New to UNIX and Linux... need a guide
 

I want to know about UNIX and Linux. I have Windows7 installed and I would like to know how to start ie
1 softwares needed
2 hardware changes if any
3 any emulator or virtual machine if needed
4 useful links for installation
5 links for study material.

Please provide a step by step guide as I am new to UNIX/Linux

Awaiting your reply.

Regards
Arpit

I recommend just using Linux the way you would have used Windows, i.e. surf the Internet, listen to music, read email. You will learn a lot in small increments this way.

You could do all of this using a live CD without installing Linux.

There are many recent discussions on this forum about choosing a distribution. You can use the search feature of this forum to find these discussions.

I think a lot of people get discouraged because they try to do too much in the beginning. You spent years learning Windows by learning one thing at a time as issues came up. Do the same for Linux and you will avoid becoming frustrated.

A VM is good for testing GNU/Linux distros. You can find Virtualbox for Windows Hosts here:

http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads

Select the one that matches your arch and install. All the relevant info for getting started is on that page also.

Hi,

Welcome to LQ!

Scroll down and look at the similar threads. Plus a LQ Search will provide loads of similar queries.
:hattip:

Oh well linux comes with all the software you need already installed on a live cd ( Try Ubuntu or Linux Mint )
It has browsers and IM clients and IRC clients and cd burning software and music players and all that stuff already installed . You don't need to install anything ( oh well for Ubuntu you would have to search on its software center for medibuntu and let it install it)

A good guide to start with is the manual already provided with the OS :)

As of hardware changes, it depends . For example , I didn't even know all my hardware was compatible with linux , but it worked out of the box after installing it.

maybe providing us with some information about your pc ... what's you pc's model? would help to answer that question

Anyways , even if you wouldnt have the necessary hardware to run linux just fine ( linux supports lots of hardware ) then opening up a simple thread here and i guess you would get help to make it work

Can u also tell me something about UNIX...which version to use, where to download it from, how to go about it?
Can u also suggest me some UNIX forums?

I started using Linux because I wanted to learn UNIX. To come degree Linux is still useful in that role.

If Solaris were still available for free then I would recommend that. I have heard that Oracle has stopped giving it away. I haven't checked to see if that is true.

Any of the BSD UNIX systems would be a valid platform to learn UNIX. You may find that they appear to be more austere than Linux at the system administration level. Also, they don't have "distributions" as Linux does. That's probably a good thing. BSD is a different mindset than Linux. BSD is very "old school" which can be refreshing for us old timers. Solaris is also very "old school". That can result in a longer learning curve.