New and Lost completely lol :)

[that_guy_you_know]

Hi all, I am absolutely new to the world of linux/unix operating systems lol. i have had little experience with dos and by no means and computer-illiterate. im actually pretty sharp and have even a little programming skills and some DOS os skills behind me. but ive been wanting to get into linux especially to make myself more knowledgeable about the broad amount of OS out there and to actually make myself more marketable. im just completely lost on where to begin lol. ive looked at some web sites that have had linux dl featured and i click on them and then nothing lol. it gives me a list of files. pretty sad i cant even managed to get the thing installed huh lol. can someone please help me get my foot in the door and from there i should be ok until i have some kind of issue lol. ive installed co-linux so my XP OS and the linux OS can run simultaneously or even by themselves. however i may need a RAM upgrade as ive also heard linux eats your memory alive lol. any help is greatly appreciated im mike btw lol. that guy you know lol. nice to meet everyone

[Lakshmipathi]

Hi welcome Linux World. !!!! . Good you have installed co-linux and started to try out linux distros.
Linux won't take much RAM unlike M$Windows. If you want to install dual boot (linux and M$windows) , You can try ubuntu. It's pretty easy to install and work. Grab a Ubuntu 9.10 CD/DVD and try it out.

And also If you don't want to install Linux in your Harddrive ,then you could try Linux Live CD
There are plenty of them .again try Ubuntu Live-CD.

If you have RAM 256-512MB it's more than enough.If you have lesser than 256MB try out tiny linux distros like Damn small linux or tinycore linux

HTH

[that_guy_you_know]

that's good to know, i actually have about a gig of ram so i should be fine. thanks for the helpful insight i actually downloaded ubuntu yesterday for my netbook, it was called the netbook remix lol. i didnt know it was part of linux so thats great to hear. from some of the screen shots ive seen it looks like a user friendly interface though, nothing like i thought linux was going to look like lol. please by all means correct me if im wrong, but i thought linux's graphical interface was going to look a lot like dos. id like an interface where i can use the commands like how DOS is. lol i have been a windows user since the original DOS os and so this is brand new to me lol. does the ubuntu still take the command prompt interface that linux is branded for? lol

[Lakshmipathi]

does the ubuntu still take the command prompt interface that linux is branded for? lol

Sure, shell (which is called command prompt in M$) integral part of any Linux. . Linux distros has "terminal" you can open them and type any commands.
(In M$, It's more like choosing Run from startmenu and type "cmd" - you will get a command prompt)

Linux allows user to decide whether they want to use graphical mode X or don't want to use X at all.Most distros comes with two types,Desktop edition which comes with multimedia,games,nice look and feel etc and Server edition comes without X ,but has databases or webserver or any other application

[hazel]

Linux gives you a huge choice of user interfaces. The main graphical ones are Gnome and KDE; they are quite similar to Windows and take a lot of resources. XFCE is similar but more lightweight. If you use something like fluxbox, openbox or IceWM, you still get a graphical interface but with fewer bells and whistles and you have to configure it yourself. But your computer will run faster than it has for years. In any of these, you can open a terminal and use the command line interface (shell).

You will be surprised how powerful the shell is. Believe me, it's nothing like DOS. It's more like having a complete programming language available. You can write scripts in it that are far more sophisticated than the DOS batch files you probably remember. Get stuck in and have fun!

[oz]

im just completely lost on where to begin

Welcome to the forums, tgyk!

Check the link in my signature for lots of good information about getting started with Linux.