New to linux I am, new to computers and tech I'm not! You see nomatter what OS one employes, things happen much the same way! you still have a FSB, ports, and TCP/IP ect....... With linux you are forced to become the "wizard" so to speak. Verry little is done for you, and that is the beauty of it. If you want to LEARN the most about computers and how they tick, Linux puts you at the helm. Ever since I was a little kid in school I was swept away by computers- perplexed with the question "how do they do that". Along my journey I've learned more and more. eventully every "power user" will become frustrated with the limitations, smoke and mirrors which is MS-Windows, and they will port over to a distro of linux and really begin to learn what computers are about! I dont want linux 2 be easy!!!!!!! I dont want it to do things for me!!!!!!!(linspire makes me sad) I dont want it to do a damn thing without my explicit permission! sit there and run the "if and else" string intill I give you "if and or else"

I just installed Fedora Core 3 and I've been having the most visceral pc experience I've ever had. The learning curv is high but the exciting part is so are the possabilitys!!!

SO HELL YEAH STICK WITH LINUX

so u have upgraded,and i think u must have found the solution to ur problem that u had with rpms in redhat 9.0 right??

i'm sure i'll never be a Linux wizz kid but with the right sort of guidance and help I will be competant enough to apply for work in my first love Computer repair / support, and contery to my old computer tutor whilst undertaking the A+ which BTW I failed by 1 question
(After an argument with my wife a sleepless night befor)
windows isn't the most likely OS you will come across in the work place ( thats what they kept saying when I was screeming to be given an introduction to the Linux OS, most are now moving over to Linux and I hope one day I will have enough knowledge to feel confident to say to an employer YES I can do that give me the job!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I find this thread very interesting since I'm so new to linux that I haven't even installed it yet.
Well, that's not entirely true. I installed it, realized what I wanted to do differently, uninstalled it, and am now about to install it again. Here are some of my thoughts so far.

1) I think the linux user community is awesome. You might not realize how much you do for newbs like me. I had a lame problem trying to install the package a couple nights ago - so I posted here. I had a response in 6 minutes from JSpired (cheers)! A few quick back and forth posts and I was helped to discover that what I thought the problem was, wasn't even the problem. It was a quick and easy fix. I might have given up without this help.

2) I don't know if it's possible, but I'd love to see a dual boot preparation checklist (maybe a wiki) created for installations. There's a lot of info available from all over the web (including guides from the distros) but sometimes it's more reference oriented than preparation oriented. I'd love to be able to print out something before I go through the process of installing and be able to make sure I defrag'd in safe mode, paritioned the drives correctly, backed up, etc. (I am in the process of creating this document, but I don't know how accurate it is)

3) jiml8 appropriately touches on some of the difficulty in switching from Windows. The file system is one of the biggest difficulties. Once I actually arrived at the KDE desktop I wanted to get right into downloading and installing the tools I need to work - or at least to help migrate onto new tools. EX:
* I downloaded Thunderbird and had no idea where it was placed.
* Found the location in Home. But then what?
* I wanted to install it but the package is different - where do I place the executable? Do I need to create a shortcut? That sorta stuff.
* You get the idea.

4) Security takes a perspective shift (as jim points out). Having to login to root to make changes seems like a big hassle, different from Windows. But the important thing to realize is that the security is what helps eliminate the problems with spyware/malware/viruses that Windows has. If you are migrating from Windows because of these problems then it takes realizing that this security helps solve those problems.

5) Commands. Here's the problem with commands - there are too many of them. Ok, not really, but as a newb it's kind of intimidating when you want to do something simple but are presented with a billion commands. I think it would be nifty if there were "text tips" associated with certain actions, similar to keyboard shortcuts presented next to actions in a menu. That way the learning could be in small, digestible chunks rather than having to study a guide. It would be great to see the commands for the most common actions so that they can be mimic'd.

As much as I wish it wasn't so, the learning curve for most people needs to be really low if newbs are going to stay. The reason is simple: time. Ideally things need to reach a point where someone can install the OS in the evening, launch it, transfer files, and go to work the next day (or at least after the weekend) with little or no fuss. Dual booting helps ease this pain a little bit and the ease of setting this up is getting better and better.

That being said, I think now is probably one of the greatest times to shift to linux. The applications for every day work are available and the familiarty with cross platform applications (ie Firefox) make things easier. Personally I can't wait to make the transition and I'm eager to learn everything necessary to operate at a masterful level. Now, what's my password again?

I totally agree with you ploosh. On saying that one of the problems I have found when asking a question is you may get 4 or 5 different answers or someone is not available when you do X, Y and find a problem whilst someone may provide another solution it may be off track of your original action and as a newbie you become confused and ultimately disheartened.

I am greatfull for all the help I've had and wouldn't have got as far as I have without the support of this forum, but a little consideration would be emensly welcomed before typing the first word of support remember what is simple to one is not nessasseraly simple to another so it would be beneficial if anyone offering support at least stick around when things get tough.

How do newbies feel about a specific part of the forum where you can go ask questions and receive support from one person lets call them a buddy, someone who Knows the problem and will stick with you till conclusion. I Know we have a newbie section where we can ask general questions but it is open for hundreds of people to provide advice which whilst helpfull can hinder someone

...moved to the General forum

i recently found and spent several hours last night going through the first issue (March 2005) of Tux Magazine. This is edited by a gent who spent 12 years with Linux Journal and this one is aimed at the Linux newbie. The first issue had excellent articles on digikam, korganizer, gimp, kaudiocenter, and other applications. It was written to provide an excellent introduction to the apps in language the newbie can understand. Take a look at www.tuxmagazine/subscribe and see what you think. It won't answer specific questions but will give you a better perspective on some of the apps that are available.

From reading all the posts on this question, I happily acknowledge that I am not the only one suffering through the learning curve and having doubts on whether I selected the best distro for myself and the way I want to do things.

Read as much as you can, visit the forums, and experiment to find your way. It's great to have the oldbies around to fall back on, but if you can figure it out on your own you will remember it a lot longer. Perhaps someday you will feel comfortable enough to help out a newbie because of the experience you have under your belt.

KEEP ON TRUCKIN'

I'm going to update my previous post with a couple other comments that reflect my experience as I install linux. There are a couple of things that I did that have made the process so much more pleasant than I ever would have expected. They are:

1) Buy an external hard drive or use another computer to place your backup image on. I didn't want to spend any money, but I caved and bought a 120gb drive last night. It's a fantastic element to have for "peace of mind". I backed up my image, all my critical files, and offloaded crap to make my disk space bigger on what will soon be my dual boot linux/winxp laptop. Knowing everything is safe just makes things easier.

2) I bought partition magic. This was even harder than buying a drive because I was hoping to find a good free partitioning tool. Yeah, I know, there's a free one available in my Mandrake distro. But being able to do the mundane tasks of partitioning within the familiar Windows environment is just more comfortable.

3) Learn how to Un-Install. As weird as this may sound, this simple lesson has made "installing" that much more fun. So far I've installed twice and un-installed twice. I learn a little bit more about the installation process each time. I'm learning more about my existing hardware, what things like "mount" and "swap" are, etc. Being able to uninstall and reinstall is total power.

4) When you get stumped, write down what's stumping you. I made the mistake of not writing down a couple of things after the first install and I of course encountered them again the second go around and was left scratching my head again. The second time I kept a notepad handy, wrote a bunch of stuff down, and now am getting those questions answered.

And that's it so far. The downside is that I spent about $200 on tools to help with a free product. But besides peace of mind, those tools will scale to other systems so it seemed justifiable. The upside is that I'm now researching a few more things, getting sidetracked with Tux Magazine, learning a lot of new stuff, and excited about what the finished product might be. And you can't beat that.
[edit: now all I have to do is learn to spell partitioning]

I've been using Linux for over a year and am finally giving up. I have had good luck until recently. The fact that the only help you can get is on the forums is what has finally defeated me. I can't take my box anywhere around here and get it fixed when I reach an impasse.
I've tried alot of different distros but mainly Mandrake 9.2. Support or the lack of it is why I'm bagging it.

but there are plenty of books out there that can lead you in the right direction. Why not keep linux on a separate partition?

I had Mandrake on it's own drive. I tried 10.1 and that was a mess. I think maybe I'll try
"Xandros".

Hey raysr: I'm a noob of less then a year and tried Mandrake and many others but SimplyMepis really is easy and it did the trick for me. I tried Xandros twice but it has a big problem with any packages other then the ones that Xandros compiles for you and if you want more frustrations then unfortunately Xandros will do it for you. Go to mepis.org and one of the mirrors and download the live CD SimplyMepis 3.3 . If this distro doesn't do it for you then none will. :-) Also check out the great and friendly support at mepislovers.org .

Wayne

When I first tried Linux I fiddle w/ a lot of distros, I've tried Mandrake, Debian, SuSe and Slackware, and with all of them I found things that I really really liked, and things that I just didn't. I absolutly loved Mandrakes installer, and I thought SuSes hardware detection was great, Debian's apt-get really is useful, but I always found something I didn't like hiding under the surface, and I kept getting really frustrated. Then I tried Gentoo, which I thought was great, and I still haven't found a problem I can't fix. I think everybody goes through that stage of looking for the Distro that really suits them, and honestly, all the time I spent tinkering w/ the other distros built the skills I needed to get by in Gentoo, so in the end it all worked out.

It's kinda the same for me. I tried several distro's and ended up with Gentoo (I'm doing my first Gentoo installation - stage 1 - at this very moment!).
I tried Knoppix on my old computer (PII - 350 Mhz - 64 Mb RAM) and it took like 5 minutes to boot.
I then burned Damn Small Linux to disk and loved it.
However, I wanted more options, so I partitioned the old computer, and dual-booted Win 98 and Vectorlinux.
After a while, I decided I wanted more options, so I installed Slackware.
Note: I did not have internet access on the old computer!

I got my hands on VMWare, and installed Debian and Slackware on it (on a PIV - 2.6 Ghz - 512 Mb RAM).
Apt-get and synaptic were great (no dependencies!!!), but I noticed Debian was slower than Slackware.
So, right now, I'm installing Gentoo, because I want the best of two worlds: high speed and superior package management.
I'm at step 6 already (6 more to go). I have to say: I've understood every single step so far, and had no problems whatsoever.
If I hadn't tried Slackware, Vector, DSL and Debian, I would still be struggling at Page 1 of the Gentoo Handbook!

Using Linux is an evolution and a revelation.

I guess I just got burnt out on the experimentation aspect. I have a stack of Linux cd's, none of which I'm too thrilled with. Mandrake 9.2 was my first and I used it steady for over a year then something went south with the audio and I could never figure it out. So, it's time to move on.