how to start and wht r d benifits
 

hi
im an engineering student
heard frm sm1 that linux is far better than windows
so thought of learning it
now ive got suse 9.1 installed
got sm programs that i felt need of (yast is pretty easy)
but didnt feel much difference between windows n linux yet

sm questions in my mind:
1. hows linux better?
2. now im stuck up from where to learn linux?
3. which distro shd i use?

1. 'Better' is very subjective. If(when?) you decide Linux is better, you know why. If you say 'Linux is different' it's more objective. The difference is in the way the system works, with such things like directory structure, permissions etc.

2. Hard to say. Maybe just start new things. Set up a web server. Then an FTP servers, make differnet users and chroot them to differnet directories. There are many things you can do.

3. The one you decide. If you like SuSE, stay with it. If you decide you want something different, then install RedHat, Debian, Slackware, Gentoo etc after reading about the distro you're going to try. After some time you'l find one that's perfect for you.

SuSe is a very graphical distribution. It's normal not to see the difference if you don't dig into the system's internals. It's what SuSe wants, to be easier to use. You can either:
A) Dig into the system's internals on SUSE. This could be hard if you have no idea where to start.
B) Install a distribution that does not use the GUI as much. This will force you to dig into the system's internals (and may give you some interesting paths to follow...)

I suggest you keep SuSe for a month ot two, look through the directory structure, read man pages, and then decide on a distro.

Some interesting starting points:
Installing a web server, or ftp server
Installing a nameserver
Installing any server
Reading files in /etc
Browsing the directory structure
Reading an introduction to Linux book
Looking at the settings in YaSt