a few things...

[kyleowen]

Hody guys (and gals) i am kyle from Canada and new to linux and this form and have a few questions, i know there are already threads about most of these but they are way above my skill level (this is my second day with linux)

1. The reason I installed linux is because I want to get some experince on useing linux based servers, so i grabbed a crappy desktop and installed it, but now i can figure out how to install any script, at all, and i do not know any commands or anything like that so i do not understand the other threads

2. from time too time on sites i get randomly asked to download files i do not even know what they are, o cancel but it is getting really annoying, how do i stop that

3. as an advanced windows user i could tell you that the best browser on windows i firefox...but what do you think for linux

thanks
P.S. I am useing Nimble X Linux, in case you needed that info to help me

[Cabhan]

Howdy and welcome to Linux!

The first piece of advice I am going to give you as a new Linux user is to use a popular distribution of Linux. I've never heard of Nimble X, but although it may be a fine distro, it's one that is not very popular, and may not be geared for new users like yourself. Pulling it up on Distrowatch, it seems to be designed for small size, which isn't really what you probably need now.

With that in mind, I would encourage you to start with a distro like Ubuntu, which is more geared for new users, and which has a lot of documentation about how to do things.

Having said that, in answer to your questions:

1) Linux distributions use "package managers" to help us install and manage our software. Slackware (which Nimble X is based on) actually has a very simple manager that isn't very powerful. Ubuntu, Fedora Core, SUSE, etc. all have much more powerful package managers that owuld allow you to search for "cd player", check a box, and get the software and its dependencies installed automatically.

2) Examples would be helpful, but this is likely a browser-dependent issue.

3) Firefox is available for Linux as well, and is what most Linux users use. There are other browsers though, such as Konqueror, Galleon, Opera, etc.

[kyleowen]

thank you very much, for the distribution of linux...well i don't really have room on my hard drive for a third OS so i will have to stay with this one, but here are some screen shots

1. I can not find the package manager anywhere...here is a screen shot of my control center:



2. a dialog appears asking me to download files i dont even know about...i dont want to click dont ask me again because i like the dialog box when i do want to donwload files;



thanks

[elija]

If you are looking for corporate server practice, a good distro to try is Centos. It is a recompiled Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

[reed9]

NimbleX is Slackware based and uses slapt-get (command line) and gslapt (GUI). (<-Vector Linux guide but same program. Vector is also slackware based.)

I would also recommend replacing NimbleX with a more up-to-date and new user oriented distro.

[jayd512]

If you're just looking for practice running a server, CentOS would be a good choice, as suggested by elija. But to be honest, just about any Linux distro will allow you to run server software, and do so with good stability.

Take a look at this poll for some opinions on what else might work well for you.