Learning *nix

[Louis D]

I want to start by saying that I don't like microsoft and I'm trying to switch platforms on my machine.  I installed Mandrake Linux 8.1.  Right away I realized that I don't know much about computers, I only know a lot about windows.  I have my winter break from college, and I want to put the time into learning and configuing linux on my machine.  I just don't know where to start.  There are a lot of people here who really know what they're talking about, but I'm not asking for a lesson.  I need a starting point, a book, a web page or anything else that someone can suggest.  I don't really know anything about linux.  I can't even find a file on a floppy if I want to.  Don't reply with any of those you're to dumb for linux/unix posts so just stick with windows posts.  I want to put the time in and learn about this.  This is the microsoft eradication society, so help me learn to eradicate it from my machine.

[voidmain]

quote:Originally posted by MeatHead:
Don't reply with any of those you're to dumb for linux/unix posts so just stick with windows posts.  I want to put the time in and learn about this.  This is the microsoft eradication society, so help me learn to eradicate it from my machine.

Don't worry about that MeatHead.  You'll only get that sort of talk from MS nazi's. I would like to be the first to welcome you to the world beyond. I expect that if you do put for the effort to learn it you will indeed be rewarded. But enough of the muckety-muck.

First of all, what specific areas of computing are you interested in? Do you just want to be a user, do you want to know more about the different Linux desktop choices? Do you want to learn more about the underlying Linux OS? Do you want to get into programming?  Do you want to get into administration? Do you want to get into networking? Are you a business user who just needs to use Office apps?  Do you just mostly want to be able to surf the web and use email? Are you a power gamer?

Mandrake is a distribution of Linux which is a form of UNIX which I'm sure you already know.  Unlike the finite world of MS, UNIX and Open source is an "infinite" and ever evolving world, and has been long before MS ever came along.  Because of that, no matter how good you are you will *never* know everything there is to know. This is one of the biggest reasons I like *NIX. Believe it or not it has helped me significantly in becoming more of an expert in how to trouble-shoot Win* problems.

Now no matter what your intended computing need is Although with today's windowing environments you don't *have* to do this but I would suggest that a basic understanding of *NIX would be very helpful. Specifically, understanding of basic system commands, understanding of file system structure, how to mount/unmount filesystems, basic understanding of the "shell", the "init" process (equivelant of services in Windows) depending on whether you are using SysV or BSD style init, networking, package management (Mandrake uses RPM), Xwindows, etc.

However, if you don't want to get that deep into it right off you will probably want to at least try out a few of the different windows managers.  I think KDE is the most Windows Like of them all, but Gnome is right there as well.  If starting with KDE you might want to browse through the KDE website http://www.kde.org/, and for Gnome http://www.gnome.org/. Of course http://www.google.com/ with some well built queries of keywords that I mentioned above should also lead you to a wealth of information.

Feel free to ask specific questions.  I don't think anyone here would mind.

[Louis D]

Thanks VoidMan.  For now, my primary objective is to have enough knowledge to finish configuring Linux and to remove this Ms partition on my hard drive.  I can't get my network card to work (Mandrake doesn't recognize it) so I can't get on the net when I'm in Linux.  Star Office is more than enough for what I need to do for school, and there is more software for everything else than I could ever possibly use.  I'm headed to Gnome.org to start because that is the graphical enviornment I chose (for no particular reason).  Anyway, over the long term I'd definitely like to get a better understanding of the Unix OS and learn to program.  Thats why I put linux on in the first place.  I'm a molecular biology student, and I hope that one day I could write something useful for that disicpline as well as for my own entertainment.  I don't play games and I don't really admin anything except the network of porn I set up for my roomates when we started sharing the DSL.  Which leads to the problem with my network card in linux...  The manufacturer provides a linux driver for the card, but it requires copying the source code for it from a disk, compiling it, and binding it to an IP address.  This may seem rediculously simple to a lot of you reading this, but this is still over my head because I don't even know how to navigate through the filesystem enough to copy anything from a floppy.  This is something that I want to figure out on my own because I guess that's the best way to learn things.  But, our internet conection goes through one of those linksys cable/dsl routers which, I believe assigns a new IP address to the computer every time its started (at least it I think it does under windows).  Is this thing even going to be compatable with a linux machine?  If not what should I do?  Going back to windows is not going to be an option.  I'm going to learn about this shit no matter how dumb I feel now.

[jtpenrod]

To MeatHead:

I would also suggest going to Linux Documentation Project and getting "DOS-Win-to-Linux-HOWTO" this has some excellent information on how to make the transition from the dark side. It describes exactly how to do the things you mention: mounting and accessing "floppies", and CDs. It shows you what commands are similar to what you'd use in DOS. Another good site is: Mandrake Linux This is the site for acquiring the Mandrake docs, "Mandrake Linux: Installation and User Guide", and "Mandrake Linux: Reference Manual". The text here is available in text form as well as PDF (if you have the Adobe Acrobat Reader - if you don't, it's freeware. Perhaps you can get it right there?) The text is identical to the books that come with the Mandrake boxed set. Get these and by the time winter break is over, you won't be a "MeatHead" any more; you'll be a PenguinHead and a Linux uber-geek Just like the rest of us

[Louis D]

Thanks to all, I have plenty of reading to do now.  I'm sure more questions will follow.  Time to go back to www.godsofiron.com because I'm still a meathead.  One last question though, does anyone know if penguins are a good source of protein?      

[voidmain]

quote:Originally posted by MeatHead:
I can't get my network card to work (Mandrake doesn't recognize it) so I can't get on the net when I'm in Linux.

What make/model of network card do you have?

 

quote:
I don't even know how to navigate through the filesystem enough to copy anything from a floppy.

There are a few ways you can do this. KDE (I think Gnome too) has a floppy icon similiar to Windows.  KDE will automount the floppy a display the floppies contents when you click on the icon just like in Windows.  It may not automount but in KDE if you right-click the floppy icon you have an option to mount/unmount the floppy.  

In UNIX a floppy has to be "mounted" before you can use it.  From a shell prompt an example of mounting the floppy might be "mount /mnt/floppy" assuming you have the floppy device set up in your /etc/fstab (file system table) and "/mnt/floppy" is the mount point directory.  Once mounted you will find the floppy directory structure under the "/mnt/floppy" directory.  There is another way if this is a DOS FAT formatted floppy.  If you have the "mtools" installed there are some other commands that can read the disk without mounting.  "mdir" is the equivelant of "dir" in DOS and will give you an MS-DOS directory listing of the disk. "mcopy" is similar to a "DOS copy", "mcopy a:FILENAME.EXT /tmp" would be similar to "copy a:FILENAME.EXT \temp" in DOS.  But the "mount/umount" way is standard accross all UNIX systems.

 

quote:
But, our internet conection goes through one of those linksys cable/dsl routers which, I believe assigns a new IP address to the computer every time its started (at least it I think it does under windows).  Is this thing even going to be compatable with a linux machine?

Yes it will work.  Dynamically assigned TCP/IP configuration is called "DHCP" (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol).  When you get your network card working you would configure it for "DHCP".

I'll try and help get your network card going.  Must be an odd card for the recent Mandrake not to recognize it. And the HOWTO doc penrod pointed you to looks pretty good.

[ December 16, 2001: Message edited by: VoidMain ]