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Ok I'm convinced, what next?

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foobar:
Hey SM,
How are you today ? Like you, i'm in dial-up hell, so don't expect a lot of quick answers from me.
I'm fairly new to linux, but already addicted to it and still learning.
The first distro i got was slackware - i know, bad choice, but i was 100% newbie   :D  

I would consider myself as a quick learner, i didn't have a lot of trouble at all installing slackware. It was a distro from '96, so i really couldn't do stuff with it.
But now i've got mandrake 8.1, and it's great, the installer is very powerful. It will detect any internet connections/lan cards and connecting to the 'net is a piece of cake. I already helped two friends of mine upgrading from winblows to linux, and got their adsl running like a charm.

Be sure to check out your local library for linux-for-newbies books. Also, when in linux, just go looking for commands you never heard of before !
I once simply tried 'mo' for fun, and bash added it on to the word 'mount' !
I thought: Hey what's this ?
So i said:
# mount --help

That's just one example about my linux learning process. Nowadays, if you just say 'f*** it !!', throw away all windoze and start with linux from an empty hdd, you never ever want to get back to windows. Believe me, i got a friend of mine who simply let me erase his two hdd's and put a running mandrake system on it.

About the modems, i once read a 'hacker tutorial' from Carolyn Meinel that said 'Linux works best with software that isn't Brand X'.
My point is, get hardware with names you've heard of before. (Mostly the expensive ones   :D  )

I got a winmodem from lucent, and it works fine under linux ! It was once of the few supported, but now it works !

So my advice is just to dive into linux, and see what comes ! Linux is full of stuff, you can instantly start 'netting or typing or whatever !

Welcome !

[ July 22, 2002: Message edited by: -=f00bar=- ]

foobar:
And if you're not sure about your modem, check it out @ linmodems.org !!

saddlemagic:
Thanks much, I'm cheating by asking all the questions here. My plan is to install Linux and have it work, get my apps working or aquire some new ones if what I have doesn't lend itself to Linux.

I really don't want to spend hours/days/weeks making this work or work right. I have done that in the past and I know I'll spend some time tweeking and adjusting, as long as I'm not spending measurable time just trying to make it function. Or picking up a flavor that goes over real sour so I have to get another one right away. Looking at the thousands of dollars I've spent on software over the years, most of it never worked or never worked right. This time I want to do it smarter.

For some reason, I don't know why but, Debian intrigues me. If I can pick up a copy of Debian 2.2r7 (maybe 2.2r6) for cheap that will be the ticket. If not I'm leaning towards Mandrake 8.2. In any case I will play it safe and set up a dual boot to start with. Once I learn the ropes I'll probably blow up my C: drive, reformat it and do a clean install of whatever flavor Linux I end up with.

This week! I'll be ordering something this week. Either buy it off eBay or order from some place or another. I've got this $20 bill burning a hole in my pocket and M$ burning a hole in my head.

sporkme:
i will ship you burned cds of whatever you want if you pay shipping.

also i have modems that work in linux you can have for free if you pay to ship

asking questions is not cheating.  having someone do it for you is.  i congradulate you on having a human brain that works!  you can see though the blinders!  welcome to the dark side!

if you absolutely have to know something right away search it up on http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ forums,

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 Members: 33,314, Threads: 56,211, Posts: 292,050

it IS there i PROMISE

Master of Reality:
here is a list of a lot of Linux Distributions. I think there is about 283.
http://old.lwn.net/Distributions/
These are the very user friendly versions.

[ July 22, 2002: Message edited by: Master of Reality / Bob ]

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