Hi,

I have zero knowledge in Linux OS and wanted to start learning, installing & using Linux OS. Want to have a small network for data & printer sharing and Internet connection (ADSL).

Any response & guidance is much appreciated.

Thank you so much in-advance.

Best Regards,
Simon Tukian.

I jumped in the deep end and started with LFS. In the lfs book it says http://www.linuxhq.com/guides/LUG/guide.html is a good read. Ive only ever glanced over it, but it looked a good starting point.

Hi,

Thanks for responding. Any suggestion on which Linux OS to start with (for a small network basically for data, printer & internet sharing).

Best Regards,
Simon Tukian.

I personally like debian, it's pretty flexible and i believe it'll get you everywhere you need to go... Mepis is a good starting point, maybe even Ubuntu (but im not a big fan of it myself)


good luck!

in linux, the different types of 'OS's are called 'distributions' or 'distro' for short.

as mentioned, ubuntu or kubuntu are excellent beginner distros.. very good.

look at distrowatch.com. on the right it has a list of the most popular distros. click a distro, then follow the link to it's homepage where you can read about it and see screenshots. after reviewing several, choose one that sounds and looks most appealing to you, then download, burn, and install it.

again, ubuntu and kubuntu are great beginner distros with alot of automatic configuring, which makes managing and setting up the system and its hardware much easier.
unless, of course, your looking for a more manual and in-control distrobution, then look into slackware, or gentoo

I love LFS, but advising someone to just jump into it with no knowledge is a recipe for failure. LFS is a great way to learn linux, but going strictly by the book you have a system that's pretty fast, but is also difficult to maintain. With no package management, LFS gives an unorganized base system.

Not many packages have a make uninstall, and even if they do your configure script isn't going to generate the same Makefile anyways in the future unless you specify a lot of arguments.... definitely not something for someone new to compiling software.

It's not trivial to extend LFS to use a package manager. paco -lp $PKG "make install" is probably the easiest, where PKG is whatever name you give to the package, but it can't be used for a lot of things... for example, installing an ATI display driver.

pkgtools is my favorite because it allows one to install binaries also, but installing to a fakeroot requires knowing how every package behaves. gtk, X, and so on aren't so easy to install this way. Package users will frustrate anyone just starting because so many make installs will fail do to permissions.

Slackware is probably the best distro to learn from. A good first exercise with it would be to install a 2.6 kernel.

i wouldnt personally recommend ubuntu or kubuntu do you know what type of hardware you are running, what is the type of your printer, what are the main purposes that you want this computer to do gaming, work? then i would look at www.distrowatch.com to see what are your needs, as a newbie i would go for something like opensuse, yoper, fedora is also a good start.

Well, there certainly is a diversity of opinion here.....I think Ubuntu is an EXCELLENT choice for a beginner.

My advice--pick any of the popular free distros and dive in. You have very little to lose.