What distro is best for wanting to learn Linux, but coming from windows
 

'I got sick of always having to fix something on windows, so I loaded Ubuntu 10.10 on one of my desktops and have let the rest of the family use it for over a year now with absolutly no problems. Now I am wanting to learn haw to really use and run Linux, not just "point and click". I reacently broke my back and can no longer do a job I LOVED. Now I want to learn the ins and out of Linux, but I need some ideas of what distro would be a good place to get my feet wet and learn the most.

The best distro is the distro that's best for you.

In other words, there's only one person that can really decide which distribution to use. Go to distrowatch, google for reviews of different distributions, and basically do some research on the choices you have. Then try installing a few of the ones that seem the most interesting and give them a test spin.

Most Linux users generally do a bit of distro-hopping before finding one to settle down with.

In my opinion, you might want to try Ubuntu. It is very user friendly. It'll take a while to figure some stuff out, but you'll get it. I recommend if you do switch to any Linux distro, make sure you learn your way around the terminal. Like David said, most people switch around for a bit. I started out with Mint, switched to Ubuntu, switched to Fedora, switched back to Ubuntu and stayed there the longest. Atm I'm running Fedora 15 and am very happy with it.

Good luck,
Jetso

EDIT
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I forgot you said you already were using Ubuntu. The best way to learn the in and out's is the terminal. You don't really have to switch Distro's for that. I've never used it, but I hear Gentoo is good for learning.

If you're comfortable with using a terminal to type commands and want to try some different distros.

Slackware
Debian - Do a basic netinstall, very minimum and add other software you may want
Arch Linux

These are just a few that is good to use to learn more about the inside workings of linux.

You can also try the Linux Distribution Chooser and see what it suggests.
ciao,
jdk

You need mention what you require from any OS to be happy first.
That isn't proof Windows fails(people without curve_hands.dll have Windows runnning just fine and dandy) and moving to other OS won't take that problem reason out too just will bring new ones in place.

The first is to open a terminal and to enter a command
Man is your closest friend. To have more fun
Ubuntu is aware about a security (in the sense to not allow a user to destroy a system) so 'sudo' is the second most important command
How it works?
Stay with the distro you are using now.

I tried this thing and it said that I should use Mandriva which is what I have. How interesting. It also said suse. It's probably because it asked which package format rpm deb etc.

Then start with that?

Kind regards

I would think about going with slackware (but I would wouldn't I :) ). Whilst it can be a fairly steep learning curve and you might find yourself banging your head on the wall now and again, it really does enforce that you get "down and dirty" with the system sometimes lol! :) Ok, so you might have to read up for 10 minutes to work out how to do something that you knew you could do with a nice GUI in Ubuntu, that 10 mins of reading gives you much more. Plus it gives you the experience on how to work with a system that is cmd line, so if you suddenly find yourself on a machine which isn't your "comfort" distro, you're still able to do things.

Hello,

I would recommend Slackware. It's a very clean system, nice and helpful community here at LQ http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/slackware-14/

Download here http://www.slackware.com/getslack/list.php?country=USA

I'm using Slackware since about 17 years, I learned much from it.

btw, Slackware is not difficult, but very stable and reliable for daily use.

Markus

As per post #3, while you can switch distros, you don't have to in order to learn Linux; just jump into the cmd line env (aka terminal) and away you go.
You may find these useful
http://rute.2038bug.com/index.html.gz
http://tldp.org/LDP/Bash-Beginners-G...tml/index.html
http://linux.die.net/