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stormcrowley
Apprentice
Joined: 11 Mar 2004
Posts: 166
Location: Sacramento, California, United States, North America, Earth, Sol System, Milky Way Galaxy, Universe
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 Posted: Thu Mar 11, 2004 11:48 pm Post subject: First of all, hi! :) |
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I burned a copy of the LiveCD a week ago, and I've spent the last week installing, compiling, and configuring Gentoo.
Since I came from Windows from a usability standpoint, this is going to take some getting used to. However, the theory and philosophy behind linux in general, and Gentoo in particular, are going to keep me with this OS, and this distribution.
However, there are many, many things I need to learn about linux and how to use it properly; so many in fact, that I'm not sure where I should start.
Do any of you have any recommendations for books I should buy to help me get started, or what documention on the internet I should read about first, for a newbie?
Thank you very much in advance. |
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BWoso
l33t
Joined: 31 Dec 2003
Posts: 920
Location: Cleveland Ohio, USA
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| Posted: Thu Mar 11, 2004 11:56 pm Post subject: |
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You could always read the Gentoo docs at http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/index.xml , if you scroll down you will see the many docs which if you read them all it will keep you very busy for a very long time. You can also just go through and read posts in the forms, there is a lot of information in them. Have fun and welcome to the best OS around
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I think that the forums are the greatest thing about Gentoo, thanks to everyone that posts on them!
The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up.
-Mark Twain- |
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R!tman
Veteran
Joined: 18 Dec 2003
Posts: 1303
Location: Zurich, Switzerland
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| Posted: Fri Mar 12, 2004 12:01 am Post subject: |
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You can get a book for windows, which changes every 2 years or so. Linux is developped all the time by everyone who wants. Efforts are made every day. So your linux book would never be up to date.
Stick to this forum. It is the best. |
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stormcrowley
Apprentice
Joined: 11 Mar 2004
Posts: 166
Location: Sacramento, California, United States, North America, Earth, Sol System, Milky Way Galaxy, Universe
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| Posted: Fri Mar 12, 2004 12:04 am Post subject: |
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True, and I've given quite a few of them a pretty thorough read; I've even printed out the installation guide, Portage guide, and Desktop installation guide and put them in a binder. 
However, since pretty much everything about linux is new to me, do you have any suggestions on where to look for basic UNIX commands, the theory and practice about how things are organized and setup, and so forth?
| Ritman wrote: | | Stick to this forum. It is the best. |
Well, as long as nobody minds some truly newbish questions every once in a while.  |
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boroshan
l33t
Joined: 16 Apr 2003
Posts: 730
Location: upside down
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| Posted: Fri Mar 12, 2004 12:56 am Post subject: |
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try | Code: | man man
man 1 intro
info |
Also run makewhatis and then man -k keyword
Lastly there's a pile of stuff in /usr/share/doc/* that'll need decompessing (zmore for this)
Also, google and http://www.tldp.org/ are valuable.
R!tman has the truth of it though. Linux is very much a moving target and dead tree ware is always going to fall a little short. I could be tempted to look at the Nutshell guide published by O'Reilly
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Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton! |
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stormcrowley
Apprentice
Joined: 11 Mar 2004
Posts: 166
Location: Sacramento, California, United States, North America, Earth, Sol System, Milky Way Galaxy, Universe
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| Posted: Fri Mar 12, 2004 1:56 am Post subject: |
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Thank you, that should work out nicely. I'll try that when I get home.
I must say though, the community here has impressed me greatly. When I had trouble installing some parts of Gentoo (alsa, for one), searching the forums here showed me precisely what to try and do. It worked.
Thank you again to all who've responded, and thank you to the writers/admins of gentoo for a wonderful implementation of a wonderful OS. |
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MacMasta
Guru
Joined: 18 Apr 2002
Posts: 545
Location: Anchorage, AK
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| Posted: Fri Mar 12, 2004 3:38 am Post subject: |
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My advice is to give yourself a project.
Just trying to "learn the system" won't work; it's too deep, too layered, and changing too quickly. Pick something you want to do ("make my bash prompt prettier" or "set up spam filtering" or "host a website" or "host a forum", say) and then use all the resources just mentioned to make it happen.
~Mac~ |
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stormcrowley
Apprentice
Joined: 11 Mar 2004
Posts: 166
Location: Sacramento, California, United States, North America, Earth, Sol System, Milky Way Galaxy, Universe
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| Posted: Fri Mar 12, 2004 4:36 am Post subject: |
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| MacMasta wrote: | My advice is to give yourself a project.
Just trying to "learn the system" won't work; it's too deep, too layered, and changing too quickly. Pick something you want to do ("make my bash prompt prettier" or "set up spam filtering" or "host a website" or "host a forum", say) and then use all the resources just mentioned to make it happen.
~Mac~ |
Actually, that's an excellent idea. Instead of looking at the larger whole, look at it in pieces, and go from there.
I just hope that you won't mind too many silly questions if I get stuck. |
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MacMasta
Guru
Joined: 18 Apr 2002
Posts: 545
Location: Anchorage, AK
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| Posted: Fri Mar 12, 2004 4:47 am Post subject: |
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We won't mind at all.
Y'think I got to <insert however posts I have now> just by _answering_ questions?
No sir.
~Mac~
EDIT: Good grief I have a lot of posts...wow... |
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Abraxas
l33t
Joined: 25 May 2003
Posts: 814
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| Posted: Fri Mar 12, 2004 7:08 am Post subject: |
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| stormcrowley wrote: | Actually, that's an excellent idea. Instead of looking at the larger whole, look at it in pieces, and go from there.
I just hope that you won't mind too many silly questions if I get stuck. |
It really is the best way. It's a lot more fun and rewarding to learn as you need to. It gets boring and hard to understand as a beginner if you are just reading books and documentation for the heck of it. As you want to do more and more with your computer you will need to know more and more about it. Eventually you will HAVE to learn and that's when it's fun. Just swing by the forums and search for your answer. Most of them have been answered already as you may have noticed and if not, just ask a question, the gentoo forums are the friendliest place to be.
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Time makes more converts than reason. - Thomas Paine
Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. - Mark Twain |
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stormcrowley
Apprentice
Joined: 11 Mar 2004
Posts: 166
Location: Sacramento, California, United States, North America, Earth, Sol System, Milky Way Galaxy, Universe
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| Posted: Fri Mar 12, 2004 7:11 am Post subject: |
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| Abraxas wrote: | | It really is the best way. It's a lot more fun and rewarding to learn as you need to. It gets boring and hard to understand as a beginner if you are just reading books and documentation for the heck of it. As you want to do more and more with your computer you will need to know more and more about it. Eventually you will HAVE to learn and that's when it's fun. |
This I've notived already. For instance, My ATI Rage uses the vesa drivers, and not it's native ones, though I've seen that ATI's drivers are rather shoddy, if the posts here are any indication. 
| Abraxas wrote: | | Just swing by the forums and search for your answer. Most of them have been answered already as you may have noticed and if not, just ask a question, the gentoo forums are the friendliest place to be. |
Yeah, that's how I got alsa working, as well as getting past stage one (for pure bragging rights; I know).
Heh.
My thanks to all! |
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buddho
n00b
Joined: 01 Jun 2004
Posts: 2
Location: UK
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| Posted: Sun Jun 06, 2004 10:23 pm Post subject: |
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| I'd also recommend http://www.tldp.org/ as well as this forum and google. It's how I learned and how I'm still learning. I've found books are a waste of money when it comes to Linux, the on-line documentation is that good. By the way, I do read books for other stuff including computer type stuff. I have bought and read Linux books before, but not anymore. The on-line archive is excellent. |
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lord_nimula
n00b
Joined: 04 Jun 2004
Posts: 31
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| Posted: Sun Jun 06, 2004 11:31 pm Post subject: |
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Slightly off-topic, but humorous:
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It was absolutely marvelous working for Pauli. You could ask him anything. There was no worry that he would think that a particular question was stupid, since he thought all questions were stupid. -- Victor Weisskopf |
Have no fear asking questions; no one is born with the sacred knowledge of how to use a computer, or OS, or jackhammer, or any other tool.
--Lord Nimula |
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buddho
n00b
Joined: 01 Jun 2004
Posts: 2
Location: UK
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| Posted: Sun Jun 06, 2004 11:44 pm Post subject: |
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Only true geniuses can be that arrogant and get away with it!
Actually people of Pauli's callibre probably weren't being arrogant. They just couldn't understand how the rest of us could be so stupid. |
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teutzz
Guru
Joined: 22 Apr 2004
Posts: 333
Location: .ro
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| Posted: Tue Jun 08, 2004 4:00 pm Post subject: |
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the search botton on top of this page is your best friend; and when you run out of ideas of what you can do to improve your linux box just browse the forums (you'll find something new in every post)
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Cand nu stii ce sa raspunzi sau ce sa spui un simplu BLA ajunge... lolz |
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