Open-Source Linux For Beginner

IMHopeful

IMHopeful

Wicked Fire Elite Member
Mar 8, 2010
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I'm looking to learn Linux, in an effort to get away from Windows down the road. I realize there is likely a battle ahead for which I might not be prepared, but there's no time like the present right?

I want to tinker around with something Open-Source, that is boot-able from a CD disk to start with, that uses minimal system resources, is Intel-compatible and comes ready with a browser and whatever other programs I can get away with.

There are so many versions I just can't decide. Can someone tell me a good version to get rolling with?

*I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm in my thirties and Emma is the hottest specimen I've seen yet in this world. If I could find a nude pic I'd post it.

589d1_emma-watson-side-boob.jpg

 


maybe try something like PClinuxOS or Mint to stuff around in or Fedora i used that for a long time and when you know enough, step up too something that suits your needs.
 
Ubuntu will be the simplest, most main-stream-ish, least "what the fuck"-ish, best information available when you google, smallest learning curve overall.

It has a live cd, and an option to install *INSIDE* windows (e.g. it installs itself into a large 20GB file that gets stored in your windows install, you can uninstall it like any other windows application, and when you reboot computer, you have the option of booting either OS -- search for "wubi installer")

Good choice on learning linux; the time you invest in learning it will pay itself off the first time you need to do something like e.g. "for i in `ls`; do cp $i $i.$(date +%Y-%m-%d).backup; done;" (copy every file in the folder to __filename__.2010-07-06.backup)
 
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uplinked said:
Ubuntu will be the simplest, most main-stream-ish, least "what the fuck"-ish, best information available when you google, smallest learning curve overall.

It has a live cd, and an option to install *INSIDE* windows (e.g. it installs itself into a large 20GB file that gets stored in your windows install, you can uninstall it like any other windows application, and when you reboot computer, you have the option of booting either OS -- search for "wubi installer")

Good choice on learning linux; the time you invest in learning it will pay itself off the first time you need to do something like e.g. "for i in `ls`; do cp $i $i.$(date +%Y-%m-%d).backup; done;" (copy every file in the folder to __filename__.2010-07-06.backup)
Click to expand...

He's 100% on the money.
 
Thanks for the replies everyone. I was a little turned off by the size of Ubuntu because there are other versions that have sizes below 5 GBs.

I just downloading it and have readied myself for the next phase. Thanks again, as downloading something without a clue -- when there's so many options seemed like a foolish idea without further advice.
 
I'll second that, Ubuntu is your best bet! I gave it a try just over a year ago now and am now running it on every PC I own except one which sports windows to run Photoshop.
 
Ubuntu all the way, for all the reasons uplinked has said. Do yourself a favor and run it non-stop for a week. Reason being you'll do your most learning in that first week. Dive in, hit some road blocks and keep trucking because it keeps getting better and better. The Ubuntu forums are AWESOME if you run into trouble, believe me you won't be the first one to hit a certain snag.
 
hmm not sure i really agree with Ubuntu all the way, i would say that OpenSUSE can compete with it pretty well, rock solid distro, not too hard for a newbie, plenty of support and software with one click installs and not too mention it worked out of the box on my eeepc, if you want to step up your learning in linux dump ubuntu and go with something thats going to get you learning. Even something on an old box and try to get it running how you want it.

Not trying to start a distro war lol just suggesting the alternatives if everyone uses one distro then whats the point, linux is about choice and customization for your specific needs. i.e. i use sabayon on my desktop, OpenSUSE on laptop and server, and geeXbox for a media centre, and the missus uses fedora on her laptop.

Anyway thats just my view. :)
 
It's pretty insane how many options are available with this platform. I've got an old 30GB drive for my laptop that's going to be strictly used for my Linux education.

@subigo - Thanks for those links; server admin is one of the major reasons I want to learn. The VB interface is exactly what I was looking for!

@cpt2010 - I appreciate your input. My head is so far in the clouds on this one: I'm just going to run with the majority on this one, at least until I know to decide why one distro is better than the other, etc.
 
yeah thats cool no problem, you will get the hang of it good luck :)

I highly recommend you download the The One Page Linux Manual just google it you will find it
Print it out or keep it on your desktop can come in handy in the command line :)
 
If you're looking for a small footprint, check into this: Linux Today - Puppy Linux 5.0 Review

I started my journey into Linux with the Puppy.

You can get it here: Download Puppy

If you are COMPLETELY new to a Linux/UNIX based OS you can get a pretty good feel for how it works with this little distribution. (A little more robust in the 5.0 version than what I started with.)

Think of it as "Sticking your Toe into the Linux waters" to get feel for it. LOL

You can burn it onto a CD or Flash drive and just boot from there. Nothing will be put onto your HD if you don't want it to. It loads everything into memory and runs from there. It works just fine on an OLD box of mine with only 2GB of Old SDRAM.

I agree with the others on the Ubuntu distro being pretty solid.

P.S. The Puppy will come with EVERYTHING you need to browse, write documents, FTP, and quite a few other things in the 5.0 version.

The One Page Linux Manual mentioned above DL Link:
http://www.digilife.be/quickreferences/QRC/The%20One%20Page%20Linux%20Manual.pdf

If you are use to DOS commands this can be of use as well: Linux/UNIX For DOS Users
 
There's sticking your toes in the water, and then there's diving into the deep end. There's no right or wrong way, just know the difference.

While I agree with the other options everyone else posted, Ubuntu will be your best bet for dipping your toes. It will not scare or bite you, it will let you start using it just like you're used to using a Mac or Windows, and slowly ease yourself into power user status.

Personally, I dove into the deepend when I was 14, wiping Windows to bootstrap Gentoo from stage 1 install. This literally means I downloaded and compiled every component, starting with the kernel, all the way up to the web browser. It took five attempts and two weeks to get it right -- two weeks I was entirely without a desktop or internet access, and had to keep running to the library to download, say, keyboard drivers onto my flash drive. I love diving into the deep end, I wouldn't have done it any other way. Puppy, Damn Small, all the tiny distros, etc, would be more like diving into the deepend.

Both ways will get you in the water, it's just a matter of the pace you want to take.
 
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For the most n00b-proof experience possible try Linux Mint. It's a customized version of Ubuntu without the focus on FOSS... almost a complete Windows replacement. And where it's not, there's always some equivalent alternative.
 
uplinked said:
There's sticking your toes in the water, and then there's diving into the deep end. There's no right or wrong way, just know the difference.

While I agree with the other options everyone else posted, Ubuntu will be your best bet for dipping your toes. It will not scare or bite you, it will let you start using it just like you're used to using a Mac or Windows, and slowly ease yourself into power user status.

Personally, I dove into the deepend when I was 14, wiping Windows to bootstrap Gentoo from stage 1 install. This literally means I downloaded and compiled every component, starting with the kernel, all the way up to the web browser. It took five attempts and two weeks to get it right -- two weeks I was entirely without a desktop or internet access, and had to keep running to the library to download, say, keyboard drivers onto my flash drive. I love diving into the deep end, I wouldn't have done it any other way. Puppy, Damn Small, all the tiny distros, etc, would be more like diving into the deepend.

Both ways will get you in the water, it's just a matter of the pace you want to take.
Click to expand...

Haha I tried it with Gentoo also back in the day and crashed soo hard. Man wayyy too much wayyy too quick.
 
centos has been more stable and faster than ubuntu for me in the past. If I were to recommend you to learn any it would be centos.

howtoforge has step by step how-to's on just about everything you need to know.
 
mattfca said:
centos has been more stable and faster than ubuntu for me in the past. If I were to recommend you to learn any it would be centos.

howtoforge has step by step how-to's on just about everything you need to know.
Click to expand...

Well CentOS is used by most of the clients not because its a choice of theirs but because its the primary OS supported by CPanel/Whm, DirectAdmin and Plesk.

I don't personally care for it quite as much mainly because anything package-wise is seriously outdated, they're still using Python 2.4 when the current version (recently) is 2.7. And on debian I got 2.6.5 going, as an example.

Also for a complete noob to the area, debian/ubuntu is quite a bit more documented in the noobish fashion, but RHEL (centos, redhat, etc) is more likely what you would use in an enterprise environment especially if using a popular control panel (not that you'd have much control of the underlying system with the control panel installed hehe).
 
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