Im curious about trying out Fedora on my laptop that I just got a couple weeks ago. Ive read a few guides online that explain experiences with Fedora on the specific laptop I purchased, so from the sounds of it it should work. I have a question about this though...

Im very new to linux, I dont really know all that well what Im doing. Ive read several times before though that if you want to learn how to use linux, you should use a distro such as slackware. If you want to learn how to use redhat/fedora, you should use redhat/fedora. Essentially, Ive read that the two are quite different. I want to be able to learn "standard" procedures, those that would be performed on most other linuxes (linuxi?), rather than procedures that are fedora specific, such as using RPMs to install programs. Assuming I can get fedora running on this laptop, will it be possible for me to learn the things that I want to learn, or will I be missing out by using a distro such as Fedora?

Well I don't think there really is a standard Linux. Fedora has a lot more graphical configuration tools and available packages compared to Slackware. Slackware tries to keep things as simple as possible and usually leaves things the way the developers intended them to be. Fedora/Redhat reconfigures a lot of things e.g. GNOME and KDE. I started with Redhat 5.x / Mandrake 5.x and last year installed Slackware and I like it's simplicity and I have learnt a lot about Linux in general than when I was only running Fedora/Redhat.

I would suggest you try both and then pick your favorite one.

Short answer: You can learn the "guts" of an os with a linux kernel packaged with gnu tools, by using any distro. You just have to forgo the use of all the nifty gui configuration and administration widgets and get your hands dirty. -but- A distro like Slackware will tend to use a more straightforward approach to config files (sanely located, shell-script-like, human readable).

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longer, more boring, rambling, thinking out loud answer:
Distros are a lot like programming languages. Once you've mastered the skill of _programming_, while using one particular language, learning new languages becomes a matter of learning nuances. Learning a new programming paradigm could be compared to learning a new family of os's, like switching from an NT way of thinking to a linux way of thinking, or bsd, or amiga, etc. If you learn one of the lower level members of the "c" family (c or c++) it will be much easier to learn one of the higher level relatives - if you should ever choose to.

If you want to have a distro quickly installed, that is relatively easy to administer (and that I think quite highly of) go for Fedora. There are caveats - sometimes a Fedora install can require some serious work, but the end result is a system you can just _use_, and not get your hands dirty again.

If you are looking to learn more, on the closest thing to a "standard" bare-metal distro, Slack is the way to go. You could always get really crazy and go LFS =)

I left out Gentoo because I think of it as an entirely different kind of distro. Thanks for letting me ramble. Good luck with your install(s).

You're going to get some varying opinions on this matter, but here's my 2 cents. If you're just getting into Linux, I think Fedora is a great starting point. The installer has a nice GUI that pretty much walks you through the steps of installation. There's also a pretty big online support community that will probably be able to anwser any questions you have.

While I've heard Slackware is great and I want to try it out, it may not be the best to start out with as there is more manual configuration required to get it up an running. You can try Fedora out and once you get "comfortable" with Linux, you could always try another distro out.

Corallis...well if u are planning to install llinux on ur laptop then u should definately worry abt power management and there are good graphcal tools in the fedora distro that do it where as its a bit manual in slackware! and also setting up the pcmcia is a bit manual in slackware but fedora does it for you smooth! so considering ur new to linux.....i suggest go for fedora, once u get accommested with an rpm distro and some command line i think u will try slackware by urself....
regards