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All of you who struggle with Linux really must be prepared to realise that an extensive amount of time is required to get to grips with the (somewhat complex) OS. Once upon a time I was a struggling 'newbie'. Many books (& man pages) later I have emerged more enlightened & educated from the experience.
If you are the type of person who does not like to learn, does not want to understand the systems processes, is not inquisitive and likes to be spoon fed, don't go for Linux (or any other of the unix flavours abound)
Remember, your choice of OS should be applicable to the application required.......if it does not match your application requirements (& you are not prepared to learn), find something that will help you.
Originally posted by CloudBuilder You are a great help!
CB
Ditto! I don't think this thread topic is a very good choice to start in a "Linux-Newbie" forum. It's kinda like laying out a doormat that reads "Go Away!" right after you've moved into a new neighborhood!
Originally posted by AndyOz Many books (& man pages) later I have emerged more enlightened & educated from the experience.
AndyOz is correct........be prepared to read alot!! goto the linux documentation project site and d/l any and all user guides, how-to's and Faq's that they have for future reading/reference. burn everything to a disk for safe keeping also.........
Be careful not to misunderstand this post. Maybe I wasn't clear enough. Just sick of the holy wars going on, esp. Microsoft OS's vs linux(unices), and comparing both. It is NOT comparing apples with apples.. I cannot understand why so many people complain about comparisons between MS OS's & Linux. This is the right forum to post this message. These unjustified holy wars stem from here from those who lack understanding about what they use.
For a newbie from the Windows world, does anyone have any recommended reading? My Win2K servers have their advantages but I'd like very much to learn Unix/Linux.
Perhaps I misunderstood; many apologies if that was the case. I agree though that Linux requires much more investigating and reading for one to be proficient. However, someone with a legitimate issue should feel comfortable asking for assistance here (not asking to be spoon-fed), wouldn't you agree? After all, I've only been using Linux for five months, so I'm well familiar with being a newbie; I've learned a great deal from the folks here on LQ. I think that the biggest misconception that newbies have is that the transition from winblows to Linux is easy.
Originally posted by Justin_TX For a newbie from the Windows world, does anyone have any recommended reading? My Win2K servers have their advantages but I'd like very much to learn Unix/Linux.
--> Justin
One book that I borrowed from a friend, once I decided on a distribution, was "SuSE Linux for Dummies". Not that I'm a "dummy" when it comes to computers (I've got three Macs and one pc), but the "dummies" series of books seems to break things down so that just about anyone can understand them. Compared to Macintosh, Linux is a different animal altogether, hence my choice in reading material.
Distribution: Gentoo 2004.2, Slackware 10, Windows XP, Windows 2003 Server
Posts: 348
Rep:
Bottom line:
user friendly => automatically doing things for you (like crashing)
not so friendly => gain total control, get optimum performance, do complex tasks easily
I like no so friendly myself. It's really a one ingrediant recipe. your brain
Majority of PCs in this world run Microsoft OS, so when a computer user switch from an OS to Linux, big chance that he/she switch from MS Windows. Most of the time, when someone switch to Linux, he brings his some experience with him. So, when something goes wrong, or not as smooth as he expects, he will compare it with his past experience. That's why you see all these postings comparing MS Windows with Linux with all sorts of complain.
I understand that sometimes all these postings can become very annoying. But telling them to stop complaining will probably steer them away from learning Linux. I think the better way is to let those people who complains know that Linux is not 'easy', and it is normal to have a lots of problems first time they run Linux. Tell them to spend more time and do more reading.
I think at this stage, Linux is a good operating system for those who are willing to learn. If someone just wants to transfer a picture from his digital camera, adjust the color, put some greetings, and print it out or send it to his family in 5-10 minutes, I think Windows (XP especially) is still the answer.
I agree. If you've tried linux and didn't like it. That's fine. There is absoluely nothing wrong with moving on if it's not what you want. But don't complain about it. If you geta new shirt that doesn't fit right, you just return it. You don't go starting a flame war on the internet message boards.
The most important thing for people interested in using linux is to be prepared to start from scratch. Linux is way different than windows. When i first started using linux, i needed to open a document i'd saved on floppy. I popped in the disk, typed a: and got an error. I typed c: and got an error. I typed random letters : and got errors. It took me a long time to wrap my head around the filesystem. I actually abandoned linux after about a month. A month after that, i suffered a massive windows failure (after uninstalling a disney game of all things!). That brought me back to linux and i've been windows free ever since.
<The most important thing for people interested in using linux is to be prepared to start from scratch.>
Amen. That's the problem. Linux is different to Windows. Anybody used to Windows who thinks that they can quickly pick up Linux easily is wrong. I myself picked it up easily only because I had already got used to using Unix (Tru64 and HPUX) at work. Someone who knows Unix will take to Linux readily. Otherwise, think how long it took you to get good with Windows - difficult I know if it's been a long time - it will take at least that long to get to grips with Linux, probably longer. That's neither a good thing nor a bad thing. It's just the way it is.
Originally posted by Justin_TX For a newbie from the Windows world, does anyone have any recommended reading? My Win2K servers have their advantages but I'd like very much to learn Unix/Linux.
Originally posted by Justin_TX For a newbie from the Windows world, does anyone have any recommended reading? My Win2K servers have their advantages but I'd like very much to learn Unix/Linux.
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