Hello,
I am so happy to have found this site and form. Thanks for having me. Ok, I am wanting to learn linux and have a few questions. I am pretty savy with windows but not so savy with linux, hence the newbie form.
I would like to know if anyone has any ideas or insight that my help me learn some basic things I can do in Linux. I have set up my imap server in the mail interface within Redhat 9 so far. It seems to be working properly. I tried to add my printer but didn't see the driver for my printer so figured it probably is not compatible.
Is there anything else that I can do with linux that would help me learn or familiarize myself with it.
I have purchased a few books and waiting on them to come in the mail but would like to get a jump start.
Also, I know there is text and GUI interface with linux. How do I get to the text mode and what are the differences besides unfriendliness. I really appreciate any pointers of feedback any of you may have. Thank you in advance.

Ikenbonnie

With RedHat... if you do something in the GUI, afterwards try figuring out what needs to be done to do the same thing from the command line. This will help you learn the command line somewhat anyways...

as for you printer check out www.linuxprinting.org you can check if your printer is linux compatable or not....

Thanks, Just my luck it's not compatable. How do I get to the text mode?

Hello there ikenbonnie!

Welcome to LinuxQuestions.org. You don't need to get into text mode to do any stuff. Try looking for a TERMINAL or KONSOLE. There should be one on your menus (which Desktop are you using? Gnome? KDE?) there should be a terminal somewhere . From there, you can do practically everything as you would in gui. Take a look here for a nice reading:

http://linuxcommand.gds.tuwien.ac.at/

Good luck mate!

Ah, and please: X Window System, not X Window*s* ....

suggestions for learning linux:

1. stop using redhat
2. start using slackware
3. feel free to ask questions on the slackware forum here and read other's posts... you will learn tons... that's what i've been doing anyway.

other suggestions --> gentoo is another distro that will allow you to learn a lot. however, it takes lots of time to get a system up and running the way you like.

good luck!

People may say that Slackware is a newbie-unfriendly distro, but if you're looking to jump into linux head-first, I say it's the way to go. You must configure most things yourself, and you will learn to live on the command-line. It's what I began with, and what I continue to use. Every day I learn something new!

Welcome to the linux world!
-- Poetics

Cool, will I be able to install it on top of redhat?, is slackware linux? and where can I download it from? let me know.

maybe he means x windows, like ex-windows, as in he used to use it

What about Fedora?

Dave_s, I think that's what he meant

ikenbonnie, Slackware is another "flavor" of linux, such as Fedora, or SuSe, or Mandrake, or Debian, et cetera ad nauseum. They all rely on the same "Kernel" or base program, but they are very unique. Unless you want to dual-boot you'd have to give up one to have another, but when you're new, there's nothing wrong with trying a few different installs to get your feet wet!

Fedora is an offshoot of Red Hat.

-- Poetics