Can't find good intro to Linux 3

[GKChesterton]

I'm in a Windows world. I'm sold on open-source and excited by Linux advances. I'm trying to replace my Windows home desktop with Linux Ubuntu. For me, getting information is difficult.

It's not hard to gather links on a topic. What's hard is determining the staleness, validity, and applicability of the advice. I have yet to see a good primer or tutorial for the newbie. I have yet to see a good clearing-house for issues (e.g., dev-guru), or an organized trouble shooting path. The wikis and fora are chaotic, and I could live with that but I also don't find the answers to my questions.

I have gotten tremendous help before from the Tek-Tips community (MySQL, PHP, MS Access, VBA, HTML, CSS), but searches in the Linux(client/desktop) forum are less fruitful. And the Tip entries are stale and uninviting.

I respect that community software is fast-changing and loose-structured and this shapes the surrounding processes. But I also think that's where community resources can have the best influence.

Call me whatever you want, but prove me wrong. Can anyone recommend ways to get information? If you are an expert who wants to promote Linux, would you consider posting something for newbies as a Tip or Review?

I could tell you the points where I'm having trouble, but that would defeat the purpose. Newbies like me need to go somewhere -- a book, a site -- where they can have a brief and empowering top view, get a handle on best practices, and feel there is a way to obtain valid answers for specific questions. Until we have that place, the Linux user-base will remain limited.

[purple]If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called
research [blue]database development[/blue], would it? [tab]-- Albert Einstein[/purple]​

 

[pentode]

This forum is not the most active Linux forum on the Internet, by any means.

Linuxquestions.org is a pretty good starting place, in my experience. In addition, there are forums specific to each distribution including Ubuntu. Just plugging an Linux error message into Google will turn up hundreds of useful links.

For an introduction to Linux, a good on-line reference is here:

http://rute.2038bug.com/index.html.gz

But maybe also here:

http://linux.oneandoneis2.org/LNW.htm

 

[geirendre]

I would also recommend:

http://www.linux.org/lessons/

and

http://learnlinux.tsf.org.za/courses/web-courses.html

And how about some easy listening ;-)

http://www.linuxreality.com/

http://goinglinux.com/

 

[pentode]

Real toe-tappers, I'm sure...

 

[GKChesterton]

Thanks! I would urge you to make the first three links available as a User Tip.

I did try one Ubuntu forum and it took me too long to realize it was almost defunct in terms of traffic. That’s when I went to Tek-Tips. I will check out linuxquestions.org.

About the links provided by pentode and geirendre:

rute.2038bug.com
Who can resist an introductory line like this: “[Other books] will get your feet wet … this one lets you actually paddle for a bit, then thrusts your head underwater while feeding you oxygen.” Judging from the favorable Amazon comments, I should get submerged, even though the publishing date is 7 years old.

linux.oneandoneis2.org
This is a superb tonic for my gripes and confusions.

linux.org/lessons
This looks very good and about the right speed.

learnlinux.tsf.org.za
This is explicitly directed at Business IT users, so it may not belong here. BTW, I am grateful to Tek-Tips’ separate forums for Linux desktop and Linux server. (I’m sure once you are oriented, you’re likely to find help in either stream. It’s just getting there.)

linuxreality
goinglinux
Mmm, I’m not up for audio. But thank you anyway!

[purple]If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called
research [blue]database development[/blue], would it? [tab]-- Albert Einstein[/purple]​

 

[pentode]

Since you are running Ubuntu, you might check out Debian resources, since Ubuntu is based on the Debian distribution, including all of the management tools.

The Debian Administrator's Guide is a good place to check:

http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/network-administrator/index.html#contents

 

[pentode]

Oops - wrong link in previous post. Try this:

http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/system-administrator/index.html#contents

 

[GKChesterton]

pentode -- the link to system-administrator is odd because Chapter 2 is interesting, but nothing after that seems to be written. Section headings only. What am I missing?

[purple]If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called
research [blue]database development[/blue], would it? [tab]-- Albert Einstein[/purple]​

 

[pentode]

http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/i386/

This may be of more immediate use.

But really, there are some very active Ubuntu forums that you should get involved in if you really want to make your system work. Pretty much any problem you encountered will have already been experienced by someone else.

If you really want to learn Linux, you'll probably want to pick up a few books as well. This may be a good place to start:

http://www.oreilly.com/pub/topic/linux

Good luck.

 

[aebacon]

I used ubuntuforums.org and linuxquestions.org when looking for information on Ubuntu. The Ubuntu Forum has sections for new users too. I hope this helps.

 

[DonQuichote]

If you want to try Ubuntu, just do it.
[ul][li]There is a live CD that you can run without touching your system in any way (in fact, it is a nice rescue CD if windows stops working somehow).[/li]
[li]You can use the wubi installer to install it in a file in your windows environment. This means that you use a "windows" installer and a "windows" uninstaller if you don't want it anymore.[/li]
[li]You can install a dual boot system with Ubuntu in a separate partition.[/li][/ul]

Furthermore, get yourself a textbook on the basics of Linux. You probably had one on DOS ages ago, and the Linux shell is a bit different. AND more widely used.

And, off course, web search engines are your friend. If you paste an error message along with "ubuntu" in a web search, there is a lot of info.

Just play with it. Like me. I switched from win'98 to Xubuntu last year and I should have done so much earlier.

+++ Despite being wrong in every important aspect, that is a very good analogy +++
Hex (in Darwin's Watch)

 

[BadBigBen]

Here are my favorites:

Index of Linux Tutorials:

http://www.yolinux.com/TUTORIALS/

Malta Linux User Group

http://www.linux.org.mt/

The Linux Documentation Project

http://tldp.org/

http://www.linux.org.uk/

and since I am more of a SuSE user:

Open SuSE HowTo's

http://en.opensuse.org/Howtos

Ben

"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."

 

[shoalcreek]

Where are you? Start by going to your local Linux user group or LUG.

 

[benlinkknilneb]

Star to aebacon... I agree completely.

I've been learning linux for about a year and a half now, and that site has dug me out of more holes than I care to admit.

The experienced users are really friendly, and there are SO MANY members it's almost certain that someone's done exactly what you're looking for!

Ben
The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't. - Douglas Adams