Believe it or not, under the hood most Linux systems are the same - they all need a compiler, they all need programming tools. Cosmetically they differ - some default to Gnome, some to KDE, some to some other desktop and some to the command line. The package managers differ, sometimes greatly, sometimes in only small ways.

But commands and methods you learn on one distro you can take to another distro (as long as you don't get stuck using only the gui - those skills are less postable). My advice would be to do what I do (and others), try a distro, see if you like it, if so stick with it, if not, try another. Repeat until you are happy.

I started on Corel Linux, moved to Mandrake, then to Red Hat, then back to Mandrake, then to SuSE and, finally, settled on Slackware. There are a load of steps missed in between all those distro changes, but that's the core of them.

Just be open to the fact that Linux is different to Windows and we don't have .exe files! At the same time, we have only a fraction of the viruses (none in the wild and none dangerous), we don't get spyware and out of the box are far less hackable than Windows.

In my signature block (below all these words) I have a link to RUTE - it's a distro agnostic how-to and will have many commands you will find useful. At the top of the page we have a link to the Tutorial section, www.google.com/linux is a very useful search resource, the TLDP has all sorts of documentation and, if all else fails, just post up your question here - using a useful and descriptive title and giving us any error messages - and we'll be happy to help.

Good luck.

thank you very much. i really appreciate it. i'll remember to put thos links in my favorites.


i just came back, from a very very interesting learning experience. installing the nvidia drivers. O_o

so here's what i got, so my story makes sense i guess.

debian sarge
kernel 2.6.8


the first hurdle i got, was how i couldn't install the drivers with X running. so i had to learn how to boot with X disable or whatnot. i went googling, and found this

http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/topic-50451.html


i used nomar's method.

# update-rc.d -f gdm remove


very nice.


my next hurdle, was that accursed kernel. waht i believe i have learned, is that the nvidia kernel has to match my own, when installing itself, (or something or other) but it dind't come with it, nor could it find one on its ftp server, and so it had to compile it.

so the next hurdle was figuring out what to do. and this link helped me.

http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/topic-58717.html

mainly farslayers' post.


that extraction process sure took a while. lots of stuff! o_o


after that, i wasn't exactly sure i did things right, so to be double sure, i did a little of this..

http://home.comcast.net/~andrex/Debi...tallation.html

i tried this first but nothing was working. in the end, the only things i was able to make work here were the module assistant steps. and even then i had to omit the last 3 words from "apt-get install module-assistant" cause it wouldn't work his way.

i did what i thought made sense and seemed logical in module assistant. in the end it felt as if i dind't do anything cause it happend so fast.

but just for the heck of it, i tried running the driver again. with that "sh" command


and walla. it actually worked. still not sure which major step was the one that made it work, (i think it was farslayer's post and the "symlink")

but i'm happy with it. then i used nomar's post to re-enable gdm defaults, rebooted, and i got my 1280x1024 resolution just like i wanted.

oh and i can't forget i did also follow step 3 "update configuration" debian method from the debian-nvidia HOWTO link. i think that sealed the deal.


i never, in all my years, had so much trouble with a driver install. lol maybe cause i was learning and reading at the same time. if i had it memorized, it would have prolly been a cinch. lots of steps though.

It's one of those things that seems arcane and too difficult when you first do it. After a few times it will become second nature. This is, IMO, why the Linux documentation and help is second to none - we have all been where you are at one time or another. I've sat at my pc swearing at a dependency or at a driver.

Give it a month and you'll be doing it in your sleep