LinuxQuestions.org - Moving from Windows

Quote:

Originally Posted by arie01 (Post 4854606)

I've been trying a few times to get ahead with Linux and I found it to be very difficult and complicated to do so. On Windows, I install Windows and then add my chosen applications. On Linux, I install it and... How do I find equivalents to my Windows applications? What if I absolutely must have a certain Windows application, I tried installing WINE that was way beyond me and I couldn't install any Windows application on it and make it work.

So, like a good boy, I reinstalled Windows and forgot about Linux for a long time.

You're not the first or the last person to who have done this - many went back to windows for good, but some are probably here with impressive levels of knowledge using GNU/Linux.

I started with Mandrake before I even had an internet connection. I struggled on it with it for months - dual booting - and learned nothing useful. It was a real struggle, books didn't help much either.

I pretty much gave up until I decided to try again in 2006 and downloaded 'buntu. I stuck with 'buntu - again dual booting - for about 2 years before moving to Debian Etch - that was the biggest shock to the system - realising that using 'buntu had taught me next to nothing about GNU/Linux. It was only by getting into Debian and starting off using command line package management tools that I began to learn how the whole thing went together, started building from source, building kernels, etc.

I don't want to say that the time I spent on 'buntu was a waste, but I definitely lingered too long on it and did not move to Debian soon enough. After running unstable for nearly too years I decided to give Slackware a go and ran a dual boot with Debian - earlier last year I moved entirely to Slackware as it pretty much suits all my needs and is a very solid distribution.

Being online and connected to forums such as the Debian Forums and this one is what made all the difference in the end. Using a non "spoon-feeding" distribution also helped tremendously. It forced me to do things and try things for myself and in doing so to understand the underlying tools which form the back ends for the fancy GUI tools you see in 'buntu and other "user friendly" distros. IMO there is no substitute for the command line and I tend to choose the command line over file managers or GUI configuration tools. IMO again, it's important to embrace the command line from the start and try to forget any preconceptions you might have about it from the windows world.

Quote:

Originally Posted by arie01 (Post 4854606)

Now, I really want to get into Linux, both as a desktop and as a server admin. I want to be able to manage common aspects of Linux in a work environment and to troubleshoot problems when they arise and to write scripts but where do I start?

Start by using it for every day tasks. Unless you absolutely depend on windows at home - ditch it and install a distro - it doesn't matter which at this stage and try to use it to do everything you normally do in windows. If you cannot do something, search the web and read and ask until you can. This is just an opinion but: avoid resorting to wine until there is no other option - you will not learn much about GNU/Linux if you simply run windows programs under wine (might as well just stick with windows).

Quote:

Originally Posted by arie01 (Post 4854606)

The community keeps referring newbies to the man and HOW-TO pages, they are great, but for a newbie that just starting the journey, they can be complicated. So in order to do things faster we ask direct questions and hope to get direct answers, not RTFM. And when we read the FM part of RTFM, it’s like reading a whole book. We lose interest and give up.

Please bear in mind that the community is established, consists of volunteers and reads the same questions over and over again - pretty much ad infinitum- coming from people who don't bother to research their problem. Unfortunately there are lazy people out there who do not want to learn - they simply want someone else on a forum to act as their tech support and provide them with a copy and paste, fire and forget, magic bullet solution. You may not be one of these people, but if some members make that assumption - don't be offended.

Reading the manual is important because once you learn how to read one manual, you'll be able to read all of the others. Terminology that made no sense, will begin to make sense and you will know how to skip the bits that don't apply to you. You see this a lot - a long wiki page, which someone has take the time and effort to put together and maintain for our benefit, which only contains one small relevant section to a particular kernel, distro, hardware, etc. The user takes one look at this wall of text and heads for the forum to just ask the question. Because they would not even take the time to read it, they missed the part where it says "skip to section 5 of this wall of text and enter these three commands - done". If the person in question cannot be bothered to read, then why should volunteers bother to help them? (though in all likelihood they will).

:hattip: