Looking to learn a distro

B

BioHazard.89

Limp Gawd
Joined
Feb 25, 2004
Messages
229
I've been using Windows ever since I can remember (I started out on DOS and moved to a Win 3.1 machine) and I'd like to broaden my knowledge diving into a distro. I baught a now now outdated book - SAMS Teach Yourself Red Hat Linux 8 a few years ago and installed it but never got much past that - I couldn't get networking(wired) to go anywhere.....

I've downloaded a copy of Damn Small Linux to my 128mb USB key and have been poking around with that for a little bit but I have no idea what I'm doing.... and still can't get the networking(now wireless) going anywhere....

I'd like to jump into a distro easily but don't want to shave off any corners for time... I'm willing to dedicate time into learning a distro and sticking with it....

The computer I'll be using will be a dedicated one.... rough stats from what I can remember,
MSI KM2M mATX motherboard
AMD Athlon XP 2200+ @ 1.8GHz (Stock)
Sony DVD-Rom
512mb or 1gb ddr 2700 ram

I'd maybe even like to turn it into a dedicated music / media / file server for the house as well if that has any influence on the distro.... this would be the first linux computer in the house next to about 7 other windows PC's on a wireless / wired network.... It'll probably be in the room with the router so It'd have direct wired connection....

Thanks!
 
I believe the most recommended "Learning" / Ease-Into-Linux-World are as follows

SuSE Linux.
Ubuntu.

Both have great hardware detection and are very easy to learn Distros and very easy to make the switch to linux. Eventually you'll change over like most do for lack of "I can't learn about the kernel and in-depths about linux" and find Gentoo and Debian and the like. This is not to say you couldn't learn about those things in the aforementioned Distros. Just most want that 100% absolute control from the ground up eventually.

Fedora Core had pretty good Wi-Fi detection but due to it crashing a lot under VMware I gave it up. Good Distro though.

I myself used SuSE but I recently made the switch to PC-BSD and I have been loving that. So If you want a Unix varient that is easy to learn PC-BSD / Free-BSD are the way to go there.
 
BioHazard.89 said:
I've been using Windows ever since I can remember (I started out on DOS and moved to a Win 3.1 machine) and I'd like to broaden my knowledge diving into a distro. I baught a now now outdated book - SAMS Teach Yourself Red Hat Linux 8 a few years ago and installed it but never got much past that - I couldn't get networking(wired) to go anywhere.....

I've downloaded a copy of Damn Small Linux to my 128mb USB key and have been poking around with that for a little bit but I have no idea what I'm doing.... and still can't get the networking(now wireless) going anywhere....

I'd like to jump into a distro easily but don't want to shave off any corners for time... I'm willing to dedicate time into learning a distro and sticking with it....

The computer I'll be using will be a dedicated one.... rough stats from what I can remember,
MSI KM2M mATX motherboard
AMD Athlon XP 2200+ @ 1.8GHz (Stock)
Sony DVD-Rom
512mb or 1gb ddr 2700 ram

I'd maybe even like to turn it into a dedicated music / media / file server for the house as well if that has any influence on the distro.... this would be the first linux computer in the house next to about 7 other windows PC's on a wireless / wired network.... It'll probably be in the room with the router so It'd have direct wired connection....

Thanks!
Click to expand...


I would say, from easy to hard you are looking from Ubuntu/SuSe to something like Debian/Gentoo. and really none of them are that hard as long as you know how to read. I would say I nice medium would be Arch linux. It has the simplicity and stability of Slackware with nice package management and optimized packages for i686 which means it will be faster than debian for the most part. Just make sure to look over the documentation or keep it handy during the install.
 
Just a quickie saying I've installed Ubuntu and am actually posting this from it. I dig the interface and it's blazing fast on my system.... I ended up going with the gig of ram and it's on a 160gb hard drive....

Are there any guides that have me do things in Ubuntu or the Kernal(I hope I'm using the right word....) just for the sake of doing it and learning it? I've already got the network setup using DHCP after some poking around and got GAIM and Firefox working

Thanks for the help thus far ;)
 
Can you please be more specific in what you mean by "Do things"

I take it you mean how to compile a program from source? Download the Tarball Source file and typically on most sytems you type the following from the Terminal/Bash/Konsole/Console.

./configure
make
(sudo or su to root)
make install

If your looking to mess with the kernel and you are new to Linux I wouldn't recommend it as you can foul it up pretty bad at this time. I'd say: "Learn the 'basics' first" but then...what are the basics anyways? *sigh*
 
I'm fairly new to *nix (primarly Fed core 3 and now 4 and have played with Ubuntu on an older laptop) ..I have found that just making yourself use *nix for everyday stuff that you used to do in windows is a great learning ground in unto itself ..if you run into a snag just do the google until you find your answer

were I have been learning the inner workings of linux is by setting up and modding smoothwall boxes ..great fun and with a purpose ..(primarly to protect my network from intruders, access to those undesirable sites , malware , etc ...etc)
http://www.smoothwall.org ..check out the forums and homebrew section for all the diff mods they got going there... and they have a very supportive community over there as well.



[F]old long and prosper
 
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