 
I think KDE (what Kubuntu uses) looks more like windows, but I find it too complicated and slow (for my poor old computers anyway). There are a lot of different desktop environments available for Linux that dramatically change the experience. The main ones are Gnome, KDE, XFCE, and LXDE. Windows only has one, so that will take a little getting used to.

I would recommend you try Ubuntu 10.10 gnome edition (This is the default choice and is simply called "Ubuntu 10.10.") If you want to try the KDE desktop environment, I would recommend OpenSuse as their KDE version is better than Kubuntu in my opinion.

Ubuntu
OpenSuse (choose the live CD unless you want to download an entire DVD image)
 
Eh, Gentoo is OK, it uses KDE as well. But it's huge. You'll need a 4.7 GB DVD for it. And no Wubi-like option. The Ubuntu distros are by far the easiest.
 
the gentoo minimal install iso is 111MB, he will learn more from installing a linux OS from scratch than using the simplified ubuntu. And you can install gnome or kde on it. I agree gentoo isnt the OS for someone that wants to get right into the desktop but you will learn a great deal going through the long install process and then manually installing all your programs rather than hitting next a few times with the mouse. But like i said earlier... dont try to dual boot or install it on a machine that has information you want to keep, you could mess up during the partitioning and be sorry.
 
Quiltface said:
the gentoo minimal install iso is 111MB, he will learn more from installing a linux OS from scratch than using the simplified ubuntu. And you can install gnome or kde on it. I agree gentoo isnt the OS for someone that wants to get right into the desktop but you will learn a great deal going through the long install process and then manually installing all your programs rather than hitting next a few times with the mouse. But like i said earlier... dont try to dual boot or install it on a machine that has information you want to keep, you could mess up during the partitioning and be sorry.
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Excuse me, but the minimal install requires an internet connection, and suppose you wait 5+ hours for the blasted thing to install, and then you internet connection goes unstable? Also, the minimal install iso is command line, and there's no liveCD option. Go with Ubuntu if you're new to it, trust me I went through it all.
 
lucasbytegenius said:
Excuse me, but the minimal install requires an internet connection, and suppose you wait 5+ hours for the blasted thing to install, and then you internet connection goes unstable? Also, the minimal install iso is command line, and there's no liveCD option. Go with Ubuntu if you're new to it, trust me I went through it all.
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This is all true... and is why you will learn more. What are you learning if you are putting in a live cd and then it just works right away? Anyone can do that and then play around. Linux GUI's aren't difficult to learn, it is the command line is where the learning curve is and what is going to be more beneficial to learn.

This really isn't worth arguing about, Dramen why don't you just do both.
 
Gentoo is a roll your own type of Linux distro. It is very modular and probably one of the more robust ones out there because you build it from the kernel up. That being said, it has it's caveats. For one, you may build something that is not quite compatible. It may be some weird configuration and so forth.

Where as with a large community Linux distro like Ubuntu, has a very large and active community always working with it.
 
I was right where you are just a few weeks ago, I am taking my first Linux course in college and I was kinda scared at first, but I have learned to love it. I actually wiped windows off of my laptop and went with Ubuntu as my primary OS and I have gotten used to it pretty quick. So dont worry just takes little getting used to but its not all that bad
 
I guess what i am saying is that if you are trying to get ready for your schools degree program installing ubuntu wont be as beneficial to you as installing gentoo. When I took a linux class in college there was like 2 seconds dedicated to the gui, it was basically "thats what it looks like now hit ctrl alt f1." If you want to learn linux a good way to start is to attempt to install gentoo... if you want to play around in linux or replace windows install ubuntu (or someother distro... I am currently typing this on a Fedora machine) or if you decide to go just ubuntu then get a book with labs or whatever that is on the cli... 9 times out of 10 you wont work for a company that has linux desktops, its more popular as a server and then the majority of the time there wont be a gui installed (none of ours do). Learn the cli is basically what I'm saying.
 
Gentlemen,

Go with Ubuntu 10.10. You will be pleasantly surprised. The dual boot concept works well. We switched for security reasons. Browsers work great and linux found all my peripherals, plug and play.

ken
 
Quiltface said:
I guess what i am saying is that if you are trying to get ready for your schools degree program installing ubuntu wont be as beneficial to you as installing gentoo. When I took a linux class in college there was like 2 seconds dedicated to the gui, it was basically "thats what it looks like now hit ctrl alt f1." If you want to learn linux a good way to start is to attempt to install gentoo... if you want to play around in linux or replace windows install ubuntu (or someother distro... I am currently typing this on a Fedora machine) or if you decide to go just ubuntu then get a book with labs or whatever that is on the cli... 9 times out of 10 you wont work for a company that has linux desktops, its more popular as a server and then the majority of the time there wont be a gui installed (none of ours do). Learn the cli is basically what I'm saying.
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I've never taken any computer courses really, but I had a buddy who had a Linux course and the professor would allow you to browse the web if you had your work done, but he only allows command line browsers. So, if you could use Lynx, you could browse the web all day in class after your work was done.

I'd say you can take a shot at Ubuntu for a month or two to get familiar with how Linux operates on a basic level. Kernel > Shell > GUI. Familiarize yourself with shell and bash, well bash is pretty much the standard shell on Linux distros these days.

Then go back and look at gentoo and start to build your own.
 
I'll be replacing the hard drive in my laptop pretty soon so will use that to get some experience with Linux, thanks for the input everyone, I'm not so worried now, it all sounds pretty interesting actually (from a newbs perspective).
 
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