Saturday, February 2, 2013

My high school sister wants to major in business and wants to learn how to "do" Linux?

Q. I assume she's talking about Linux and Unix in servers, and not the user friendly distros like PCLinuxOS and Ubuntu, right? She's passionate and determined to learn. Where's a good place to get her started?

A. I would suggest learning how to program in C(Unix's language) because she is so determined and understanding C really helps understanding Unix. Then learn how to do some shell scripting and such.

The best thing for this would be to use the gentoo(http://www.gentoo.org) distro. You need a fast computer for this though because you're making all you're software from pure sources. If you have an okay computer(<1GHz CPU and <1GB of Ram) then it might be a little slow to install things. For this I recommend debian(http://www.debian.org/). Both have excellent documentation.

Also subscribing to a linux magazine is a good idea too. They are a bit expensive so if you can't afford it, I would suggest reading it at your local Barnes and Nobles or other bookstore.

The popular ones are Linux Journal(http://www.linuxjournal.com/) and Linux Format(http://www.linuxformat.co.uk/).

I learned UNIX and linux in like elementary school and I did this by basically trying to program new things. I think trial and error is the absolute best way.

here is a good tutorial: http://freeengineer.org/learnUNIXin10minutes.html

I hope you're successful and if you have ANY questions email me at iammisc@gmail.com.

Which linux distribution best meets my needs?
Q. I know ubuntu is one of the most popular, but I've heard it comes with a full suite of programs already installed. All I really need is a functioning text editor and a web browser.. Also I'm a programmer by trade and have used a little linux, so I wouldn't necessarily need a distribution that is similar to windows. Any suggestions?

A. The two distros that give you the smoothest transition are Fedora and Ubuntu/Kbuntu. SUSE and Mandriva also do a good job of making a user friendly distro.

I STRONGLY suggest using KDE. The software is much more consistant with the UI thus a much lower learning curve. Most KDE programs will be instantly usable to a windows user.

As for text editors Linux supports a wide variety. Personally I prefer for most efforts kedit or Kate. They come default with KDE. Nedit is another good one but try a dozen or so and see which works best with you. There are still many that swear by old school stuff.

As for an IDE there are several excellent IDEs and many of the text editors also have syntax support for commonly used langauages. First thing to do after patching is install a package intall GUI. Fedora and other RPM based distros you want something like Kyum or Gnome Yum. You'll be like a kid in a candy store installing packages LOL. With Ubuntu you'll want synaptic. Same principle, just not as user friendly as the Yum GUIs.

As a developer your going to love Linux. Even the shell itself is aprogramable. In Linux journal a guy writes things like games in the Bash shell LOL.

Your welcome to email me with questions and such.

What is the best Linux Magazine and/or book for beginners to linux?
Q. I just recently moved from windows xp to LInux and I would like to know how to fix dual boot problems. I learned a few things about the command line but I want to learn a lot more. I also need to know how to download and upgrade software like Adobe flash player and other programs. In other words I need a really good book or magazine that will help me get started. I would of course prefer something simple and fast.

A. Linux Journal

http://www.linuxjournal.com/

is the original Linux Magazine. Well, not the original but the oldest still running and widely regarded as the most authoritative.

Linux Format is the most expensive, about $15 here in New Hampshire. Nevertheless it almost always comes with an install or live CD or DVD and the articles are always of excellent quality. I strongly recommend picking up as many issues as you can afford:

http://www.linuxformat.co.uk/

Anything from O'Reilly Press is also well worth the money.

http://oreilly.com/linux/

Also there are forums, like th Ubuntu Forums (go to Ubuntu.com and look for them on the bar on the left) or the forums at http://www.linuxquestions.org ). There are also the Usenet groups which remain lively years after most have become moribund. comp.os.linux heirarchy is subscribable to via google groups. Oh, and many of the developers contribute to the last. Some of them contribute to Ubuntu forums too but Ubuntu assembles their OS out of packages from many sources so very few people work for them and those that don't you are more likely to run into on Usenet.



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