hello,
i am a math student and am not a programmer ( i just know java and some c++)
i heard a lot about linux and want to try it out. i installed fedora 3 on my Ibm R40 laptop. with a help of a friend ( left Win xp on a different partition)
now, i do not know what to do. i can surf the net and that is about that. i am looking for some kind of a tutorial or a book that can help me . i really do not know anything ( install programs, doing updates basics, finding my other hard drive, folders ect. )
he warned me that i should use it carefully so that is why i am here
please please help me.

yours,
a very very desperate future mathematician

opps acidently posted this in the wrong spot

Have you looked at the How-to section(s) of these forums? There's a lot in them to get you up to speed.

As a first step, I'd suggest that you change the Fedora default desktop to the KDE one. KDE is (IMO) much more frendly to new users. (GNOME is, of course, also very good.)

A bit of light reading for you :-)

http://jamesthornton.com/redhat/linux/
http://tldp.org/HOWTO/HOWTO-INDEX/categories.html
http://tldp.org/HOWTO/HOWTO-INDEX/howtos.html
http://www.hk8.org/old_web/linux/run/index.htm
http://www.gnu.org/manual/manual.html

You might want to surf around

http://www.websamba.com/Linux_Docs_Links

Sheng-Chieh

You should be able to get the swing of things with time. I think you should post specific problems you encounter. At least that way your problems will be addressed with accurate and helpful answers