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Home > Archive > Linux/Unix > July 2003 > First Introduction to Linux
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First Introduction to Linux
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| ANDRONDA 2003-01-31, 2:42 pm |
| I have decided to go for Linux+ and have never worked with it before, hardly ever heard much about it until about a year ago, and am totally new to anything about it.
To start I purchased the Coreolis Linux+ Cram Session and will read it in it's entirety this weekend (it is only 430 pages).
After that I will start getting into test objectives and begin learning them all over the next few weeks.
I hope I am on the right track. Any advice for a Linux Newbie will be appreciated. I do not know anyone who is Linux+ certified. | |
| Mr. Linux Guy 2003-01-31, 2:56 pm |
| I'm Linux+ certified. The Linux+ is a great place to start. It's a fairly easy test, but you have to have competent Linux skills to pass it. The best advice that I can give to you is to get a copy of Red Hat and Debian, load them onto an old machine you have and hack around with them until you are familiar with the administration of a UNIX box. Play with it a bit, do the experiments that the books recommed . . . i.e., using the command line, using your Linux box as a web server or something. Just to get a feel for how everything works together. If you run into any snags feel free to ask.  | |
| Boulware5 2003-01-31, 9:26 pm |
| For Linux+ he probably doesn't need to practice setting up a webserver. Just practice commands, install software, practice backing up, etc. | |
| luisjo 2003-01-31, 10:24 pm |
| What do you think about sybex linux+, does it cover all the exam content?
Thanks. | |
| Setht37 2003-01-31, 11:51 pm |
| I used the Sybex book to study for the L+ and I would say it covered about 80% of the exam. There were a few commands that were not covered in the book. Basic Computer Hardware is also covered in the exam and not so well in the sybex book. The best thing to do like Mr. Linux Guy said is to setup a lab with Redhat and Debian. Good Luck | |
| iggy4270 2003-02-01, 4:34 am |
| I suggest "Running Linux" 4th edition. link It's a great book for the Linux newbie..... | |
| ANDRONDA 2003-02-03, 8:44 am |
| Hi Linux guys.
I read the book and am now pumped about Linux. From what I see, Linux should be a valuable supplement to a network. In the book they talk about using it to make and old computer into a print server or a firewall for example. I can see how Linux should be a valuable resource.
What I want to do is like Mr. LG said and go ahead and set up a Linux box. I have an old Pentium 133 with a 10 Gig IDE drive.
The book I read was not that specific about where to start here so what is the best way to install this? Should I download a certain basic download first then add on as I see fit or what? I guess if anyone can provide this I kind of need a basic walkthrough.
Thanks in advance. Linux rules! | |
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| quote:
Originally posted by ANDRONDA
I have decided to go for Linux+ and have never worked with it before, hardly ever heard much about it until about a year ago, and am totally new to anything about it.
To start I purchased the Coreolis Linux+ Cram Session and will read it in it's entirety this weekend (it is only 430 pages).
After that I will start getting into test objectives and begin learning them all over the next few weeks.
I hope I am on the right track. Any advice for a Linux Newbie will be appreciated. I do not know anyone who is Linux+ certified.
as fast as you can, get yourself a distro of Linux and install it, so that you can get a feel for it as you learn...
BTW, welcome to Linux Hell  | |
| ccieToBe 2003-02-03, 10:41 am |
| If you have access to a CD burnder go to linuxiso.org and download Red Hat 7.3. That's a good distro to start out with IMO. | |
| freak 2003-02-03, 12:42 pm |
| agreed. I hear Mandrake is also good to start with, although I personally have grown much fonder of RH... | |
| ANDRONDA 2003-02-03, 1:40 pm |
| Let me give you guys a situation and then see what you come back with.
I have a 10-gigabyte IDE hard drive that I took from an old system. It has Win 95 on it and a bunch of 95 applications and is formatted as FAT16.
My system at home runs Win 2K from a NTFS single partition. The drive is a SCCI device.
I have two IDE controllers. One is completely utilized (CDRW and DVD) and the other is free.
What I wanted to do was put the IDE disk in the terminal, and put Linux on that.
What is happening I that most guidance I can find on Linux installs do not address this type of configuration but normally assume that you are putting in on as a clean install. Even those guides are pretty useless to one just starting out.
Does anyone know where to turn for help? Basically I am a total babe in the woods on Linux but really want to get started learning this. I want to have a dual boot system with both Linux and Win 2000. | |
| ccieToBe 2003-02-03, 2:33 pm |
| Just choose to manually partition your harddrive when the install gets to that point and when the install gets to the boot record section make sure Windoze shows up. Of course, backup anything important before attempting this. | |
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| seriously, why do this to yourself?
go buy a old used 200-300 mhz box for 50-100 bucks and save yourself the grief.
for beginners, there is no point is putting roadblocks to your learning of linux... get it up, explore it, nuke it... the last thing you need to worry about is having it dual boot and worry about this and that...
for learning... there is so much to learn... things like dual boot is non existent in a production environment and has no value... plus, it will become obvious as you learn about it.
things like burner and graphic and sound also have very little value to your learning linux to demonstrate your ability to work it in your job role. (how many posts have you seen here that ppl are wondering how to get this and that up... like sounds and various X related things... when they don't have CLI, file system etc masters.. mount? what's that? when they don't have all the important services mastered? like samba, apache, and all the various configurations that are the meat of linux in a production environment?
Sure, there are many reason for dual booting as you require various application to fill a role on your workstation, but the power of linux, and its role, is being the server.
so... 50-100 bucks, save your self some greif, give yourself total freedom to mess it up, nuke it, play with the internal, with no fear of damage you may cause.
my point is... the energy you have spend researching, wondering, worrying about this relatively insignificant use of linux can be better spent, you would have a full linux up and ready for you to play with way before you get all the little things sorted out in trying to satissfy your nerve of not messing it up.
for example, my home linux boxes are p200-64 meg (various servers etc), p2-266-512 meg, (nuke machine, trying out new things, nuke, format, reinstall, the playground I guess.) then an AMD 800-512, my linux workstations. email, burners, mp3, video etc...) the experiement boxs cost very little... these were left over, but I seriously doubt htat it would cost you more than 100 bucks to buy it now...
anyway, long rant... but it is so much easier to just having a dedicated linux box to learn... and you don't even need a kvm or anything... just telnet into it and mess it up. if anything, if the old box have sound card, I would remove it b4 adding linux... and once you have figure it out and demystify it, then you can try adding sound, adding burner and all that various things to make it productive as a workstation, which is a secondary concern as you want to learn it as a server.
edit: oh, incidently, the p2-266 runs RH 8 just fine... sure its no speed demon in GUI, but it is perfectly usable to surf web etc, to test everything, so you won't lose any learning potential to have such an old system to learn. | |
| ANDRONDA 2003-02-04, 8:28 am |
| Great advice MIKOP.
I have chosen to follow it. | |
| Supertech 2003-02-04, 9:23 am |
| quote:
Originally posted by ANDRONDA
Great advice MIKOP.
I have chosen to follow it.
I'm with Mikop on this one. Bag the dual boot. Go for a clean install. Then do it again. You never get it right the first time. Crash it. fix it. do it again. That's the best way to learn Linux. Just get your feet wet.
I enjoyed this book.
Linux Administration: A Beginner's Guide
Steve Shah ISBN: 0072131365
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Companies, The
The explanations aren't just simple: They provide plenty of much-needed context. Shah covers everything from installation through advanced networking -- including four detailed chapters on real-world TCP/IP networking, security and all.
This Second Edition is thoroughly updated for Red Hat 7 (included on CD) as well as other new Linux technologies, such as PAM, the latest versions of GNOME, KDE, and Apache; the new File Hierarchy Standard and Linux Standard Base distribution. It's an outstanding resource for new Linux sysadmins | |
| Mr. Linux Guy 2003-02-04, 9:34 am |
| quote:
Originally posted by ANDRONDA
Great advice MIKOP.
I have chosen to follow it.
Wise idea. | |
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| thanks for the quick book review!
quote:
Originally posted by Supertech
I'm with Mikop on this one. Bag the dual boot. Go for a clean install. Then do it again. You never get it right the first time. Crash it. fix it. do it again. That's the best way to learn Linux. Just get your feet wet.
I enjoyed this book.
Linux Administration: A Beginner's Guide
Steve Shah ISBN: 0072131365
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Companies, The
The explanations aren't just simple: They provide plenty of much-needed context. Shah covers everything from installation through advanced networking -- including four detailed chapters on real-world TCP/IP networking, security and all.
This Second Edition is thoroughly updated for Red Hat 7 (included on CD) as well as other new Linux technologies, such as PAM, the latest versions of GNOME, KDE, and Apache; the new File Hierarchy Standard and Linux Standard Base distribution. It's an outstanding resource for new Linux sysadmins
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| lenee 2003-02-04, 10:03 am |
| Hi guys/gals
this link has a nice short course for the Linux+
Linux+ Short Course
IBM has some good material too in their developer section
Developer Network
Plus the Redhat 8 Bible by Christopher Negus is great(in my opinion)..
Well another way i would recommend learning Linux is to first scrap windows of your machine for a period of 3 months..Install Linux and try and do what you use to do in Windows in Linux...You most likely will not be able to accomplish everything you did in Windows in Linux but hey trust me you'll learn ALOT! | |
| ANDRONDA 2003-02-04, 10:42 am |
| Thank you Jedi Masters for showing this humble Padawan learner the ways of the Force (the Linux Force that is). | |
| ANDRONDA 2003-02-05, 4:56 pm |
| Hi Guys.
Just a Linux update. I have read the entire text, and logged onto
http://www.oreillynet.com/linux/cmd/
to play with the various commands and also read the White Papers at the IBM site. I loaded the newbie PDF papers on my PDA device to read at my leisure.
Tonight I am going to install Linux on a blank system (not mine) and this weekend I am going to put it all on a second hand home system.
I have started going through the L+ objectives and answering all the practice questions I can find. So far, so good.
Unless there are any major surprises I may go ahead and take the exam on the 14th, or at latest a week after. The Comptia exam seems rather introductory and I can remember details pretty good.
This will not be the end of course. With the home system in place I will have a new hobby. | |
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| cool.
you will find linux pretty easy to work with if you are willing to be adventurous it is very logical. there is a cause and effect and nothing is hidden from you if you are willing to explore it.
most installation is a breeze now. (especially if you chose gui install like RH 8's... I have tried many click click click install and they all work ok... then wipe and do it yourself ) The only issue is prolly the hardware probe... but unless you are cutting edge, or have some really really non popular item, it is still a breeze.
the fun part (and that's why I recommended stand alone s ystem to play with) is when you do it without the GUI ... like auto format, then diskdruid, then fdisk wheee that's when you go, damn linux is cool.
when you play with it, just ask yourself this *WHAT IF...* and then do it, kill it and leave little mental notes like *ok... do NOT do this....* for yourself and then you are all set | |
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| I'm definitely a Linux newbie. I've got two systems running Linux right now and I've done it both ways. On one system I set up a dual boot with Win98 and RH 7.2 on a new hard drive. I used Partition Magic to set up the drive, then installed. Like mikop says, a click-click-click install. After a few minor problems, I had a good dual-boot system set up. The rest of the family uses the Windows side for Internet, games, etc, and I can go play and learn in Linux. On another box, an old banger, I'm setting up a Linux system (Mandrake). Spend a lot more time on the command line than the GUI. This is my trial and error, screw it up and try it again, get frustrated and go play Gamecube for a while, system. I'm learning a lot from both, but the second system is my real classroom. I've got a long way to go, but I think I'll really know Linux when I get there. | |
| hemingri 2003-02-06, 12:13 pm |
| You might consider visiting the surplus center of your local college or university. They often sell older Pentium systems for very low. The college I work at sells Pentium 133-200 systems for twenty to thirty dollars and these are perfect for learning Linux. Normally college systems don't have modems but do have NICs. | |
| ANDRONDA 2003-02-07, 9:02 am |
| Question.
On a P133 system what distribution of Linux is most suitable?
Linix people are frustrating. It is hard to get straight answers on the web. | |
| luisjo 2003-02-07, 9:06 am |
| Buy a vendor neutral book, youll get your answers, because linux is an open system there no standards. | |
| Supertech 2003-02-07, 9:18 am |
| quote:
Originally posted by Supertech
Just get your feet wet.
I enjoyed this book.
Linux Administration: A Beginner's Guide
Steve Shah ISBN: 0072131365
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Companies, The
The explanations aren't just simple: They provide plenty of much-needed context. Shah covers everything from installation through advanced networking -- including four detailed chapters on real-world TCP/IP networking, security and all.
This Second Edition is thoroughly updated for Red Hat 7 (included on CD) as well as other new Linux technologies, such as PAM, the latest versions of GNOME, KDE, and Apache; the new File Hierarchy Standard and Linux Standard Base distribution. It's an outstanding resource for new Linux sysadmins
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| yeay, let;s get two posts out of one | |
| TW2001 2003-02-08, 5:18 pm |
| One of my power Linux boxes is a P133 with 32mbs ram. Its a rock.
Redhat 7.3
Running Linux by Oriely is excellent for someone just starting out. | |
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| especially if you are not running X...
My firewall is a linux box: 32MB of RAM, P60, with a 2GB harddrive. Its hostname is "screamer" | |
| ccieToBe 2003-02-08, 7:46 pm |
| quote:
Originally posted by TW2001
One of my power Linux boxes is a P133 with 32mbs ram. Its a rock.
Redhat 7.3
Running Linux by Oriely is excellent for someone just starting out.
My mail server is a K6/2 400 with 32MB of ram. It only uses 16MB under load, but I decied to overbuild
My access points are 100MHz 486s with 32MB of RAM. Again, overbuilt. | |
| freak 2003-02-08, 10:00 pm |
| quote:
Originally posted by ccieToBe
My mail server is a K6/2 400 with 32MB of ram. It only uses 16MB under load, but I decied to overbuild
LOL That's priceless! | |
| thecomeons 2003-07-28, 6:35 am |
| i loaded a p200 witn mandrake 9.something a few months ago and ended up getting it to boot into the prompt. i got pissed off.
last week i dug out a linux mag i had bought with a cover-mount of same version and loaded it on. it worked. i guess i probably selected something different in the set-up 
it now boots to the gui, so i thinks, "great! i'll see if i can set it up as a webserver so i can learn phpnuke." damn thing gives me errors with naulitus when i click on just about anything. LOL.
i have downloaded some nautilus thing i will install on it sometime to see if it fixes the bug (or corrects a badly installed system). failing that, i might just bring a few disks into work and download and early version of redhat. | |
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| that would be a good idea to get something stable and well developed like RH 7.3 |
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