I am a complete newbie to Linux, though I have experience in other OS's. I have materials on learning the line commands and shell scripting. Is this the way to start, or is there something before this I should learn?

Welcome to Linux Questions!

If you've read your distros manual/wiki to get the basic ideas like the filing system, permissions, and so on, then use the guides to the commands you've got. Just dive in and try things out. So long as you never alter a configuration file without making a backup, you can't do any permanent damage. Have fun!

well, I believe you may find this link useful: www.thegeekstuff.com or org can't recall.

Good way to start is with VirtualBox and live cds, you can have as many virtual machines as you want.
With the live cds you dont have to install anything, just run the system from it, in the real hardware or in the VirtualBox.
There are many distributions that has live cd, you can find about them here: http://distrowatch.com/
What kind of hardware do you have? You might want to check that out to find what will fit better with your hardware!

Regards

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I have an HP Pavilion desktop, 3.2 Ghz with 1G memory and 520G hard drive. I have installed Ubuntu 12.04 and it seems to work properly -- there is just a lot to learn . Thanks to all for your responses.

I do recommend more RAM if you can afford that, 2GB is a good amount, 4GB would be sweet, Ubuntu is RAM eager and uses about 500MB just to go up. Open a terminal and run "top" you will see how much is in use.
Still Ubuntu is a good start for learning but you won't learn that much there as it come with a "GUI way".
Do experiment as much distributions you can that is one way to know what Linux is about, the 1st thing is freedom.
I do use Debian custom install, Debian is rock solid. Take a look on it you might like, Ubuntu is based on Debian.
You can get the live one here: http://live.debian.net/

Regards

Hey,

I remember what it was like to learn Linux many years ago. It's a struggle (or at least it used to be) so one thing I'd recommend is to set up a goal for your self, so you have some direction of where you're going and something to keep you motivated.

I mean, don't set out to "learn Linux" but instead try to "Get a web server running for cool my web sites" or "get a media server running with Mplayer" or "set up a storage server with multiple harddrives and file sharing". From there it's easy (at least you know where to start digging) - start googling for "howto set up Linux Web server" - and voila you're a Linux guru before you know it.

Good luck!

Ubuntu guide packs some succinct howtos together that can be helpful for noobs to peruse through as they get started:

http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Ubuntu_Precise