On Thu, Dec 3, 2009 at 11:42, Darksyde <m_alexander61@
> From personal experience the Dummies books are decent but, as others have said,
> you want to get something more up-to-date than 2005 if you plan to actually install that
> particular distro. But one of the great things about Linux distro's is that most can be
> run "live" so you don't have to commit to one flavor without trying it first.
And it should also be said that, distro to distro, in GENERAL, they
are all the same. The dressing may be a bit different, but underneath
they are all the same.
Take cars for instance.
All cars are the same. They all have tires, brakes, transmission,
differential, suspension, engine, etc. They are all propelled exactly
the same way. The difference is mere window dressing.
Some cars have automatic transmissions, some manual. Some have soft
suspensions for comfort, some have stiff suspensions for performance.
Some have small, economical engines, some have large, powerful ones.
Some have engines that work with batteries to drive the wheels. Some
have 4 doors, some have more or less doors... but they all have and do
the same things, just in slightly different ways.
Linux Distributions are like that. Some use RPM, some use DEB. Some
have GNOME, some have KDE, some have other window managers, or none at
all.
But underneath, they all have the same commands, the same shells
(terminals), the same kernel (accepting minor differences for drivers
and kernel patches). They all log using syslogd, they all support
internal network routing. They all use and can access the same
filesystems.
And as far as the GUI goes, as long as you have experience using them,
you can use them all, you just have to find where the various things
are hidden in each one (which menu holds system settings, and which
one holds GUI settings, for instance).
There've been some good recommendations on distros in this thread
other posts in this group, I won't add to them, but i will second the
suggestion that you find a few that offer live cds and try them out.
You may hate the first one you try, but love the second one. You may
go through three or four that you like, then find one that fits you.
This also makes me wonder. Do LUGs (Linux User Groups) still do
installfests? Back in the day, installfests were big deals, and I
participated in many in my home LUG, and after going to work for Red
Hat, I participated as a Red Hat employee at several others, and I
know that other distro companies also sent reps out to installfests
around the world to help people out and introduce them to LInux.
So even if they don't do installfests, looking for a local LUG is an
excellent way of A: making new friends, B: learning about linux, and
C: having a face to face group that you can talk to and actually show,
in person, what problem you're having...
Cheers
Jeff
--
Mike Ditka - "If God had wanted man to play soccer, he wouldn't have
given us arms." -
http://www.brainyqu
No comments:
Post a Comment