Ok here is where all of you Linux Pro's get to educate a big newbie. I am brand new to Linux and have tons of windows XP but need some help on learning Linux (just decided I wanted an OS that worked). so any suggestions on a good Distro for a learner and a good cheat sheet for commands would be much apreciated. I'm sure that there is plenty of info located in the forums everywhere but any suggestions would be great. !!!


Thanks
Brent

If you wish to truly learn about Linux, try "base" distros like Debian/Slackware - there is load of documentation and help on their web-sites.

Debian -- Documentation

A good place to start is the search function at linuxquestions.org. A lot of times you learn more by finding the answer yourself rather than having someone spoonfeed it to you. Your questions have been asked many many times and you could prob see some good responses too.

Try Gentoo.

I say try Ubuntu. I think its a great distro for people new to linux that just want to get it up and running and working out of the box. Then when you are ready switch to slackware. Slackware is one of those distros you will learn a lot from because it doesn't do a lot for you, it makes you dig in and work to do anything beyond a basic setup.

And dont be afraid to ask questions. Sure some people on this forum will tell you RTFM, or google, or use the search function, but in the end its a forum. If people didnt ask questions, what would be the point.

Oh, and welcome to LQ.

<Standard Slackware plug>

I would suggest slackware or gentoo if you want to learn stuff, or Ubuntu if you just want to use things.

The Linux Documentation Project is a good place to start.
Also, once you get linux installed there's two wonderful reference programs, 'info', and 'man' (short for manual).

At a terminal (probably an Xterm) type "info info" and hit return. That will tell you all about how to use the info program. "info coreutils" is a good place to start learning about the basic unix/linux commands. Also if you come across a specific program that you would like to know more about use the 'man' command. For example to learn about the man program type 'man man' and it will tell you all about 'man'. If you really want to learn about some commands and programs just 'cd' to /bin and then 'ls' the contents of that directory. /bin contains most of your basic programs and you can just look up information about them using 'man'.

Sorry if that was a bit confusing but most of this stuff should become second nature to you in time.

If both slackware or gentoo turn you on, but you want a distro with a package manager built in that doens't require you to build all of your packages from soruce (which is never a bad thing, just a bit too time consuming for me) Arch is pretty solid too.