Beginner needs opinion(s)

**skizee** · 10-11-2003, 01:17 PM

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')My curiosity and wish to have something better than windows led me to buy this knoppix cd. I have read the general faq, but wonder now if I am trying to eat the elephant in one bite. My question is to ask anyone's opinion given the following .

. I am an automotive mechanic and have no disillusions of gaining or learning any kind of programming skills.

Am I getting in over my head as it appears, or do I just need someone to point me to a "how to use" or "these are the benifits of"
linux book??????????????????????????????
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Thanks for your imput!javascript:emoticon('

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')Tanks gobs! Serially I do appreciate all the imput and it is both what I needed and kinda what I expected.
I think I will shelf it for now and do some investigative reading.
skizee-on the sidelines

**CivilEng** · 10-11-2003, 01:39 PM

Hey there;

Linux is not for everyone. BUT that's not because some people just can't do it, it IS because somepeople don't have the time patience or need to. Knoppix is one of the most user friendly versions of linux, but that's just the surface of what's going on. To make any real use of Linux, you'll want to learn all sort of shell (Xterm) commands, screen tricks, network transfer and setup commands, etc...

Ok, that said, unless you're willing to search the internet for help (which there is ALOT of out there, freely available to you), you might be getting in over your head. Now to disuade your fears: I cannot program. And I've been using Linux for over a year now, and it's been great. No crashing, no shelling out money (except for the odd donation to really worthy projects - They DESERVE our support, especially since we can't do the programming we benefit from) and no hassel. I don't have to call anyone and prove that I bought their stuff.

As for a book, there are a some, and there are a few really good ones... but they just aren't needed. Do exactly what you just did to find Knoppix.net. Go online, go to www.google.com, type in exactly what you're wondering about (ie: cd burning in linux) and find your help for free. Print howto and user manuals from the web if you find them useful to have on hand. Then if it's still no good after, litterally, a couple of minute, come post here and we'll see if someone can't help you out.

Finally, if you were a DOS man, all those many moons ago, and LIKED it, you will love the power of the Linux text based equivalent (shell).

Welcome to the community... don't worry, we're all pretty friendly and no one bites; except sometimes when Linux magazines bundle M$ CDs. (Linux Magazine, June 2003)

Good Luck!

Civ

P.S. And in no time, you'll be the one posting solutions!!!!

**i58** · 10-11-2003, 01:41 PM

Hello,
These are some sites that look like they have some pretty good plain english information.

http://www.linux.ie/newusers/beginners-linux-guide/
http://www.reallylinux.com/
http://beginnerslinux.org/

Hope that helps

**garyng** · 10-11-2003, 02:23 PM

Originally Posted by skizee

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')My curiosity and wish to have something better than windows led me to buy this knoppix cd. I have read the general faq, but wonder now if I am trying to eat the elephant in one bite. My question is to ask anyone's opinion given the following .

. I am an automotive mechanic and have no disillusions of gaining or learning any kind of programming skills.

Am I getting in over my head as it appears, or do I just need someone to point me to a "how to use" or "these are the benifits of"
linux book??????????????????????????????
javascript:emoticon('

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Thanks for your imput!

better in what sense ? IMO both Windows and linux are very capable OS. The main difference is that one is free(freedom as well as free lunch, most of the time) and the other is usually not. Another major advantage of linux is that it is much easier to put pieces of stuff together to solve a problem, which is very hard to do under window(in addition to the cost issue).

So if you are not interested in programming, linux is a better choice.

As for books or howtos, I would rather advice you to look at it from a problem/solution perspective. That is, do you have a vision in mind that you think is related to computer and ask. Then people can point you to links etc. and it will pane out by itself.

Just to give you an example idea. I want to setup a multimedia control center(play DVD/CD, PVR) at home. Microsoft and some big names are pushing their Multimedia Centre PC. But I think it is nonsense to buy a 2K+ machine plus the associated software to achieve this. There comes linux and the mythtv project. But still having a big PC sitting next to my TV looks odd(and expensive) and I found that XBox is a perfect candidate for it because of its form factor(I prefer PS2 more but that is more difficult) as well as cost(I can get one for 100 on ebay). To add more functionalities to this box, I think it is also cool to make it a wireless router/firewall to serve my other machines, I am using cable modem at home. With these functionalities in mind, I can google around and putting them together.

Other than the hardware, everything is free and readily available. What I need is just patient(time) and hardwork to make them work smoothly together which is where the fun is. The alternative would be shelling out the money and hand it to BG. I am sure my time spent would cost more than what I can give to BG but I lose all the fun.

So start thinking about what you want to do with the 'PC'. Anything you can think of, the needed pieces would be there thanks to google and the helpful linux community. If you cannot think of any, a Window machine is more suitable as XP home that comes with any new PC can already serve 90% of ones general need.

Just my 2 cents.

**robwelch100** · 10-12-2003, 12:12 AM

You may not want to try linux. If you are not computer literate you may have had enough trouble learing what you know about windows. Linux is not harder it is just different. You may think it is harder by virtue of having to teach yourself new ways of doing things, ie, where's the c drive? In linux the drive is /dev/hda... CivilEng is right, linux is not for everyone. If the trouble you are having with windows is it keeps crashing, then upgrade to windows xp. It is much more stable than 95/98, NT4, 2K.

**Drago** · 10-12-2003, 07:06 AM

Being a new newbie myself, I can say from my experience that if you're used to just running apps, you can mostly just use KDE (graphical interface), but I worry about getting into trouble later, and I just want to know about what's installed and how to have control over my system.

It is a lot of information to start out with, and it's hard to know where to start. I'm working through a tutorial right now, and I think it's helping. The tutorial suggest going slow and learning a bit at a time. I think you might want to go through a tutorial, even if it's just to get a general view of what's going on.