Best way to learn a linux disto...

[Emandman]

What are some way to learn and completely understand a linux distro and be able to utilize it to it's full extent?

The reason I ask is I tried SuSe and it seemed pretty easy to me. So I decided I would move onto something more advanced. I decided I would try slackware. Now that I have slackware, I am kinda lost as to how to do things, like installing and modifying and personalizing.

what do you guys find is the best way to become familiar with a distro and how it works and how to utilize it? Basically what do you guys find is the best way to learn how to operate a linux distribution?

[Juan Pablo]

Learn to use the package manager the best you can, compile from source, learn how the booting process works on the distro. It usually helps me

[smolloy]

Decide to make the distro "your own". Figure out how to personalise and tweak everything, and try to learn how to do it from the command line.

And Google, Google, Google!!

[Taltos]

My first test, is does it run the programs I want? There are three programs I absolutely need: a P2P client (amule), a media player (mplayer), a game (pingus!) and an office suite (open office). So I make sure that it runs all of these programs. I install all the media codecs I can, and test as much media as I can to see how it performs. I browse a few sites on the internet while I'm looking at open office documents. Bear in mind, that I'm running on old hardware so it doesn't always multitask well, or even do basic stuff like play music.

Next, I make a guest account and assign it some permissions and a password. Just playing with the GUI, getting a feel for where everything is.

And for my next trick, I get my Brother MFC-210c printer working. That usually takes a day or two, mostly because I'm too incompetant to have the process streamlined yet.

And if I still like the distro, I go through the repositories and see if anything catches my eye.

So far I haven't found anything I like more than (vanilla) Ubuntu, even for older hardware, but all I've really played around with is various versions of Ubuntu and Fedora. I think if I had a better computer I'd be more into the KDE stuff.

[Freston]

Slack is a great way to learn Linux. It does not boot into graphics by default. Everything you don't absolutely need is turned off. Users cannot mount CD's or USB's. There is lots of work waiting for you to be done from the shell. If you want to learn Linux, that is the way to go.

Also, please note that every distro is a bit different. Slack is no exception. Trying to get a HP all-in-one to work in Slack means messing around in files. This may sound difficult, but once you 'get it', it actually makes sense.

Keep notes on everything you do. And just go through your basic tasks. Set default runlevel to 4. Create user. Assign mount permission to user. Set default runlevel back to 3 ('cause it's a LOT safer in case you screw up x). Try to tweak the boot process. And if you're bored, just try to kill -9 as many processes as you can without crippling the system (prepare for reboots though )

And of course just try to do the things Taltos mentioned on a Slackbox. Try it from the shell, try to do it from the GUI, compile from source and see what you like best.

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Oh, and as a hint... 'apropos' is one of the commands you're gonna find really useful.

[Emandman]

okay thanks guys! I can tell this is going to be a long process, especially with me using windows all my life. It will be hard to stray away....


I have one more question, as far as command lines go, where or how would I go about learning all the commands for the konsole or whatever it is that isn't GUI where I have to manually type in commands?

[Franklin52]

Take a look here:

LinuxCommand.org: Learning the shell.

Regards

[Freston]

I have one more question, as far as command lines go, where or how would I go about learning all the commands for the konsole or whatever it is that isn't GUI where I have to manually type in commands?

Heheh, I answered your question before you asked.... I'm kinda psychic

Oh, and as a hint... 'apropos' is one of the commands you're gonna find really useful.

[IsaacKuo]

After you get confortable with using Linux, and you REALLY want to learn your Linux distribution in detail, do things which break the system and repair it. Warning! This can be extremely frustrating!

Now, don't just break the system for its own sake. That can feel rather pointless. Instead do some things which can be terribly useful and/or cool once you master the techniques. Examples:

1) Move an existing install from one hard drive to another (can be useful when upgrading hard drives). Going from IDE to SATA is a bit of an extra challenge.

2) Move an existing install from one partition to another (can be useful when removing Windows from a dual boot system).

Both of the above are generally useful for learning how to backup/restore your OS partition

3) Swap motherboards or video cards or sound cards and get everything working again (useful for obvious reasons).

4) Get Beryl to work.

5) Move an install from booting from a local hard drive to diskless netbooting. This is QUITE a challenge, but ultimately very rewarding!

[geek.arnuld]

What are some way to learn and completely understand a linux distro and be able to utilize it to it's full extent?

The reason I ask is I tried SuSe and it seemed pretty easy to me. So I decided I would move onto something more advanced. I decided I would try slackware. Now that I have slackware, I am kinda lost as to how to do things, like installing and modifying and personalizing.

what do you guys find is the best way to become familiar with a distro and how it works and how to utilize it? Basically what do you guys find is the best way to learn how to operate a linux distribution?

step #1: install Gentoo
step #2: think about what went wrong
step #3: install Gentoo (since you made mistake 1st time)

a simple Gentoo's stage3 install of 1 day taught me much more about UNIX internals than what other distros taught me over 1.5 years (Fedora, Debian and Arch)