Hey guys, I'm new here. Just returned from Iraq in October, where I did network administration & PC repair/support. Mostly Cisco routers though. I've been getting bored with Windows, and since it seems most Network Security stuff is built on *nix these days, I thought "hey, what the hell, why not check Linux out."

Basically, I need some advice. How do I choose from all the 'flavors' out there? What are their strengths? I don't mind learning new stuff, but I don't know jack about *nix, except for a few commands (pwd, ls, cat are about it). I would REALLY like to do a dual-boot for a while, so I can keep Windows XP for production, until I'm comfortable enough with *nix to switch over.

Anyway, I'd appreciate any advice.

- stephan

1) No, it's not allowed.

2) This basic question is asked with almost amazing frequency. I would recommend searching the site for "Which Distro". But quick & dirty, it all depends on what you are looking for. SOme Distros, like Mandriva and Suse, are more "newbie friendly". Others, like Slackware, teach you a lot more about how Linux works, at the expense of "friendliness".

Check out http://distrowatch.com
There are reviews from just about every distro out there. Some good newbie distros are mepis, ubuntu, and suse. You can also try a live distro like knoppix or mepis that boots from a CD. If you like it you have the option to install to the hard drive. Be aware that it will run much slower from the CD, but will be better when you get it on the hard drive. All of the distros listed above will allow you to easily set up a dual boot system, but you may want to back up any important dat just in case.

Thanks for the advice guys. I'm downloading Ubuntu right now. Are there any good resources for starting out with a *nix-based OS? A website that explains the most common questions, etc...

- stephan

LinuxQuestions.org seems pretty good.

Guess I'll look around here for a while...

- stephan

Well, when you ask a question like that on what is probably the number one Linux help site on the net, you've got to expect that kind of response.

Since you are trying out Ubuntu, you might want to look over the LQ Ubuntu forum. You might also want to check out the official(?) Ubuntu Forums. Be advised that most forums are a "Question & Answer" format. When you run into a problem with what you're doing, you ask a specific question, and (hope to) get a specific answer. You can also check out the Really Linux Beginner Help Page. It looks like it has some decent articles.

BTW: Google is your friend.

Ubuntu---good choice.

How to learn:
1. Erase Windows memory
2. Restore early Unix and DOS memories from backup--maybe even Burroughs 6500 Fortran if you are as old as I am.
3. Poke around and push buttons---until you have really important data on your system, you can't break anything.

THEN, buy a book--I would start with O'Reiily books--eg Linux in a Nutshell.
Return to step 3
Return to step 1 as required
Look at Ubuntuforums dot something

Hey thanks guys, that's what I was looking for, just a place to get started. I booted up the Ubuntu Live disk today, and I'll admit it was a little confusing. Took me forever to figure out how to get an IP addy assigned to my NIC's.
Unfortunately I use my laptop for work, and nuking Windows isn't an option right now, but I'll try a dual-boot option.

- stephan

Its silly to expect to switch over to an OS you have no experience with for your primary system.

Dual booting, or running two machines is the sensible option until your comfortable enough with linux to feel that it can become your primary OS

Just thought I'd add my 10-cents!

I'd recommend getting hold of a cheap (old / second hand?) machine you don't care much about and using that to play on. One of the great reasons to move to Linux (apart from the obvious ones like security, reliablilty etc.) is that, unlike Windoze, it is quite happy if the hardware spec. is more than 2 days old.

I did this, starting with various live CDs then moving to Slackware before settling on Linux From Scratch. I wanted to concentrate on servers and want to learn how it all works "under the hood". Downside is a lot of stuff out there seems geared to wards RedHat-style rpms and I haven't worked out how to use them yet! I've read good things about Debian as a desktop OS - fairly easy to keep up to date (apparently).

Hope these ramblings help!

Since these haven't been mentioned here you get three more advices:
(1) The revised Slackware book: http://slackbook.org/ contains many useful information, I think you could compare it with the mentioned wiki.

(2) Paul Sheer's Rute Linux Tutorial: http://rute.2038bug.com/index.html.gz is a great source for managing your Linux system and learn a lot of things, it's quite comprehensive.

(3) BASH guide for beginners: http://www.tldp.org/LDP/Bash-Beginners-Guide/ can teach you some more basics in shell scripting.

Good luck for your migration to Linux

Thanks again guys, you've got me on the right track. It'll probably take a while to learn it. It's pretty daunting...going from being totally comfortable working on Windows boxes, to a completely different OS. Makes me feel like a dumb User again...

- stephan the valiant

I always thought it was like learning how to walk again.

For my first distro I used Fedora Core 4. It had a simple and clean installer and if you know simple terminology about computers you can get by. Though when I installed it and asked whether I wanted Gnome or KDE I was like I didn't know they were desktop environments at the time

Also when you get Linux running be sure to check out the man pages. Just type man before a certain command/program and if you have the manual installed it will give you back plenty of information.