Noobie Question

[Wobbly]

Hello all,

I am using Fedora Core 5 on a dual boot laptop for school purposes at the moment. I plan on using different distros later on on my home computer but just using this for the starter because it's required for the course.

A little background on my Linux usage,

I've messed around in FC5 before and Suse Enterprise (tried setting up an Asterisk box using VoiceRD). I'm pretty familiar with a lot of commands and feel I have a good start as a noobie.

What would be the best way to really get into the guts of the distro and learn the ins/outs as far as software, administration or whatnot. I learn better by actually using instead of just reading(ugh). Are there any programs that I could work towards setting up that would give me exposure to multiple commands so I can get them ingrained?

Any help is greatly appreciated! Thanks

[Dapper Dan]

Hi Wobbly and welcome to the forums! Two challenging projects I can think of would be to:

(a) Compile and use a custom kernel

(b) Set up a LAMP Server.

That should keep you busy at the command line for a while and I think the process(s) will teach you a lot. Good luck!

[L4Linux]

You can try distros for advanced users, such as Slackware, Gentoo and finally Linux from Scratch. Another project could be setting a repository locally(like a mirror) and making your updates from there.

[NeoIce]

definitely do a Gentoo install.

even if you dont wind up using Gentoo, it gets you pretty close to the metal and teaches you a lot of cool, useful things.

read a lot. break things and fix them. build from source. check out a BSD maybe.

oh, and then read a lot more. there's tons and tons of docs and books and stuff ALL over the internet.

[jayd512]

Hi, Wobbly! Welcome aboard!

I think that since FC5 is what's required for your studies, you might want to shy away from tinkering with other distros... but only for the time being! Instead, I would do as Dapper Dan suggested. Build up your own kernel and server programs. That way, you're still within the safe confines of a familiar system, and you won't be going to far astray from what may be needed in your class-work. And then do a lot of reading and doing. Fix it until you break it... then fix it some more!

Lastly, try to configure all of your services, and remove/disable all that you don't need. Here's something that may be of some use: Link

Do let us know how it goes!

[Cabhan]

I'm always interested in how "Try Gentoo" is an early suggestion for improving your Linux knowledge. I like Gentoo (and use it myself), but you can certainly learn lots of details from any distro.

Servers are always a good way to get pretty deep into things. I might also suggest looking at things that your desktop environment provides wizards for and learning how they work under the hood (mounting/fstab, permissions, installing software, etc.).

You might also be interested in learning how to do Bash scripting, so that you can automate tasks a bit more easily:
Bash Guide for Beginners
Advanced Bash-Scripting Guide