Improving linux skill?
 

I first started using linux off and on about 6 months ago, but I finally settled down and stuck with it... I'm only 16, and though I'm still sort of new to this, I want to work with linux as a career when I am older... any advice to improve gradually? I just use it as a desktop machine... music, internet, chat, some games... not much. What would be a good place to start to dig deaper into linux?

Slackware is good for learning, and things work pretty well on it.
LFS is if you really wan't to get deep.
Here's the prerequisites (for LFS) that taught me alot by themselves.
"Software-Building-HOWTO"
http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Software-Building-HOWTO.html
"The Linux Users' Guide"
http://www.linuxhq.com/guides/LUG/guide.html

For a career you might learn system administration (like Networking, Printing, Upgrading,Troobleshooting...etc)

Or you might get to programing (which I think is more productive) so start by learning C++ then PERL (which was made for linux). To get good try joining a project at sourceforge.net or something.

Yeah, set up a LFS install, dual boot or on another machine or whatever. That'll help. Then you could learn some languages, start with the basics of shell scripting, here is the reference I keep going back to, it's great. I'm a big fan of Python but that's mainly because I don't have time to learn C as computers are just a hobby for me. I'd recommend learning C rather than C++ myself :)

Actually, if you think you're going to use both C++ is recommended to start off with, because C supposedly teaches you "bad" habits. But really, all C++ is, is C with strong typing and a new organizational shell(that can actually sometimes get in the way of things). I guess its supposed to prevent bugs.

But if you're a careful person and the type of person to type what you mean, go with C. Besides you'll just confuse the hell out of yourself with templates, multiple inheritances, operator overloading and all that stuff. Some people prefer a simpler world where "-" means "-" and "." only means something to you if you're using floats.(or strings with sentences). :)

The world can be a good place sometimes ;)