I wanna learn Linux/Unix

[Tsaico]

Where should I go to learn this stuff? Books, trial and error? What do you guys suggest?

 

[Soybomb]

Buy a good book, such as something by O'Riley and then immerse yourself in the os. Use it as often as you can......

 

[MGMorden]

I'd say go for Slackware or Debain when you install as well. They're a bit more raw (which makes it easier actually but takes longer to get used to), but they'll teach you UNIX, whereas some distros like Mandrake are meant moreso just to be an alternative OS in general (hiding lots of stuf) than to be a Unix desktop/workstation.

 

[Kendroid]

If you've got no previous experience, I'd install RedHat -- installation's a breeze, and there's not so much eye candy that you feel like you're back in Windows. (If that makes sense.) It's not really going to matter what distro you start out with as long as you get familiar with the command line -- unlike Windows, there is literally NOTHING you can do in the GUI that you can't do from the command line.

Immediately after installing, read lots and LOTS of man pages; sites like rootprompt.org are good for learning small solutions to practical problems, too. I like rootprompt nearly as much as I like slashdot.

Finally, I'd recommend *against* buying any kinds of "Linux in a Nutshell..." or other Linux-specific books. I've found that these are usually padded with tremendous amounts of fluff. Instead, go for something from O'Reilly -- I'd recommend the Armadillo sysadmin book (this is my BIBLE at work). This'll teach you as much as you could ever want to know about the command line.

... and after all this, if you're *still* interested, buy the O'Reilly Llama book and start hacking Perl.

Hope this helps -- it's scary, but it's SO much fun. Good luck.
kendrick.

 

[jartit]

I'd agree that it doesn't really matter too much what distro you start out with (distro = a "version" of linux, ie Redhat, slackware, etc.), but I do think people who are interested in really learning linux should start with one of the less "user-friendly" distributions and go with something like Slackware. Yes, it seems big and scary at first, but it forces you to learn your way around instead of relying on nice pretty file managers and such. If you just want to use a stable OS and don't care to learn too much, Redhat would suit you just fine. I'm not dissing Redhat, I use Mandrake at home (which is a derivative of Redhat), but I started out with Slackware.

As for where to learn, I don't really use books; I just use websites and the man pages. One website you might want to try is LinuxNewbie.org

Just my .02

 

[aceO07]

I just recently started learning Linux myself. My main computer was running Win2k and my laptop was running Slackware Linux. This was really helpful since I had access to the web and all the 'howto' docs and misc help on Win2k, while I was messing around with Linux on laptop.

I also recommend starting with a less user friendly distribution. I remember installing Redhat a long while ago, it was easy and got me into KDE windows. But, it was difficult for me to learn anything.

This recent week, I've set up Slackware, networked it to Win2k machine, set up sound, and changed some configuration files. Feels like I learned a lot, hopefully I won't forget it too soon.