Re: New to Linux.

[Scott <scottro@example.com>]

on 17:35 2001/09/02 -0700, roylo wrote
>Dragon Linux? hmm.. I have never heard of them.


I think I tried it when I first began getting interested in Linux--you 
download it, IIRC and install it on a Windows partition as a Windows 
application--I never did get it working correctly.  :)

>I would suggest you try debian, redhat, Mandrake, or SuSE [or maybe
>Slackware]
>
>Alot of my friends think Mandrake is a good choice for starters who want to
>learn linux
>SuSE is the easiest to use in my opinion
>Redhat is pretty much the standard here (in the bay area)
>Slackware is good if you have some sorta of *nix background
>Debian is pretty cool, and it is a truly open source linux

I went on a distro binge a few months ago (I had to do something with the 
new CD burner) and tried several.  (At work, we use RH).  I found RH, 
Caldera and Mandrake the easiest to install on various hardware. (However, 
didn't try on a laptop).


>Personally, I would suggest you to use either Mandrake or Redhat.

If RH installs without problem, I'm going to cast my vote for them--the 
reason being that Mandrake makes it too easy to do everything from a GUI 
and it gets tempting. :)

As for things to use for first steps in learning---RedHat has its 
beginner's guide up on its site as well as other useful things at
http://www.redhat.com/support/docs/howto/rhl71.html  (Some of the links on 
that page are 7.1 specific, but others are more general).

Some of the howtos at www.linuxdoc.org are great for anyone, others can be 
intimidating to the beginner, and some are quite dated.  (I've been messing 
with Linux on and off for a few years now, and some of the howtos are still 
over my head--that could be my own stupidity, of course.)

I found, when I was first beginning, that a good one for learning the 
various Unix command lines and such was
http://www.ssc.com/mirrors/LDP/LDP/gs/gs.html
The Linux installation and getting started guide. I suspect that the 
installation aspect is probably dated by now, but the getting started part 
was quite helpful.

HTH


Scott Robbins