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Introduction to Linux - A Hands on Guide
This guide was created as an overview of the Linux Operating System, geared toward new users as an exploration tour and getting started guide, with exercises at the end of each chapter.
For more advanced trainees it can be a desktop reference, and a collection of the base knowledge needed to proceed with system and network administration. This book contains many real life examples derived from the author's experience as a Linux system and network administrator, trainer and consultant. They hope these examples will help you to get a better understanding of the Linux system and that you feel encouraged to try out things on your own.
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Ok, so it should be painfully obvious that i am new to Linux. I read a few articles, did some google-fu, and was able to get a nice clean and relatively pain free install of YDL on my PS3. Now the fun starts. So I take a look around linux. Anyone who says Linux is like windows must have feeble powers of observation. So I am stoked, I get to learn a completely new way of doing things right? Sounds fine to me. So I open up some settings, change a few things, magic happens and I feel proud of myself. I open up Mozilla (an old friend of mine from windows), and hop on youtube. Oh yeah I need a flash player, so I go to the Adobe site to download. Thats where the fun stops. A tar.gz? RPM? YUM? Uh-oh. Back to google. So I find a few things that are theoretically informative, but ultimately not helpful to my situation. I found out that tar.gz is kinda like a bunched of files "tarred" together and that RPM is a red hat package manager that is supposed to help things install smoothly. So I click on "Download .RPM", and then a webpage with a media player pops up telling me that it is trying to play a Real Player object. So I back out and try the yum do-hicky. It downloads to desktop, so far so good. I find nautilus, open up the yum thingy-bob, and a window that says "Package installer" opens up and says it is checking for dependencies and what not, and then tells me "Package Installed!". Alas, I still have no flash player. The same thing happened with Azureus and Acrobat reader. So what am I doing wrong? Would someone care to explain to a nub like me what exactly a tar.gz, rpm, and yum are, how they differ, and how I can use them effectively? I really enjoy Linux, but I am ultimately frustrated by my lack of knowledge with it. I hear that the more some knows windows, the harder it will be to learn linux, but I threw away all windows notions out the door when I started linux, because I know, recognize and appreciate that these are two completely different animals. So that is my long winded plea for help. I searched among several tutorials, self-help guides, and Linux for Retards manuals, but I am still pretty much dumbfounded when it comes to making Linux work the way I would like it to (and telepathy has never worked for me on computers ), so if someone could help me figure out how to install stuff on this slick beast, I would be much obliged. By the way should I disable the yellow dog environment and switch to Gnome or KDE to make things easier? and if so how would I do that? Damn I AM dumb...
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