[Tutor] linux

Kojo Idrissa kojo@hal-pc.org
Thu, 29 Nov 2001 17:46:16 -0600


I'm going to second (or third) the recommendation for Slackware.  I came 
from a DOS background before I moved to Win 3.1/9X/2K.  In Linux, I started 
with Slack 3.3 and it made sense.  Now I'm dual-booting Win2K and Slack 
8.  If you feel you NEED a gui first, you might want to go with Mandrake, 
but you can do most programming from the command line.  The Slackware disk 
sets make things easy to set up.  All you'd need would be the A/AP/D disk 
sets (Base System/Extras for Base/Development <all programming stuff>) and 
you're ready.  Add more as you like.  Want to do Networking stuff?  Add the 
N disk set.  The skills you get from "fighting' Slackware will definitely 
carry over to other distros.

I'll also second the "Find a LUG" sentiment.  It can keep you from 
re-inventing the wheel.

Debian is also a good distro, but probably better as a 'second' distro.  It 
might not be the best thing for someone wanting to get started doing things 
quickly, unless you've got an experienced friend around to point things out 
for you.  The install is a little more complicated.  Not so much so that 
you won't be able to deal with it, but it's a little less obvious than some 
others.  The package management system is superior to all others though.

Good luck,

At 04:28 PM 11/29/2001 -0600, Rob McGee wrote:
>I started with Slackware, not quite 3 years ago. In that time I have
>attained some real competence as a GNU/Linux and UNIX sysadmin. I don't
>think I would have made it as far if I had started with something like
>Mandrake. (I know some who did, and they're not.)
>
>One thing for sure is that my skills are portable to any distro. I've
>seen the RedHat and Mandrake people talking about how to fix something,
>and their answers are all related to their GUI configuration tools. OTOH
>I would go to a configuration file and edit it. That works anywhere, not
>just Slackware.
>
>If you have a strong DOS background, you might appreciate Slackware. But
>if you just want to get up and running in a GUI ASAP, Mandrake and the
>other big commercial distros are good choices. I'd stay away from Corel
>(if it still exists) because it wasn't maintained, and steer clear of
>Caldera because of their per-seat licencing fees.

****************************
Kojo Idrissa

kojo@hal-pc.org
http://www.hal-pc.org/~kojo/
****************************