Best Way to Learn Linux?

[Nothinman]

How is apt-get? I keep hearing good things about it. Is it anything like yum in Fedora?

It's what inspired yum and it's a lot faster.

I am serious...I learned more doing that than weeks with Mandrake/Redhat

Gentoo isn't bad for learning, the install docs are pretty thorough and from what I hear the forums are good. But overall it's a waste of time compiling every package from source, after you get comfortable with Linux I would suggest moving to a distro with a good binary packaging system.

 

[calyco]

Originally posted by: drag

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
Best way to learn linux? Use it.

agreed.

Pick something you want to do and then learn how to do it.

Don't go 'what can I do'?
go 'I want to do this', then figure out how to do it. If there is something you don't know, look it up, learn it enough to understand basicly what is going on, then move on to the next issue.

Great advice, I would also recommend buying a book. Personally I find it easier to read and digest from a book. Theres enough info about linux on google so grab something like the linux pocket guide for $10, its a reference for commands (including brief explanations on what they do).

 

[djdrastic]

Learning Will be slow , since you're learning a Kernel that is a lot more complicated that DOS / Windows . Give yourself some time , get a good distro like Ubuntu / RedHat / Mandriva and get a good book from O Reilly

Give yourself time , a lot of the stuff will be completely foreign to you , so you WILL be confused for a while . The Ubuntu Forums are great , there are tons of Windows Converts on those forums ,and there are literally dozens of articles on how to change small YET important things [resoultion / watching movies / running a webserver ]

 

[halfpower]

Using it sounds like good advice. Unfortunately most all of what I do on computers works equally good or better on Windows. I might go ahead and do it anyway, just to have the skill.

 

[nweaver]

Originally posted by: halfpower
Using it sounds like good advice. Unfortunately most all of what I do on computers works equally good or better on Windows. I might go ahead and do it anyway, just to have the skill.

Use stuff that works better, such as Webserver, (Apache in linux > Apache on Windows > IIS)
IPtables is > windows software firewalls. Use it as a NAT/Router.
Shell scripting > batch files. Automate some day to day tasks in BASH.

 

[KeyserSoze]

I'm gonna go against some of what was said in this thread, and suggest one of the easier distro's. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. I used Suse, and the interface made it a lot easier to get things accomplished. Granted, your GUI will get everything done and you might not learn to get down and dirty with it, it does allow you to still accomplish everything when you get "stuck" which will keep you with it a little longer.

This weekend, I'm gonna try out Ubuntu on a system. (Linux peeeps - a 1 gig/512 system will be sufficient, correct?)



KS

 

[nweaver]

Second what KeyserSoze says, easier distro, with a more hardcore one in a few months. I think Ubuntu on that system would work K, I run latest kernel and latest gnome on an old laptop with 700/256. Correction, I have it installed.