The ultimate computer...

Would be one with Windows, Linux, Ubuntu, and Apple all in one. Built yourself a quad :rofl:

 

If you're at all hardware oriented, you can build a custom desktop for pretty cheap (I just built a friend one for $320 in parts, 2.8 AMD quad core, 500gb 7200 HDD, DVD-RW, 4GB DDR3 ram) and then dual load it with Windows and Ubuntu or your preferred Linux. The only problem with Ubuntu is its not compatible with all Windows apps. A lot of popular programs can be emulated with WINE emulating software, but they're not always stable or up to date. That's why it's ideal to have Windows and Linux. However, Linux is free and would save you the $150 you'd need for Windows. It really all depends on what you plan to do with the system

 

When I started off, I partitioned part of my HD, like 10g I think. I burned the .iso onto a cd and did a fresh install from there. From then on, it's not hard if you are at all computer literate. You can do a system update on Ubuntu almost the same as you do Windows and it will make sure you are current with all drivers and hardware.

That gave me dual booting with Vista and Ubuntu. I used Ubuntu for everything for like 6 months, ran into a few snags and gave it up. Its really fun, I learned a ton about the OS.

 

I've been forcing myself to use it for the past 6 months so that I can learn it.

As far as the n00b distro to start with, definitely Ubuntu or Debian. This will let you just apt-get precompiled binaries for almost anything you want. Once you've got the hang of that, move on to something with a different package management system, like openSUSE. This will have most of the precompiled binaries that you want, but some programs will just have to be compiled yourself, like say, proftpd.

Now you want to start familiarizing yourself with the command line. Start learning shell commands, and their syntax. From file and directory manipulation to piping output to other programs. Man pages and --help are wonderful. chmod, chown, superuser stuff, etc.

After you learn the ins and outs of package management and configure/make/make install and a whole bunch of shell commands, move into shell/bash scripting. I am in the process of learning this. It really brings out the power in linux. Want to rename 10,000 files? A 10 line bash script will do it in 5 seconds.

The next step is learning about your distros init process, and writing custom init and rc.d scripts.

Join #jeepforum on freenode IRC. There are a bunch of us in there that know a thing or two about linux.

 

I've been forcing myself to use it for the past 6 months so that I can learn it.

As far as the n00b distro to start with, definitely Ubuntu or Fedora. This will let you just apt-get precompiled binaries for almost anything you want. Once you've got the hang of that, move on to something with a different package management system, like openSUSE. This will have most of the precompiled binaries that you want, but some programs will just have to be compiled yourself, like say, proftpd.

Now you want to start familiarizing yourself with the command line. Start learning shell commands, and their syntax. From file and directory manipulation to piping output to other programs. Man pages and --help are wonderful. chmod, chown, superuser stuff, etc.

After you learn the ins and outs of package management and configure/make/make install and a whole bunch of shell commands, move into shell/bash scripting. I am in the process of learning this. It really brings out the power in linux. Want to rename 10,000 files? A 10 line bash script will do it in 5 seconds.

The next step is learning about your distros init process, and writing custom init and rc.d scripts.

Join #jeepforum on freenode IRC. There are a bunch of us in there that know a thing or two about linux.

Good advice thanks! Can't wait to get started.

 

Cool! I'm not that concerned about the hardware I just want to get into a different sort of way of computing. I'm thinking I will just order a cheapish laptop and put ubuntu on it. Desktops aren't really good for me I have a very small apartment and my desk is covered in jeep parts heh.
Anyway I'm mostly just excited to learn how to use the shell prompting system and that kind of thing. Do you guys recommend any good literature for that sort of thing or should I just go to town on google while I'm waiting for the laptop to show up?

 

There really is absolutely no reason to order a new computer to get into this. Take 10 minutes and create a partition on your current HD.

 

The best way to start is to download an ISO for Ubuntu or Kubuntu and burn yourself a Live CD/DVD. That will let you boot, run and try out Linux without installing anything.

 

Ubuntu is great for those that want to run linux or try it out. If you really want to learn about linux, look for the distros that you have a hand in building, such as Slackware or Debian.

 

I guess I'm slowly turning into a "Linux geek". We have an interesting story.

I took a Linux class my first year of college. COMPLETE disaster - the professor had us using CentOS as a desktop OS on our laptops with ATI video cards. This was back in 2006 ... baaad experience. At that point I swore off Linux as being an incompetent operating system that was completely useless.

Then in 2008, I had to do a project for a class where we had to do an automated install of an operating system. Easiest way for me to do this was by doing a pxeboot with Linux. I used ubuntu as the os getting "deployed" on a debian server ... I really started to like Debian/ Ubuntu.

I ran Ubuntu for a year or so on my netbook as its primary OS. Was getting comfortable with Linux - it was simple and ran wayyyy better on my netbook (plus it worked on my poor man's SSD aka SDHC card).

Ubuntu has been getting bloated the last few years. I ended up hopping OFF the ubuntu train around April of 2010 and switched to Debian as my primary OS on my server and netbook (main computer).

Ubuntu is a nice starting point, it does everything for you pretty much and it's a good way to start and get familiar with Linux. It's based off of Debian, one of the oldest distros out there - rock solid and very few major releases (which is good) ... I'd be willing to say it's one of the more "open" distributions out there.

There is also Fedora and a few spins on that, but Ubuntu seems to have more programs. Anything that runs on Ubuntu WILL run on debian.

Currently I run: Debian 6 (primary OS), CentOS 5.5, SuSE and Windows XP on my netbook. Debian really takes the cake for me.



Debian is pretty much ready "out of the box". Recently they started doing live CDs that you can install from - MAJOR plus, instead of the text based net-installer which can get annoying at times.

Slack is kind of "dead" for mainstream stuff, but its still out there.

A pretty popular hobbyist make-from-scratch distro lately is Arch Linux.

 

Definitely Ubuntu or SuSE for beginners, I started out on Mandriva 2005 edition because it was all I could get hold of in a magazine and make boot on my junk PC at the time. I've been toying with Gentoo and trying to get it set up, but its hard without a good internet connection.

 

Gentoo is a beast when properly configured. Fast.

 

I run Ubuntu 11.04 on my laptop and Ubuntu Server 9.10 on my 12 year old media server (Celeron processor, 512mb ram) that is controlled/updated via SSH. My best advice to you would be to try out a couple of distro's to see which one you like then go from there. Google is your friend to help with any sort of question you may have about setting up/configuring Linux.

 

I would recommend Ubuntu for beginning. Since some folks looked over the fact that you're borrowing a laptop, you can run it via the cd as a live OS. If/When you get another computer, stay away from ATI video cards.

Fedora is nice as well, but I highly prefer Ubuntu. Ubuntu uses a much easier package manager. The newer distros have a software center where you can pick new software to install, or use Synaptic (kind of like Add/remove programs). Later on you'll learn how to 'apt-get' from the command line. When you use/install Ubuntu, there is no SU (super user) account...it's 'sudo'. Think of it as the MS UAC...from a command line you'd have to 'sudo grep/apt-get/whatever' to run as a privileged account.

Not to mention that the Ubuntu forums are AWESOME, and ubuntu has a TON of community hacks/mods.

 

Most Linux distros look and act the same. The only massive differences that I've encountered between them are the package manager, the init process, and the programs that come preinstalled.

You'll definitely need to start with Debian/Ubuntu. The online community is massive, and as previously stated, anything that works on Ubuntu works on Debian. If you google any generic linux problem, it seems that the top 10 results are all to Ubuntu forums.

I think that you need to work your way through distros. Ubuntu offers you a ton of flashy GUI tools to get jobs done or configure the system (which really only modify some text file somewhere). openSUSE, you'll start having to write some init.d scripts because they are not readily available online. You'll also have to deal with software dependencies manually. The next step is probably Gentoo, and then Slackware, where everything is configured by manually writing config files.

Linux has the steepest learning curve of anything I have ever done, and it can be extremely demotivating when you hit problem after problem trying to do a simple task. The answers are usually concise and easy though, and you learn from the experience.

 

You guys do realize he is running a Mac with OS X right?

Just start using the terminal for everything in OS X. That is built off Unix, and will help you learn more than you could ever want to know.

 

I like Linux Mint a lot for a first time user, very slick. I still use it on my old desktop. The only distro that I could find to work out of the box with the goofy wireless card I installed.

Goodluck with Linux! Easily the best OS out there. (in all it's many forms)

 

Why would anyone want to use Linux?

Forgive my ignorance, but I haven't laid hands on Linux in 9 or 10 years. I tried it, and I recall it sucking really really hard. I remember wanting to like it in the worst way, but in the end it still sucked.

Has Linux changed that much? I'm willing to bet it still sucks. Off to download uslutu or whatever the popular distro is these days so I can hate on it first hand.

 

Yeah software never progresses over the course of a decade :laugh:

Have you used a Mac in the past 10 years? OSX is arguably the best desktop operating system made today and it's BSD based. So yeah, there's been huge improvements to it

And to the op: I would download the free VMWare player and an ubuntu appliance download

 

InEmberClad, I agree completely with BeachinXJ. You should begin using the Terminal application on your borrowed MacBook. Considering that you do not own a computer, choosing Linux as a beginner's OS isn't a good idea.

Start by running applications and your own simple shell programs from the Terminal command line. If you enjoy UNIX well enough, then later you can acquire a second computer to experiment further. The Terminal application will provide you with enough opportunity for now. Save your money until you know for sure that Linux is something you really want to use.

 

Thanks for all the tips guys!
I went ahead and made the Ubuntu 11.04 LiveCD and am messing around from there... Just trying out basic commands right now to try to get a feel for how to write out commands and what they all mean. Thanks guys!