OT: A few thoughts for people new to Linux
Some thoughts for new users: We all know that Linux is an incredibly powerful operating system. We know that it is secure, stable, fast, and highly configurable. There is an incredible amount of software for it. We know that it runs on everything from handheld computers to high capacity servers. Some of the most amazing advances in serious number crunching are being done on clusters of Linux computers. But Linux is not simple. Oh, it can be simple to use, especially with the new YaST2 install in SuSE 8.0. Just stick to the defaults, and to using either KDE or GNOME, and you should find things to be quite smooth sailing. When you get comfortable doing this, disable the graphical login. Try using startx. Have a go at having two X servers running at the same time. Play around with it, and don't be afraid to have everything burst into flames on you; when I started using Linux a year and a half ago, I crashed and burned a lot! The only problems I have these days, though, are with old hardware. But, once you have ventured past just using KDE or GNOME, be patient. Linux is complex, it has a lot of quirks, and it is often not very forgiving. You will need to learn a lot, and if you want to make some serious use of Linux, you will need to read, read, read! Ask questions, and be patient in waiting for an answer. Most of the time, the answer is already installed on your computer, either in the form of a how-to, a man page, or a web browser. Use these tools in your search for the answer to your question. Learn about using shell scripts. Even if you never write one yourself, understanding shell scripts is important. Sometimes you need to get in there and change something so that it will work on your system. Type "man bash" and read it! This might be a little intimidating, but you can learn to do it. And after you have, there is nothing that will stop you. Want to backup all of your personal config files on a regular basis? A simple shell script, combined with cron, will do the job for you. Need to download a couple of hundred pictures from your digital camera, but only have a serial port? A shell script is your answer. Want to search the web for information about Irish architecture since the time of the Roman Empire, but don't want to sit at your computer for five hours? A shell script that sets up a Google search, and then uses wget to download all of the results into a directory in $HOME, is the way to go. The command line is not something that should scare you away from Linux. It is just a user interface that has been stripped to the essentials. You might be a little timid at first, since if you are new to Linux, you are most likely coming from an operating system that only runs in "point and click" mode. Command line syntax is pretty standardized between different applications, and does not really take very long to learn. And after you have the command line under your belt, you'll realize that a lot of things are done faster this way than with some pretty gui. Try playing around with vi, which is probably the most powerful text editor in the world, although emacs fans might disagree with me about that. You will be amazed at what you can do with vi, and how quickly you can do it, when you don't have to keep reaching for your mouse. Once again, just have patience. When you decide to install Linux, your initial learning curve is going to be steep. You aren't going to master this in two hours. In two hours, though, you can have the os installed, have KDE running, and be online. You aren't going to be sharing files with computers running different operating systems, nor will you have a mail server up and running. You have to walk before you can run. The most important thing, though, is not to give up! Linux contains some amazingly advanced technology. In fact, it is probably the most advanced computer sofware technology that you can actually walk into a store and purchase, or download from an ftp server. And once you are comfortable using Linux, you will never want to go back to that old operating system that you were using before you gave this one a try. Be patient, be willing to learn, read a lot, and make plenty of mistakes. Do these things, and you will realize that Linux is the pearl. All you need to do is learn to open the oyster. Kevin
Nice stuff, but the FAQ specifically says "no advocacy". On Sunday 19 May 2002 08.49, Kevin L Hochhalter wrote:
Ask questions, and be patient in waiting for an answer. Most of the time, the answer is already installed on your computer, either in the form of a how-to, a man page, or a web browser. Use these tools in your search for the answer to your question.
The most difficult thing isn't knowing the answers, it's knowing what questions to ask. Teaching the answers is an art mastered by few, teaching the questions is impossible. //Anders PS. vi isn't a text editor, it's a line editor. There is a difference. -- I swear I do declare - how did you get that there?
Anders, you aren't an Indian security guard in a mall someplace are you? :~) Man, I bet you tell your kids that Kris Kringle is a fascist symbol used to enslave the course and ignorant bourgeois. On Sunday 19 May 2002 12:07 am, Anders Johansson wrote:
Nice stuff, but the FAQ specifically says "no advocacy".
On Sunday 19 May 2002 08.49, Kevin L Hochhalter wrote:
Ask questions, and be patient in waiting for an answer. Most of the time, the answer is already installed on your computer, either in the form of a how-to, a man page, or a web browser. Use these tools in your search for the answer to your question.
The most difficult thing isn't knowing the answers, it's knowing what questions to ask. Teaching the answers is an art mastered by few, teaching the questions is impossible.
//Anders
PS. vi isn't a text editor, it's a line editor. There is a difference.
Anders, you aren't an Indian security guard in a mall someplace are you? :~) Man, I bet you tell your kids that Kris Kringle is a fascist symbol used to enslave the coarse and ignorant bourgeois.
On Sunday 19 May 2002 12:07 am, Anders Johansson wrote:
Nice stuff, but the FAQ specifically says "no advocacy".
On Sunday 19 May 2002 08.49, Kevin L Hochhalter wrote:
Ask questions, and be patient in waiting for an answer. Most of the time, the answer is already installed on your computer, either in the form of a how-to, a man page, or a web browser. Use these tools in your search for the answer to your question.
The most difficult thing isn't knowing the answers, it's knowing what questions to ask. Teaching the answers is an art mastered by few, teaching the questions is impossible.
//Anders
PS. vi isn't a text editor, it's a line editor. There is a difference.
On Sunday 19 May 2002 15.07, - wrote:
Anders, you aren't an Indian security guard in a mall someplace are you?
:~)
Man, I bet you tell your kids that Kris Kringle is a fascist symbol used to enslave the course and ignorant bourgeois.
No, I tell them it's an anglo/american perversion of european mythology, commercialized beyond all proportions. To both of you: I didn't mean anything special with my post except to say it was a nice post. I agreed with most of it (the exception being vi/vim :). Maybe I shouldn't have mentioned the bit about the FAQ but it occurred to me as I was typing, and at 9am on a Sunday morning my brain wasn't telling my fingers what (not) to type :) Sorry if I offended. I really did like the post -- I swear I do declare - how did you get that there?
On Sunday 19 May 2002 08:15, Anders Johansson wrote:
On Sunday 19 May 2002 15.07, - wrote:
Anders, you aren't an Indian security guard in a mall someplace are you?
:~)
Man, I bet you tell your kids that Kris Kringle is a fascist symbol used to enslave the course and ignorant bourgeois.
No, I tell them it's an anglo/american perversion of european mythology, commercialized beyond all proportions.
To both of you: I didn't mean anything special with my post except to say it was a nice post. I agreed with most of it (the exception being vi/vim :). Maybe I shouldn't have mentioned the bit about the FAQ but it occurred to me as I was typing, and at 9am on a Sunday morning my brain wasn't telling my fingers what (not) to type :)
Sorry if I offended. I really did like the post
Definitely no offense taken. Come on, Anders, it's gonna take more than that to offend us! Although I don't agree with you about vi/vim. But that could/should be another thread entirely ;-) Go ahead, have another cup of coffee ... Kevin
I Thought so Anders. European mythology? Anglo? Perversion? You stocking will undoubtably filled with coal and some sort of manifesto! (Joking :{ ) Bye the way I was just joking too. I do not even celebrate Christmas. On Sunday 19 May 2002 08:15 am, Anders Johansson wrote:
On Sunday 19 May 2002 15.07, - wrote:
Anders, you aren't an Indian security guard in a mall someplace are you?
:~)
Man, I bet you tell your kids that Kris Kringle is a fascist symbol used to enslave the course and ignorant bourgeois.
No, I tell them it's an anglo/american perversion of european mythology, commercialized beyond all proportions.
To both of you: I didn't mean anything special with my post except to say it was a nice post. I agreed with most of it (the exception being vi/vim :). Maybe I shouldn't have mentioned the bit about the FAQ but it occurred to me as I was typing, and at 9am on a Sunday morning my brain wasn't telling my fingers what (not) to type :)
Sorry if I offended. I really did like the post
On Sunday 19 May 2002 00:07, Anders Johansson wrote:
Nice stuff, but the FAQ specifically says "no advocacy".
Ah, too true, and my apologies for that. Maybe there should be something in the FAQ that says "no whining." There has certainly been too much of it on this list since 8.0 hit the stores.
On Sunday 19 May 2002 08.49, Kevin L Hochhalter wrote:
Ask questions, and be patient in waiting for an answer. Most of the time, the answer is already installed on your computer, either in the form of a how-to, a man page, or a web browser. Use these tools in your search for the answer to your question.
The most difficult thing isn't knowing the answers, it's knowing what questions to ask. Teaching the answers is an art mastered by few, teaching the questions is impossible.
Agreed. So a person doesn't know what to ask. After having read and searched, the person might just want to state his problem. Somebody will then ask some questions in an effort to get things cleared up. See all the recent postings about sound.
//Anders
PS. vi isn't a text editor, it's a line editor. There is a difference.
I generally use vim, actually. Sorry about that. If you type man vim, it says: NAME vim - Vi IMproved, a programmers text editor DESCRIPTION Vim is a text editor that is upwards compatible to Vi. It can be used to edit any ASCII text. It is especially useful for editing programs. Kevin
As someone new to Linux, this is just the sort of posting that can be very helpful. I am just at the point of feeling comfortable with SuSE out of the box, and would like to experiment a little and learn a little more, and it really helps to have someone give general ideas where to go in addition to all the specific help given on this list. Does anyone else have any advice on files and manuals to start reading and places to start editing for someone making tentative steps to getting to know Linux better beyond the defaults? Neal McDermottOn Sunday 19 May 2002 07:46 am, Kevin L Hochhalter wrote:
On Sunday 19 May 2002 00:07, Anders Johansson wrote:
Nice stuff, but the FAQ specifically says "no advocacy".
Ah, too true, and my apologies for that. Maybe there should be something in the FAQ that says "no whining." There has certainly been too much of it on this list since 8.0 hit the stores.
On Sunday 19 May 2002 08.49, Kevin L Hochhalter wrote:
Ask questions, and be patient in waiting for an answer. Most of the time, the answer is already installed on your computer, either in the form of a how-to, a man page, or a web browser. Use these tools in your search for the answer to your question.
The most difficult thing isn't knowing the answers, it's knowing what questions to ask. Teaching the answers is an art mastered by few, teaching the questions is impossible.
Agreed. So a person doesn't know what to ask. After having read and searched, the person might just want to state his problem. Somebody will then ask some questions in an effort to get things cleared up. See all the recent postings about sound.
//Anders
PS. vi isn't a text editor, it's a line editor. There is a difference.
I generally use vim, actually. Sorry about that. If you type man vim, it says:
NAME vim - Vi IMproved, a programmers text editor
DESCRIPTION Vim is a text editor that is upwards compatible to Vi. It can be used to edit any ASCII text. It is especially useful for editing programs.
Kevin
On Sunday 19 May 2002 09:06, neal mcdermott wrote:
As someone new to Linux, this is just the sort of posting that can be very helpful. I am just at the point of feeling comfortable with SuSE out of the box, and would like to experiment a little and learn a little more, and it really helps to have someone give general ideas where to go in addition to all the specific help given on this list.
Does anyone else have any advice on files and manuals to start reading and places to start editing for someone making tentative steps to getting to know Linux better beyond the defaults?
<snip> Neal, If you installed the books that come on the cd's, you might want to start out by reading the Linux Users Guide. You can find it in /usr/share/doc/Books. It is named user-beta-1.pdf. You can read it with Ghostview or Acrobat Reader. Also, visit the Linux Documentation Project at http://www.tldp.org There is a huge amount of info here, but you might want to start out by reading the books that are there. If you installed a window manager other than KDE (which isn't really a window manager, I guess), then you might want to play around with using Windowmaker. If you have it installed, and you already have KDE or GNOME running, press Ctrl-Alt-F2, which will take you to tty2. Login again, and then type startx windowmaker -- :1 This will start another instance of X, with Windowmaker running on it. To get back to KDE, just hit Ctrl-Alt-F7. Windowmaker will be running on Ctrl-Alt-F8. Windowmaker is pretty nice, and is very configurable. What it doesn't have running by default is a file manager, and that is the key. This means that you are going to have to open an xterm, and learn to navigate and move files around without a gui. Start out by reading the man pages for ls, rm, mv, cp, and ln. Just type "man ls" or "man rm" or whatever. Using this arrangement will kind of ease you into things. Nice thing is that if you get stuck with Windowmaker, just hit Ctrl-Alt-F7 and you will be back in KDE. But using Windowmaker will help your understanding of how to dig a little deeper into things. Kevin
That is great, thank you. I particularly will focus on the windowmaker part. I see the logic, those bash commands will seem less abstract when you *have* to use them. Neal On Sunday 19 May 2002 10:15 am, Kevin L Hochhalter wrote:
On Sunday 19 May 2002 09:06, neal mcdermott wrote:
As someone new to Linux, this is just the sort of posting that can be very helpful. I am just at the point of feeling comfortable with SuSE out of the box, and would like to experiment a little and learn a little more, and it really helps to have someone give general ideas where to go in addition to all the specific help given on this list.
Does anyone else have any advice on files and manuals to start reading and places to start editing for someone making tentative steps to getting to know Linux better beyond the defaults?
<snip>
Neal, If you installed the books that come on the cd's, you might want to start out by reading the Linux Users Guide. You can find it in /usr/share/doc/Books. It is named user-beta-1.pdf. You can read it with Ghostview or Acrobat Reader. Also, visit the Linux Documentation Project at
There is a huge amount of info here, but you might want to start out by reading the books that are there.
If you installed a window manager other than KDE (which isn't really a window manager, I guess), then you might want to play around with using Windowmaker. If you have it installed, and you already have KDE or GNOME running, press Ctrl-Alt-F2, which will take you to tty2. Login again, and then type
startx windowmaker -- :1
This will start another instance of X, with Windowmaker running on it. To get back to KDE, just hit Ctrl-Alt-F7. Windowmaker will be running on Ctrl-Alt-F8. Windowmaker is pretty nice, and is very configurable. What it doesn't have running by default is a file manager, and that is the key. This means that you are going to have to open an xterm, and learn to navigate and move files around without a gui. Start out by reading the man pages for ls, rm, mv, cp, and ln. Just type "man ls" or "man rm" or whatever.
Using this arrangement will kind of ease you into things. Nice thing is that if you get stuck with Windowmaker, just hit Ctrl-Alt-F7 and you will be back in KDE. But using Windowmaker will help your understanding of how to dig a little deeper into things.
Kevin
On Sunday 19 May 2002 09:06, neal mcdermott wrote:
Does anyone else have any advice on files and manuals to start reading and places to start editing for someone making tentative steps to getting to know Linux better beyond the defaults?
I am new to Linux myself (installed Linux -- SuSE Pro 7.3 -- for the first time in February of this year), and have found this web site to be very helpful and informative: http://linux-tutorial.info/ -Trent __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? LAUNCH - Your Yahoo! Music Experience http://launch.yahoo.com
Kevin L Hochhalter wrote:
On Sunday 19 May 2002 09:06, neal mcdermott wrote:
As someone new to Linux, this is just the sort of posting that can be very helpful. I am just at the point of feeling comfortable with SuSE out of the box, and would like to experiment a little and learn a little more, and it really helps to have someone give general ideas where to go in addition to all the specific help given on this list.
Does anyone else have any advice on files and manuals to start reading and places to start editing for someone making tentative steps to getting to know Linux better beyond the defaults?
<snip>
Neal, If you installed the books that come on the cd's, you might want to start out by reading the Linux Users Guide. You can find it in /usr/share/doc/Books. It is named user-beta-1.pdf. You can read it with Ghostview or Acrobat Reader. Also, visit the Linux Documentation Project at
There is a huge amount of info here, but you might want to start out by reading the books that are there.
If you installed a window manager other than KDE (which isn't really a window manager, I guess), then you might want to play around with using Windowmaker. If you have it installed, and you already have KDE or GNOME running, press Ctrl-Alt-F2, which will take you to tty2. Login again, and then type
startx windowmaker -- :1
This will start another instance of X, with Windowmaker running on it. To get back to KDE, just hit Ctrl-Alt-F7. Windowmaker will be running on Ctrl-Alt-F8. Windowmaker is pretty nice, and is very configurable. What it doesn't have running by default is a file manager, and that is the key. This means that you are going to have to open an xterm, and learn to navigate and move files around without a gui. Start out by reading the man pages for ls, rm, mv, cp, and ln. Just type "man ls" or "man rm" or whatever.
Using this arrangement will kind of ease you into things. Nice thing is that if you get stuck with Windowmaker, just hit Ctrl-Alt-F7 and you will be back in KDE. But using Windowmaker will help your understanding of how to dig a little deeper into things.
Kevin
http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/ -- Regards Ted Wager Linux user
On Sunday 19 May 2002 12:06 pm, neal mcdermott wrote:
Does anyone else have any advice on files and manuals to start reading and places to start editing for someone making tentative steps to getting to know Linux better beyond the defaults?
Since Linux is a Unix clone, a few Unix books are good for learning lots of neat tricks. Most of what O'Reilly publishes on either Linux or Unix is pretty good; in particular the book "UNIX Power Tools" is very good; disregard the title, and the CD that comes with the book, because most of the GNU power tools it mentions are already included (with later versions) in a Linux distribution; and "UNIX Power Tools" is more about special features available from the command line and within tools like text editors than about new programs to a Linux user. Another book that's useful for novices is O'Reilly's "Running Linux". Though that book (1999) is a little dated in spots. -- Q: How many Martians does it take to screw in a lightbulb? A: One and a half.
Well Said Kevin! Max Webb On Saturday 18 May 2002 11:49 pm, Kevin L Hochhalter wrote:
Some thoughts for new users:
We all know that Linux is an incredibly powerful operating system. We know that it is secure, stable, fast, and highly configurable. There is an incredible amount of software for it. We know that it runs on everything from handheld computers to high capacity servers. Some of the most amazing advances in serious number crunching are being done on clusters of Linux computers.
But Linux is not simple.
Oh, it can be simple to use, especially with the new YaST2 install in SuSE 8.0. Just stick to the defaults, and to using either KDE or GNOME, and you should find things to be quite smooth sailing. When you get comfortable doing this, disable the graphical login. Try using startx. Have a go at having two X servers running at the same time. Play around with it, and don't be afraid to have everything burst into flames on you; when I started using Linux a year and a half ago, I crashed and burned a lot! The only problems I have these days, though, are with old hardware.
But, once you have ventured past just using KDE or GNOME, be patient. Linux is complex, it has a lot of quirks, and it is often not very forgiving. You will need to learn a lot, and if you want to make some serious use of Linux, you will need to read, read, read! Ask questions, and be patient in waiting for an answer. Most of the time, the answer is already installed on your computer, either in the form of a how-to, a man page, or a web browser. Use these tools in your search for the answer to your question.
Learn about using shell scripts. Even if you never write one yourself, understanding shell scripts is important. Sometimes you need to get in there and change something so that it will work on your system. Type "man bash" and read it! This might be a little intimidating, but you can learn to do it. And after you have, there is nothing that will stop you. Want to backup all of your personal config files on a regular basis? A simple shell script, combined with cron, will do the job for you. Need to download a couple of hundred pictures from your digital camera, but only have a serial port? A shell script is your answer. Want to search the web for information about Irish architecture since the time of the Roman Empire, but don't want to sit at your computer for five hours? A shell script that sets up a Google search, and then uses wget to download all of the results into a directory in $HOME, is the way to go.
The command line is not something that should scare you away from Linux. It is just a user interface that has been stripped to the essentials. You might be a little timid at first, since if you are new to Linux, you are most likely coming from an operating system that only runs in "point and click" mode. Command line syntax is pretty standardized between different applications, and does not really take very long to learn. And after you have the command line under your belt, you'll realize that a lot of things are done faster this way than with some pretty gui. Try playing around with vi, which is probably the most powerful text editor in the world, although emacs fans might disagree with me about that. You will be amazed at what you can do with vi, and how quickly you can do it, when you don't have to keep reaching for your mouse. Once again, just have patience.
When you decide to install Linux, your initial learning curve is going to be steep. You aren't going to master this in two hours. In two hours, though, you can have the os installed, have KDE running, and be online. You aren't going to be sharing files with computers running different operating systems, nor will you have a mail server up and running. You have to walk before you can run.
The most important thing, though, is not to give up! Linux contains some amazingly advanced technology. In fact, it is probably the most advanced computer sofware technology that you can actually walk into a store and purchase, or download from an ftp server. And once you are comfortable using Linux, you will never want to go back to that old operating system that you were using before you gave this one a try.
Be patient, be willing to learn, read a lot, and make plenty of mistakes. Do these things, and you will realize that Linux is the pearl. All you need to do is learn to open the oyster.
Kevin
Good e-mail. Granted, SuSE 8.0 has brought this list some new users and with the new users has brought some frustrations that new users have with learning something new. Good to let them know that it can be done, but it takes time. It's not something that they will master everything in a few hours or less. I'm gonna forward this e-mail to a friend of mine that is thinking of learning linux. Jim On Sunday, May 19, 2002 1:49, Kevin L Hochhalter wrote:
Some thoughts for new users:
We all know that Linux is an incredibly powerful operating system. We know that it is secure, stable, fast, and highly configurable. There is an incredible amount of software for it. We know that it runs on everything from handheld computers to high capacity servers. Some of the most amazing advances in serious number crunching are being done on clusters of Linux computers.
But Linux is not simple.
Oh, it can be simple to use, especially with the new YaST2 install in SuSE 8.0. Just stick to the defaults, and to using either KDE or GNOME, and you should find things to be quite smooth sailing. When you get comfortable doing this, disable the graphical login. Try using startx. Have a go at having two X servers running at the same time. Play around with it, and don't be afraid to have everything burst into flames on you; when I started using Linux a year and a half ago, I crashed and burned a lot! The only problems I have these days, though, are with old hardware.
But, once you have ventured past just using KDE or GNOME, be patient. Linux is complex, it has a lot of quirks, and it is often not very forgiving. You will need to learn a lot, and if you want to make some serious use of Linux, you will need to read, read, read! Ask questions, and be patient in waiting for an answer. Most of the time, the answer is already installed on your computer, either in the form of a how-to, a man page, or a web browser. Use these tools in your search for the answer to your question.
Learn about using shell scripts. Even if you never write one yourself, understanding shell scripts is important. Sometimes you need to get in there and change something so that it will work on your system. Type "man bash" and read it! This might be a little intimidating, but you can learn to do it. And after you have, there is nothing that will stop you. Want to backup all of your personal config files on a regular basis? A simple shell script, combined with cron, will do the job for you. Need to download a couple of hundred pictures from your digital camera, but only have a serial port? A shell script is your answer. Want to search the web for information about Irish architecture since the time of the Roman Empire, but don't want to sit at your computer for five hours? A shell script that sets up a Google search, and then uses wget to download all of the results into a directory in $HOME, is the way to go.
The command line is not something that should scare you away from Linux. It is just a user interface that has been stripped to the essentials. You might be a little timid at first, since if you are new to Linux, you are most likely coming from an operating system that only runs in "point and click" mode. Command line syntax is pretty standardized between different applications, and does not really take very long to learn. And after you have the command line under your belt, you'll realize that a lot of things are done faster this way than with some pretty gui. Try playing around with vi, which is probably the most powerful text editor in the world, although emacs fans might disagree with me about that. You will be amazed at what you can do with vi, and how quickly you can do it, when you don't have to keep reaching for your mouse. Once again, just have patience.
When you decide to install Linux, your initial learning curve is going to be steep. You aren't going to master this in two hours. In two hours, though, you can have the os installed, have KDE running, and be online. You aren't going to be sharing files with computers running different operating systems, nor will you have a mail server up and running. You have to walk before you can run.
The most important thing, though, is not to give up! Linux contains some amazingly advanced technology. In fact, it is probably the most advanced computer sofware technology that you can actually walk into a store and purchase, or download from an ftp server. And once you are comfortable using Linux, you will never want to go back to that old operating system that you were using before you gave this one a try.
Be patient, be willing to learn, read a lot, and make plenty of mistakes. Do these things, and you will realize that Linux is the pearl. All you need to do is learn to open the oyster.
Kevin
-- 10:42am up 13 days, 3 min, 3 users, load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Running Caldera W3.1 - Linux - because life is too short for reboots...
participants (8)
-
- -
Anders Johansson -
Jim Conner -
Joshua Lee -
Kevin L Hochhalter -
neal mcdermott -
Ted -
Trent Clifton