Am I heading down the correct path?
 

HELP! The company I work for uses RHEL6 on a large number of servers. I was asked by my mgr. to take on a more technical role. I chose to take on learning Linux, hoping it will help me to do something more useful and further my career. Of course I'm doing this on my own. I hope I'm following the right path.
My personal laptop is Windows Vista. first I partitioned the hard drive with Ubuntu. I was then told not to use it. "Fedora is the way to go because it's closest to Red Hat". True?
What I've done is to install Oracle VM Virtual Box on my laptop. I downloaded and ISO file for Fedora 20 which I run from an external hard drive. Sound good so far?
The bad part is being totally on my own, a Windows user for many years, and some limited UNIX user time. I do have the desire to learn. However, when I look at the Fedora interface and I don't know where to begin. Any ideas where to go from here?

Don't try to "get it" on your first day.. Start by just using Fedora as your main OS..

Also, learnig linux and learning to be a system or network admin for production servers isn't quite the same thing.. So for a more technical role start by reading some technical books ..

For example, to learn more about networks: http://www.amazon.com/Computer-Netwo.../dp/0132126958

Only you can know if this is the right path.

You have to be happy with your job and your role. While the company you work for now has many RHEL6 servers, do you think they'll keep them? Think you'll have opportunities with that company if you expand your knowledge? Do you WANT to work with *nix servers???
True, to a point. Fedora is RPM based, and is the 'bleeding edge' for Red Hat/CentOS...but it doesn't matter. ANY Linux system can run any service...you can just as easily run Apache on Ubuntu as you can Fedora. There are SOME differences, of course, but the basics are the same. And if it's YOUR PERSONAL LAPTOP, the answer to whoever 'told' you not to use it is: get stuffed. It's YOUR laptop..YOU get to choose what you load on it.
Sounds ok, but dual-booting is MUCH better and faster. The real question is the goal...are you doing it just to learn, or are you doing it to actually USE? If you want to use it on a daily basis, the VM overhead isn't worth paying. Dual-boot, and enjoy the speed. Also, there is a difference between 'real' devices and virtual/vm devices.
What do you think we'll be able to tell you for this question? Did you know where to begin when you first looked at Windows? Probably not...so how did you learn THAT? This is no different. Use it and explore...research questions. You now have OPTIONS, and can make things as you wish...don't like KDE? You have Gnome, XFCE, Enlightenment, amongst others. Find what YOU like.

Learn Linux the same way you learned Windows/Mac/Whatever...use it on a daily basis. Don't ask things like "what next?", because that's open ended. Ask things like "I used to use xxxx for email...does anyone know some good Linux mail clients that support these features (aaa, bbb...)", and only ask that after you've done some basic Google searches. Chances are you'll find LOTS of program names, and you can try them all for free...again, find what works for YOU.

The best method to learn is to use it, break it, and fix it. If I were you I'd pick up another hard drive for your laptop rather than running a VM. Dual booting is nice, but it can also be a crutch.

Huh? A virtual machine from an external hard drive?!? If you only want to play around with a virtual machine 10 Gigs should be enough, you don't need an external drive for that.
But as pointed out by others, if you really want to learn you have to actually use it.
When I first got started with Linux I did the opposite of what you are doing: I put Windows into a virtual machine! After a year or two I found that I wasn't using Windows anymore, except for very special cases that required a Windows OS...

Where to start?
1) Get it installed on your laptop. (Make sure to backup data first)
2) Configure it to suit your needs. (Email, Web etc...)
3) Start experimenting with things you find interesting...