Starting With Linux
June 18th, 2008
My first attempt of using Linux was a disaster. At the time, Windows 95 was the only operating system I had experience with and I was pretty clueless outside of it. An online friend snail-mailed me some Linux installation CDs as my internet connection was too slow to download anything large myself. I remember looking through the pile of discs not knowing where to start. I popped in the “Red Hat” installation CD and rebooted the computer. I’ll spare you the gory details, but I ended up shamelessly telling my family that a virus had taken over the computer and that everything on it was gone.
My next attempt resulted in a successful instsallation of Linux but could be compared to giving a toddler a car. I didn’t know how to do simple things like copy/paste from the prompt, check how much hard drive space I had left, or burn a CD. I felt lost and irrated that nothing “just worked.” If this sounds familiar, let me give you some advice.
- Choose The Right Distribution – As time goes on, the learning curve for Linux becomes less steep depending on what distribution (distro) you are working with. Ubuntu is the star right now as it aims at being the “user friendly” version of Linux. If you are looking to get into Linux for the first time, I would recommend Ubuntu as a starting point.
- Use The Community – The community support for Linux continues to amaze me. If you need help with anything in Linux, there is a place to find it. Most distros have a forum where you can find specific answers. IRC (Internet Relay Chat) is also a good start as you can interact with others that know what you are going through.
- The Power Of “apropos” – The command, apropos, can save you a lot of headaches. It will show you a list of other commands related to the keyword you use it with. For instance, if you want to copy a file using the command line but don’t know how to do it, type “apropos copy” and a list of useable commands relating to “copy” is returned.
Linux is quite a bit different than Windows, so remember to be patient while learning. Dual-boot Windows and Linux so that if you get sick of one, you can easily switch to the other without having to go through an install process. When you get stuck, use the help avavilable to you. Anything with computing is possible, you just need to find a way to do it.
