I've been fighting Linux for the past nine months. I've had some success, but I just get a sinking feeling every time I try to do anything. I have most of my trouble installing and configuring stuff. Once it's in, I can handle it. I thought maybe a different distribution would help, but I have no clue.

I see most people here run several distributions and I don't know why. First of all I'm not really sure what the difference is between them, having only used RH. Do you all have a whole bunch of computers or do you have quadruple boot systems? If you move from one distro to another, doesn't that wipe out everything you've done?

They say I'm a member since I've got more than 30 posts, but really I'm a newbie that takes a long time and asks a lot of questions. Is it really this hard?

1-)all dist are same except thay have their own tools to help end user just like in redhat.some are more friendly some are not i can recomend mandy they say it is the most use friendly dist.
2-)if you have a separate /home directory on another partion by it self you can switch between dist without losing data as long as you do not format /home partion btw having /home on a separate partion make upgrades easier install from beginning by this you can format you computer and go back to where you were in 10 15 minutes even window pasitions will remain same.

I chose auto partition when I installed RH. How do I know if /home is on its own partition? And how do I tell a different distro not to kill my /home partition? Also, I assume I am correct that you download a disk image and burn that to a CD to use a new distro. Do you know a good CD-burning program for Windows or Linux? I've used several demos but haven't found one that is as good as it is cheap.

Hello Travis86,
If you are enjoying Linux, stick with it.
Since I cringe when I read that someone that has been using Linux for a month has installed 20 versions in their attempt to "get it right", I would suggest that CHANGING distros is not always the answer. You could be on a good track thinking about multi-booting to TRY other distros. Even if they do not solve your difficulties, you would see the differences, in any case.
My belief is usually that if you are able to install your chosen Linux version then you are usually wiser to learn on it and try other distros as you choose, rather that SWITCHING CONSTANTLY.
Multi booting is not to tough. Rule number one is to always make your boot disk during install. Then you learn to configure your boot loader. The simple way is to use one partition for each and share swap. You would need to backup any important files before formating for a new install, of course.
You did not really say what you are having problems with. Installing Linux or using Linux?

Give Mandrake a whirl Travis, but wait for 9.1, it should be out soon.

Some people definitely grok to some distributions better than others, and certainly some distributions work better with some hardware configurations. nakkaya is right is stating they many differ in the tools, though they also tend to move important configuration files around. Therefore, I would suggest before you try another distro, learn the one you have a bit more. Avoid the system GUI tools as much as possible because they often prevent a person from knowing what is going on. Learn the command line within a bash shell window.

For example, the command "df" will show the mounted partitions:

Here are mine:

$ df
Filesystem 1k-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sdb5 139986 72725 60034 55% /
/dev/sda2 23331 6088 16039 28% /boot
/dev/md2 248464 119428 116212 51% /var
/dev/md1 1849728 1196716 559048 69% /usr
/dev/local/src 2301515 2050338 157625 93% /usr/src
/dev/sdd2 334450 286820 30361 91% /tmp
/dev/local/local 408444 353255 34095 92% /usr/local
/dev/md4 3031248 2780440 96824 97% /home
/dev/pkg/pkg 757787 688215 69572 91% /usr/pkg
/dev/sdd6 2015517 1485408 509627 75% /mnt/work
/dev/md3 6048068 4988480 752360 87% /mnt/work/Music
/dev/sdc1 2020192 279756 1740436 14% /mnt/dos/e
/dev/hda5 23435376 8851168 14584208 38% /mnt/dos/f

The command mount will tell you something different about your mounted partitions:

$ mount
/dev/sdb5 on / type ext3 (rw)
none on /proc type proc (rw)
usbdevfs on /proc/bus/usb type usbdevfs (rw)
/dev/sda2 on /boot type ext2 (rw)
/dev/md2 on /var type ext3 (rw)
/dev/md1 on /usr type ext3 (rw)
/dev/local/src on /usr/src type ext3 (rw)
/dev/sdd2 on /tmp type ext3 (rw)
/dev/local/local on /usr/local type ext3 (rw)
/dev/md4 on /home type ext3 (rw)
/dev/pkg/pkg on /usr/pkg type ext3 (rw)
/dev/sdd6 on /mnt/work type ext3 (rw)
/dev/md3 on /mnt/work/Music type ext3 (rw)
/dev/sdc1 on /mnt/dos/e type vfat (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,umask=0000)
/dev/hda5 on /mnt/dos/f type vfat (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,umask=0000)
none on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,gid=5,mode=620)
none on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type binfmt_misc (rw)

Don't worry, I really doubt your system is quite so complicated. :-)

The file fstab (in /etc) contains a listing of partitions which are mounted at bootup or otherwise "known" to the system. I won't put mine here, to see your own just do "cat /etc/fstab" . Most of the important configuration files are of course, in /etc. See what they are and what they do, and you will learn your system.

Read the Linux Newbie Administrator Guide and work through it.

Once you have an idea about how things work (and really, it is really pretty simple), then you can start back with the GUIs. Because then you know what they are doing and, if properly written, CAN make life easier. Personally, I kind of like webmin since it works pretty much the same on every distribution.

BTW, one more note to this way too long post. Every CD writing program I have seen is simply an interface to "mkisofs" and "cdrecord". Here is my cd writing program, which I call cd_burn and locate in $HOME/bin.
#!/bin/bash
mkisofs -l -L -R -uid 0 -gid 0 -pad <directory>| \
cdrecord -v dev=0,0,0 speed=8 -data -

Of course, you may prefer different options, so try "man mkisofs" and "man cdrecodrd". Also, webmin has a nice little iterface, though the available options are somewhat limited (though *quite* sufficient).

Cool, everybody. I'm feeling a bit more optimistic now. I think I might like to try openBSD and Smoothwall. I guess I'll try Mandrake 9.1, too. Someday I hope to try out LFS.

That Linux Newbe Administrator's guide is just the kind of thing I've been looking for.

BTW, I'm still don't know how to be sure my /home directory doesn't get erased when I change distros.

I almost forgot...
I second the mkisofs and cdrecord combo.
Like this...

When you set up a new distro, have it ignore your current /home directory (in otherwords, make a new one, or just include it as part of /).. Once you have it working, change your fstab to put in your old one.

I just keep installing different distros, goofing around, fdisking, installing a new one....

So far Slack, SuSe, Peanut,and a couple of which I forget. (ok, I am a bandwidth hog)

Slack seems to keep finding it's way back onto the drive, so I am more of a slacker than anythign else. Totaly confused slacker, but a slacker none the less.

And still using WinXP for my internet connection. But someday I will fdisk /dev/hda. (after the wife gets her own computer!!)

Someone used to say in some network marketing thing that a rolling stone gathers no moss. If you keep switching distros you will never learn any of them well, and just have a big mish-mash of jumbled ideas iny our head while you boot to windows to check your email after months of goofing off with linux. (Why do my ears burn as I type that???)

I think I have said nothing well enough.

hehe, in about the first 3 weeks of using linux i used rh8.0, mdk9.0 + rc1 , slack8.1 and rc1/3, gentoo1.4rc3, debian woody + sarge, and freebsd 4.7 + 5.0. Learned a bunch from installs, mostly gentoo's but have settled down now in to slack =]

1) I guess we're just hopeless nerds

2) Some distros are better for some uses than others. None of them are perfect (as you've figured out already)

Differences are in how they install, how they configure, the choice of software they are bundled with, how package management is done, and how current is the software kept is just to name a few.

Both as a matter of a fact. I have about 7 computers (don't be jealous, most of them are quite old), they boot at least 2 different Linux distro's each, sometimes more, besides various OS's from the Evil Empire.

I usually save the /etc and /homes directories before wiping out a distro. The configuration files in /etc aren't usually completely compatible with the new distro, but serves as a good reference of the way it used to work. I still feel I keep a Linux distro around longer than a typical Windows user keeps Windows around without re-installing.

It can be. I guess I need to know about the kind of problems you've been having, but generally the software is all the same. Some distro's have fancy configuration programs that often don't work perfectly. If you have a strange installation requirement due to odd hardware or something, you can learn how to manually configure that part independent of the fancy configuration programs. You can then use this knowledge across various distro's that stumble over the same thing but differently. A good example of something you probably need to know is your XF86Config file. Learn what it takes to get it to work on your hardware if you have trouble getting Xfree86 to work.

Of course a lot of people just try different distros until they find one that happens to install on their hardware flawlessly. I suppose this isn't all that bad of an idea. It certainly is something you can't do in the Micro$oft Windows world.

PS: You might give Knoppix-Linux, SuSe, and Mandrake-Linux a try. You can also try Xandros, Lycoris, or Libranet. If you want a distro that is fairly easy to learn how to manually configure, try Slackware -- my favorite.

If you consider yourself a "newbie" I'd get a grip on your current distro of choice before switching. Switching from RedHat to OpenBSD is asking for trouble. The knowledge gained from learning Linux, doesn't transfer 100% to BSD. OpenBSD is even different from other BSD's.

I'd say most people are not really Linux users as you seem to be. There are 10 experienced Linux installers for every 1 experienced Linux users. A quick test is to see what you'd do if you messed up your smb.conf file or your sendmail configuration. If you just reinstall everything like most people do, you are a Linux installer. These people never really "use" their system, they just try to set it up over and over. They never really save any critical data on their system, because they know it will be blown-away in a few hours. Be careful of advice from these guys. Their uptime stats are ALWAYS 100% for those 3 hours before they decided to re-install.

If you restore your backup file that you made before you started editing your conf files, you are a Linux user.

Take my advise, don't get into the habit of Linux installer. You will quickly get board with Linux. Installing has to be the least fun thing to do. Why people make a career of it, who knows?

If you are wanting to get into BSD, start with Slackware. It is a BSD-like Linux. As far as Smoothwall, no real reason to go there unless you have a specific need for dedicated firewall software.

Cool enough, but where do you learn how to fix stuff and be a "user"? The books just teach you how to install and run Linux, but not how to fix it, though I have learned some "user" stuff.

It's funny that you mention sendmail since I was planning on reinstalling it sometime in the near future. I guess you're right and I should instead learn how to fix it.

Not that everyone's goal is to get a job administering Unix, but if it is, I can tell you from first hand experience, reinstalling the OS to fix a problem is simply not an option.

I know it is difficult but "users" will learn soooo much more fixing problems them re-installing. To learn how, you just need experience. Looking at the books will get you a good foundation becasue usually software problem are conf problems. Looking at books will help fix that problem. It is rare for a working program to just stop working. If you get stuck, give us a post!!!!!