[svlug] Newbie Linux question

[Evan Klitzke]

On Fri, 2007-02-02 at 10:55 -0800, Scott Chau wrote:
> Is there any online or books you recommend for understanding linux?
> Basically I've started computer in the Dos days so I'm comfortable
> with commandline as long as it has a "/?" so it tells me what options
> I can do.   My only experience with linux has been hacking my tivo,
> setting up a simple webserver on an old 386 (using RH 6 w/ apache only
> w/ no GUI) , tinkering with the mac OSX for x86 dual boot with xp, and
> finally using those Live CD (but I really didn't feel like I learned
> anything because it just ran... didn't have to do anything)

I started out with one of the O'Reilly pocket reference books that I got
cheap at a book store. It was something like $2 (used) for an 80 page
Unix intro book. In retrospect, it was a good way to start: it explained
the filesystem layout, all of the shell commands you need to use on a
regular basis. It also explained things like how permissions work, the
user/group ownership model, etc. If you want to be even marginally
proficient at the command line, you need to know all of these things.

> What I want to do is be able to understand the file structure and
> bascially things on how things  work. 

Let me preface this statement by saying that reading man pages is an
acquired skill. When you first start reading them, they're pretty
unbearable. But after you acquire the skill, it really pays off. Nearly
everything is in a man page, and when you understand how they're
structured you can gloss through commands really quickly.

I bring this up, because the file structure is documented in the man
pages. In my case I typed into a terminal
  apropos "file system"
and scrolled through the results. Sure enough, there is a man page
called "hier" that explains the whole file structure (you can read it
with "man hier").

>  For example, on windows I know where programs are intalled by default
> and where the registry is and where the user information is stored.  I
> have no programming background at all though.

If you really want to understand how everything works, look for a good
book that starts off with the basic shell commands (e.g. ls, cp, mv). It
might actually be a good idea to look for a Unix book instead -- the
commands, filesystem structure, and everything else will be basically
the same, but the Unix book will probably give you more of the
information you need if you want to understand how everything actually
works. A lot of Linux books these days are filled with pictures of what
the dialog boxes look like in Gnome and KDE, which isn't very helpful.

>   I have a laptop Sony SZ220 that I want to dual boot my XP with some
> type of linux.  Any recommendation?

For a new user, you'll get a lot of recommendations of Ubuntu, which I
think is a good choice. Ubuntu will probably support your hardware the
best out of the box, which is a really, really good thing. If you want
to learn a little bit more about how everything works, install Gentoo at
some point. I owe a lot of my learning to that distribution, because it
really starts you off in the deep end, and you'll probably pick up the
shell commands more quickly (on the other hand, you'll also learn how
much of a PITA some things can be). If you have the hard drive space, it
also might be worth it to install two different distributions. If
anything is broken in one, it will help you how to fix it in the other.
And if you're messing around with something and screw things up badly
(like I did when I first started, long story), you'll have another
system to work on.

-- Evan Klitzke