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Calling all braincells- need help learning linux etc..

B

BlastRadius

Limp Gawd
Joined
Nov 12, 2004
Messages
187
Thanks for reading,

I have just had a successful (I think) interview for a job as a software technician/ field engineer. The problem is that they run on linux, and I know nothing about it. They understand this and are interested in my practical ability and potential and will offer training.

I want to get a headstart, so could someone please explain the following, where I can learn about them (or download if free to use):

Unix
Linux
Redhat
Fedora (new core 4 and 3 and 2)
Mandrake?? (not sure on that one??) mandriva maybe?

I have obviously googled but I thought I would ask the guys that know aka YOU! Please help, you would really be helping me change my life!! Oh and apologies for being such a noobie, but I'm now ready to cross over from the dark side!

Thanks all :)
 
Pretty much all linux has more or less the exact same configs, just in different places, id reccomend something like a gentoo install, as you have to get dirty configuring everything from the get go, it makes for an interesting learning experience. And all linux is free to use, even places like SuSe usually have free versions. but:
www.gentoo.org
www.mandrake.org
 
I'd go with one of the fedora versions first if I was you. Gentoo can be a little too much to take on at first, in my opinion, if you have no prior experience with linux. Its definately fun to play with and you learn some valuable information along the way. However, do you really want to wait up to a couple days to get it installed and then wait constantly to compile everything you use? Its definately fast once you get going but it takes forever to get there.

Another reason for fedora is that being a company it would not suprise me in the least if they used some form of redhat, being as it is so popular these days. Since Fedora is based off redhat you will probably learn a great deal about the way their setup may be. Fedora is easy to install and will be a good place to get a feel of the overall layout and setup of linux without pulling your hair out in the process. If you want to make things a little more challenging you could always install it with the bare minimum, meaning no GUI or any of that stuff, and install all that manually.

Just my two cents. Good luck.
 
Thanks for the help so far, am impressed about what I have read on linux and its variations so far. The only thing I am worried about is screwing the install, so I may take it easy and go for fedora maybe core 2. Keep the info comming, i need the help :)
 
The most important thing i can offer you is this. When you finish the install, don't ask yourself "What do I do with now?". The answer is so painfully obvious most new linux users miss it. Do what you usually do with the computer! Code, surf, listen to music. You may need to ask in order to learn how to do something but thats no big deal. As long as you know what it is you want to do, you should have no problem finding help.

PS: Fedora installs are so easy and drunken ape could do it.
 
j-rock said:
The most important thing i can offer you is this. When you finish the install, don't ask yourself "What do I do with now?". The answer is so painfully obvious most new linux users miss it. Do what you usually do with the computer! Code, surf, listen to music. You may need to ask in order to learn how to do something but thats no big deal. As long as you know what it is you want to do, you should have no problem finding help.

PS: Fedora installs are so easy and drunken ape could do it.
Click to expand...
Thats the entire point though, he wants to learn how it works, not how to click on fancy buttons on the nice fedora installer, hence why i suggested gentoo, although on second thoughts debian might be a bit better, mainly because you dont have to wait so long.

If you want to be a linux admin you need to know whats actually going on, rather than what the installer is telling you is going on. once you get to know your way around the config files are faster and far more versatile than any gui app.
 
IIRC Fedora still comes with bash. He can do everything from the command line he wants to (i'd recommend it in fact).

Baby steps though. He'll progress to a [H]arder OS soon enough.

Plus, its pretty likely that they run one of those dirty RPM based distros (most businesses are retarded like that). So fedora really isn't that bad of an idea. If they run gentoo or debian thats awesome and he'll have some first hand help avaiable to him from his coworkers to take the leap from fedora to gentoo/debian.
 
Well, you got a lot of advise about Linux. If you want to learn a little about Unix, check out the bible: "The UNIX Programming Environment" by Kernighan and Pike (Prentice Hall publisher). Any decent library should have a copy of it. It also shouldn't be that hard to find used. There should also be a decent collection of Unix and Linux manuals in your local bookstores. Do like I do and check out the local bookstores' discontinued and clearance stuff.
 
UNIX System Administration Handbook (3rd Edition):
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0130206016/103-0921974-9073464?v=glance

this book is very detailed. i wasn't motivated to read the whole thing, but it definately provides a plethora of information on how *nix operating systems work. aspects of the structure are broken out into unix/aix/bsd/linux variations whenever they occur.

if you want to learn, i imagine this would be better than learning just the linux environment.
 
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Yes Gentoo would really drop you in it, but the install guide is extrealy well written, so as long as you can read english (might have been traslated??) and can type it isnt that hard, take some time tho, but from the 1st min you are right at the core of linux.

Fedora is good, got a mate to try linux (got him to try Ubuntu but didnt like???) so baby sat him in installing (via MSN gave hime pointers and told him to start a prog called GAIM straight away).

Yes there were a few things that needed tweaking but we had GAIM and since I dont know the GUI tools for Fedora we had to go via the terminal and he has learnt alot in me telling him to do things like

"ls -l /dev/hd*"
" cat /etc/fstab"

didn't understand jack, but by the 3rd re-install!!! (I know dont ask) he was starting to follow those commands

Yes FEdora is all nice and shiny, but it still has the powerful linux backend - Fedora/RH are not going the way of windows by scrapping CLI,
 
You can learn a LOT by just hanging around the Unix/BSD subforum here. And as always, if you run into trouble google is your friend.
 
Thanks again all, I knew I could put my trust in you. The company I am hopeful of working for/with uses fedora and debian. I believe I will ease myself into it and use fedora; without actually using it a lot of what you say is over my head at the moment, and fedora seems the easiest to grasp the basic contents.

Unix is probably the main area I will need to become extremely involved with, so if any of you have any further advice (other than already mentioned thx :) ) then I will be most grateful.

Thanks again for helping me, you are all very very very nice people.
 
Debian isnt really a great deal harder to install, infact the installer is very very easy to use, while still letting you have control over things like partitioning etc. So maybe play around with fedora for a couple of weeks then get debian. Learn how to upgrade the kernel, stuff like that. Also, its really worth getting a second machine to play on, you dont need to worry so much if you bork something installing the first time, an old p2/3 will do.
 
I would suggest reading some chapters of the FreeBSD handbook, even if you don't intend to use FreeBSD. Some things apply to most unix-alikes, and the rest can probably be done (but in different ways) in other OSes.
If nothing else, it'll give you an idea about what can be done.
 
what really matters is whether you can get the job done or not. Just learn all the basic commands from www.ss64.com and you should be able to navigate around and whatnot. If you are a software engineer you won't need to know the ins and outs right away and you'll have plenty of time to pick it up.
 
If you aren't opposed to buying a book or two.

Some of the books I have seen that I wished I had when i started out are these. Linux in a Nutshell. The main thing that attracts me to this book is the list of linux commands that it contains. That would have helped me out a ton when I first started.

The second book you may be interested in would be Running Linux . This book seems to provide a decent overview of, well what it says, running linux.

However, you can always find information google-ing, and following the links that people have already listed.

PS: The FreeBSD Handbook is the single most awesome piece of documentation ever. Learn it. Love it.
 
I got the job woohoo! Great job, great pay, great package to go with it! Thanks so much all for your input, am just about to purchase a second machine as suggested. Some of the books look great, guess I had better dig out the library card. Am definately going with fedora to start and will progress to the harder stuff as I gain knowledge.

Thank you all again, your help and knowledge has helped me change my life. I'm so excited for my future now. You should all feel very proud of yourselves, and I wish you all the joy that I am now feeling.
 
I cut my teeth (and am still cutting) in the linux realm with setting up and modding smoothwall boxes ...alot of the stuff with hacking config files and what not in smoothwall for vaious mods is pretty much same deal as what you do /have to do sometimes in linux (in my case Fedora core 3 and now 4)

Smoothwall is useful and practical and only takes 5 or so minutes to reinstall if you mess up on it ...has been an excellent stepping stone for me into the linux kingdom

http://www.smoothwall.org ..check out the forums section and then the homebrew section in there..

smoothwall can run on any old clunker ..

..and congratsi on the new job! :)


I kind of got a similar deal where I work at now ..I work at a school for troubled teens and got hired on to take pics one day a week of the kids to post on website , and to also help maintain the almost 200 machines we have on campus. I didnt know a lick about linux but my immediate boss is into linux and was using smoothwall boxes around the campus for gateways to internet and keeping the networks seperated .. he got me started in setting up smoothwall boxes and then shortly after got me going on setting up a terminal server runing 9 thin clients to use in the computer lab that I run now to test for bigger badder projects down the road ..

..taking pics can be a hassle , but I am pretty much getting paid to have fun learning linux and building/maintaining comps all week ...yay!

:)
 
Another recommendation:
If you're going to set up a new install to do something, especially if it's firewall and/or routing-related, look at the BSDs. (M0n0wall is a very custom FreeBSD.) It's not linux, no. However, pf is IMHO a much better tool than iptables, so if you can choose which packet filter (and OS) to use, do consider it.

This also applies more generally: The BSDs might seem to be less mainstream then Linux, but for servers, they are strong contenders. If you have to choose a server OS, consider making it a BSD.

</advocacy>
 
Congradulations. I'm a Unix server admin at a local commuter university (20000+ students, 5000+ faculty/staff/other) since 12/2000.

The other Unix admin here has been a systems admin for around 30 years, and he's a Unix purist. Because of that he prefers Slackware Linux. In his opinion it's the most Unix-like. I'll let you take that as you will.

The Linux versions we use on some some of our servers here are Slackware and SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 8. (I'm doing an evaluation of SLES9 right now). Unix-based server OS's: Solaris and Digital/Compaq/HP Tru64 Unix.
 
BlastRadius said:
I want to get a headstart, so could someone please explain the following, where I can learn about them (or download if free to use):
Unix
Linux
Redhat
Fedora (new core 4 and 3 and 2)
Mandrake?? (not sure on that one??) mandriva maybe?
Click to expand...

Since no one answered these questions...

Code: 
  Unix
  
     <operating system> /yoo'niks/ (Or "UNIX", in the authors'
     words, "A weak pun on Multics") Plural "Unices".  An
     interactive {time-sharing} {operating system} invented in 1969
     by {Ken Thompson} after {Bell Labs} left the {Multics}
     project, originally so he could play games on his scavenged
     {PDP-7}.  {Dennis Ritchie}, the inventor of {C}, is considered
     a co-author of the system.
  
     The turning point in Unix's history came when it was
     reimplemented almost entirely in C during 1972 - 1974, making
     it the first {source-portable} OS.  Unix subsequently
     underwent mutations and expansions at the hands of many
     different people, resulting in a uniquely flexible and
     {developer}-friendly environment.
  
     By 1991, Unix had become the most widely used {multi-user}
     general-purpose operating system in the world.  Many people
     consider this the most important victory yet of hackerdom over
     industry opposition (but see {Unix weenie} and {Unix
     conspiracy} for an opposing point of view).
  
     Unix is now offered by many manufacturers and is the subject
     of an international standardisation effort [called?].
     Unix-like operating systems include {AIX}, {A/UX}, {BSD},
     {Debian}, {FreeBSD}, {GNU}, {HP-UX}, {Linux}, {NetBSD},
     {NEXTSTEP}, {OpenBSD}, {OPENSTEP}, {OSF}, {POSIX}, {RISCiX},
     {Solaris}, {SunOS}, {System V}, {Ultrix}, {USG Unix}, {Version
     7}, {Xenix}.
  
     "Unix" or "UNIX"?  Both seem roughly equally popular, perhaps
     with a historical bias towards the latter.  "UNIX" is a
     trademark of {X/Open}, however, since it is a name and not an
     acronym, "Unix" has been adopted in this dictionary except
     where a larger name includes it in upper case.  Since the OS
     is {case-sensitive} and exists in many different versions, it
     is fitting that its name should reflect this.
  
     {The UNIX Reference Desk
     ([url]http://www.geek-girl.com/unix.html[/url])}.
  
     {Spanish fire extinguisher
     ([url]ftp://linux.mathematik.tu-darmstadt.de/pub/linux/people/okir/unix_flame.gi[/url]
f)}.


Code: 
  Linux
  
     <operating system> ("Linus Unix") /li:'nuks/ (but see below)
     An implementation of the {Unix} {kernel} originally written
     from scratch with no proprietary code.
  
     The kernel runs on {Intel} and {Alpha} hardware in the general
     release, with {SPARC}, {PowerPC}, {MIPS}, {ARM}, {Amiga},
     {Atari}, and {SGI} in active development.  The SPARC, PowerPC,
     ARM, {PowerMAC} - {OSF}, and 68k ports all support {shells},
     {X} and {networking}.  The Intel and SPARC versions have
     reliable {symmetric multiprocessing}.
  
     Work on the kernel is coordinated by Linus Torvalds, who holds
     the copyright on a large part of it.  The rest of the
     copyright is held by a large number of other contributors (or
     their employers).  Regardless of the copyright ownerships, the
     kernel as a whole is available under the {GNU} {General Public
     License}.  The GNU project supports Linux as its kernel until
     the research {Hurd} kernel is completed.
  
     This kernel would be no use without {application programs}.
     The GNU project has provided large numbers of quality tools,
     and together with other {public domain} software it is a rich
     Unix environment.  A compilation of the Linux kernel and these
     tools is known as a Linux distribution.  Compatibility modules
     and/or {emulators} exist for dozens of other computing
     environments.
  
     The kernel version numbers are significant: the odd numbered
     series (e.g. 1.3.xx) is the development (or beta) kernel which
     evolves very quickly.  Stable (or release) kernels have even
     major version numbers (e.g. 1.2.xx).
  
     There is a lot of commercial support for and use of Linux,
     both by hardware companies such as {Digital}, {IBM}, and
     {Apple} and numerous smaller network and integration
     specialists.  There are many commercially supported
     distributions which are generally entirely under the GPL.  At
     least one distribution vendor guarantees {Posix} compliance.
     Linux is particularly popular for {Internet Service
     Providers}, and there are ports to both parallel
     supercomputers and {embedded} {microcontrollers}.  {Debian} is
     one popular {open source} distribution.
  
     Some, including Torvalds, insist on the anomalous
     pronunciation /li'nuks/, the {Jargon File} prefers the rarely
     used /lee'nuhks/ because "Linus" has an /ee/ sound in Swedish,
     others in the know say /li'niks/, but normal rules demand
     /li:'nuks/, which is also widely used and agrees with the
     normal english pronunciation of "Linus".
  
     {More on pronunciation
     ([url]http://www.foldoc.org/pub/linux-pronunciation[/url])}.
  
     {LinuxHQ ([url]http://www.linuxhq.com/[/url])}.  {slashdot
     ([url]http://slashdot.org/[/url])}.  {freshmeat ([url]http://freshmeat.net/[/url])}.
     {Woven Goods ([url]http://www.fokus.gmd.de/linux/[/url])}.  {Linux
     Gazette ([url]http://www.ssc.com/lg[/url])}.
  
     {funet Linux Archive ([url]ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/Linux[/url])}, {US
     mirror ([url]ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/[/url])}, {UK Mirror
     ([url]ftp://sunsite.doc.ic.ac.uk/packages/Linux/[/url])}.
 
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