Linux Beginners' Guide

Every program is different, but the place to start is WineHQ - Wine Application Database

Installed apps will be stored in ~/.wine/drive_c/Program\ Files/

 

Stupid question alert !!!

Does Linux require defragging the hard drive? I know OSX prides itself on not having to do this. I guess Linux is the same. I created my partition with ext4. What do you all say on the matter?

 

Due to the design of the filesystem, data doesn't get fragmented nearly as much(on OS X and Linux), so there really isn't any need to defragment.

 

Thanks !

One thing i'd like to say regarding this guide is the OP was correct. If you want to learn Linux it's best to just rely on the dam OS rather than having Windows or your other OS to act as a crutch in case you need to get bailed out.

I've now gotten a decent handle of the OS because it's the only OS on the hard drive. Google is always your friend as any question that comes up has probably been answered before.

 

I read somewhere on this forum that Sager is not compatible with Linux. Can someone give me more details about this.

 

Using Sager NP9280 here with OhSUSE11-3. No problemo. I would've used Fedora but too lazy to fix keyboard mapping/AHCL thinging, some stuff won't work out of box.

 

Using Ubuntu for the first time! everything seems to work fine on my MSI Gx640

 

Any updates on the Ubuntu with the GX640? Have you had any issues with drivers?

 

I recently bought a laptop that came with no OS, and I'm interested in putting linux on it, however I've never used any form of linux before, so I was wondering if anyone had any good suggestions that aren't too difficult to get used to?

For what it's worth, I read the first posts of this thread, and it didn't really help me decide So rather than make a new thread, I decided to just post here. I'd like to have the following features though (if such a thing exists):

1. It needs to be fast. I've watched a lot of videos and many distros have a slight delay to them.

2. I want it to look nice, clean, etc.

3. Light on system resources.

4. Need to be able to install drivers...specifically for an AMD E-350 and intel 5100 wireless card...

Mainly what I plan to do on this laptop is use the internet (Firefox preferably), and writing word documents Nothing too fancy. Like I said, I've watched a lot of videos but it's quite hard to choose one. I like the look of Kubuntu, but I don't know if it would be the right choice. Anyway, anyone have any advice?

 

Short answer:
Ubuntu! (or Mint)
There is no special reason to chose it but sooner or later someone will come up with this suggestion anyway. So that someone can as well be me.

I know.

Long answer:
There is no good answer for the question: "I'm a beginner, what distro shall I use?"
Every user is different and so are the distros. If you really want to find the distro that is the easiest for you, you'll have to test some on your own.

What is fast and what not depends highly on the hardware, your own expectations and the way the distro was run. A live CD will always be way slower than a regular installation.

That's a very subjective item. I find LXDE nice and clean, but I know other opinions.

This falls into the same category like question 1. For example, KDE is pretty heavy, but if you have a good graphics card it can be very fast.

This is not distro-specific.

As you see, there is no answer that is easy and accurate. You have to pick one and live with the fact that you either might miss a lot or have to do a lot of personal research.

I suggest to have a look at http://distrowatch.com/ have a closer look at the top 10 (maybe top 20) and some others that seem interesting to you according to the description and take some months to pick the right one for you. At least this is what I did when I switched to Linux.

 

Thanks for the advice, I'm going to continue searching. There's just a lot of them and it's quite difficult to find one that really seems to be EXACTLY what I'm looking for. However, there's a few I'm considering, but seeing as I'm still waiting for my laptop, I have plenty more time to research it further.

 

I know the problem you're facing. Everybody who is new to Linux and who is really open to the vast number of distributions encounters this problem. Mostly this leads to a phase of distro hopping where you gather a lot of experience until you finally settle for one distro.

You could already try different distros in virtual machines. This gives quite a good estimate of the look and feel as well as the overall behavior and strenghts and weaknesses of different distros. Just don't judge the performance by a VM, for this you need real hardware.
I also found it helpful to learn a bit about the Linux family tree to compare different distros. It makes comparisons easier if you know that Ubuntu is based on Debian that Fedora is a test-bed for CentOS and that Fedora, CentOS, Mandriva/Mageia and PCLinuxOS have all evolved from Red Hat.

 

The number of distros can be quite overwhelming at first. When I started looking at Linux distros, I ended up with a stack of LiveCDs. After using those LiveCDs, I narrowed it down to Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Mepis, and PCLOS.

I wanted to use Linux on a new-ish laptop and an older desktop. All of the distros ran well on the laptop, but only Mepis and PCLOS ran "out-of-the-box" on the older desktop. I chose PCLOS and have been extremely happy with my choice. PCLOS is a very stable rolling release and the community is helpful and accepting of newbies.

Currently, I have the KDE version on the laptop and XFCE on the desktop. There are also versions of PCLOS with Gnome, LXDE, Enlightenment, and Openbox environments.

Happy Hopping!

 

I hope you found what your looking for. I quickly settled on Linux Mint initially and it was a GREAT choice for me although it's not for everyone either. What I like about Mint is, it's the closest distro to Windows XP whereas Kubuntu is the closest looking to Windows Aero and actually trumps Windows Aero in certain graphical effects. Mint offers the most out of the box and is ready to go with minimal addons or tweaks and the interface is really intuitive.

If you're still looking give Mint 11 a try when it releases sometime this month.

 

Do you guys suggest installing Level 3 updates from the repository to maintain system stability? I unchecked all Level 3 updates and only have Level 1 & 2 selected.

 

When I used Linux Mint I installed Level 3 updates just fine. But it all depends on what you want from your install, as your experiences may (and most likely will) differ. If you're tempted by the newer software and don't mind if you have some stability issues then it's up to you if you want to update. If you require stability and aren't interested in newer versions of software then staying would suit you.

It's all up to you, and I, nor TechTarget nor it's subsidiary Notebook Review, nor any member of this forum takes responsibility for any problems or loss of data or loss of profits or downtime that occur due to you updating or not.

 

Wow, thank you for this guide, this is really useful !

 

technology now is making my brain hurt, why use Linux over Window 7?

 

because:
1. it's free (as in freedom)
2. it's mostly POSIX compatible
3. I don't have to worry about malware
4. it has a great package management
5. I can take it apart, study it and put it back together
6. nobody tells me what I'm allowed and what I'm not allowed to do with his property
7. it's free (as in free beer)
8. most important: it's fun!

 

I hope you're being facetious. If not, please GTFO. Period.

 

Would like to humbly add one.

9. Because it has the best Desktop Environment for me.

Between OSX Snow Leopard, Windows Vista and Gnome 3, I like Gnome 3 best. Have not tried Lion and have very little time on Windows 7, so I will not include those in my comparison.

 

Guys I just started using Linux, specifically Pinguy OS

I'm very very new at Linux and the jargon. Can someone help me?
What is Debian? Is it an interface, code, OS?? What? It seems to be the underlying foundation for Linux..
What is KDE, LXDE, Gnome, XFCE? They also seem to be some GUI.
There are a lot of tweaks to be done. How do I get to the Boot loader and the GRUB menu? What is the Terminal? How are the 3 different?

 

Debian [1] is a Linux distribution. Think of a distribution like of a car brand. There is Ford and Opel and Mercedes etc. And there are Linux distributions like Debian, Red Hat and Slackware. Basically these three distributions are the base of the whole Linux ecosystem because they are each the base of an own family of other distributions that are derived from them. For example Ubuntu and Mepis belong to the Debian family, Fedora and PCLOS belong to the Red Hat family and Frugalware and Zenwalk belong to the Slackware family. There are also other distributions that do not belong to those big families like Gentoo or Arch. If you want to have an overview have a look at [2]! It's not accurate into the very detail but it's a good start to understand the concept.

These are desktop environments (DE). So in most cases this is what defines how a distribution will look like. If we stay with this colourful but inaccurate car comparison think of them as different configurations of the same car base model. There might be a Pickup and a Limousine etc. Just like that a Linux distribution might come with different DE's. Ubuntu even gives them seperate names. There is Kubuntu with KDE, Xubuntu with Xfce and Lubuntu with LXDE while the plain Ubuntu traditionally came with Gnome. That changed recently with the introduction of Unity and I expect we'll see Gubuntu soon. Other distributions usually don't invent new names just because of another DE.

Usually they will be installed automatically. You don't have to care for that now.

It's a commandline interface.

I suggest to throw every term that is not clear to you at Google or Wikipedia first. Among Linuxers there's a nice saying for that: RTFM (read the fine manual)!

[1] Debian -- The Universal Operating System
[2] File:Gldt.svg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Ok, is Linux Mint also Debian based?

THANK YOU SO MUCH ABOUT EXPLANING ALL THOSE Ubunut, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, and Lubuntu names! I was wondering sooo much about those.

 

yes.

go here for info on just about any linux distro:

DistroWatch.com: Put the fun back into computing. Use Linux, BSD.

 

Nice guide there for newbie like me.
Its time to switch to Linux after long time using Windows.
Not interested with Mac (I dunno why.. )

 

I just stumbled upon this site:
Renewable PCs

I haven't read everything (maybe 1/2 or 2/3 of it) but what I read seems very appealing. The author is clearly biased towards Mint and other eye-candy distros but the nice thing is he never tries to hide that and despite of his preferences he's always open to alternatives.
It rarely sounds like there's a fanboy writing and yet there is a certain enthusiasm in his words.
The only things I miss are a little more emphasis on the topic of free software including the problems that come with proprietary software and a small remark that besides these so called "beginner friendly"* distros there are also other distros which do not try to lure Windows or Mac users, which is exactly what makes them fascinating.

*) I don't like that term since there is no clear definition what that's supposed to mean.

 

I opened a terminal, was updating stuff through it, and right-clicked it, and selected 'move to workspace right' or something like that. This is in Mint 5 or 7 - I don't remember the version.

How do I get this back? I searched for 10 minutes through everything and can't find where to access the other desktops or workspaces. I believe it's Gloria or KDE.

 

CTRL+ALT+Right arrow, left arrow to go back to your other workspace. You can right click the titlebar to get it back to your first workspace.

 

God, thank you so much. It figures I'd be able to figure out how to update a server in the terminal but finding basic things like a workspace is impossible through the menus and shell.

 

There should be a workplace switcher applet available on your panel, if it's not enabled by default:

http://library.gnome.org/users/user-guide/2.32/user-guide.html#overview-workspaces

 

Ok, so i installed Unbuntu 11.10 on my M17x R2.
So far so good but there are a lot of things i need to figure out

 

Katalin, I'm in the same boat. I like messing with Linux to learn, but man, if you've never used it, it's not easy to figure out at all. It's literally like learning a second language. Did you install on a partition alongside windows? Thats how I have Mint installed to dual boot.

 

I used to use redhat back in the days, it's been a while and man, some things have changed.
I have Ubuntu installed on a 40Gb Intel, alone.

DR, do what I do, leave linux as your only OS, this way you'll know you have to learn
Slowly, we'll have to figure things out.

 

Yea, I tried that back in the day on my 40GB SSD, then I turned that into a dedicated benching drive. I may image backup the 40GB and install linux on it again and use that on my M11x. I like to have options though. My wife knows less than me about linux and uses my R2 occasionally when I'm gone.

How are you likeing Linux so far? Is it your only OS on the R2? I'd gpo crazy trying to figure things out. I barely understand half of what I read when it comes to Linux.

 

That's why I bought the M11x to have linux on it but it arrived so close to my wife's birthday and:
She: Oooh, it's so cute, you shouldn't have.
Me: Uhm, [bummer]. Hey, glad you like it

And this is how I ended up getting my M17x R2 back and buying two gifts, still fair but not the way I planned.

It is the only OS on it, it's not easy but I love learning things.
I have windows on my desktop for everything else and I don't think I'll ever do a full switch.

 

Ahh, hahaha thats funny. Yea I just rely on windows too much. But when I have Linux installed, I mostly stick to that. But I go crazy from time to time.

 

I feel you, I didn't say I don't
What's 'worse' is when I try to figure something out, I stumble onto something else on the way and so on.. it never ends when you have that thirst.

 

I'm in the same boat as you guys. Decided I'd really like to learn more about Linux so I installed Ubuntu 11.10 on both my M17x and M11x.

I don't think I'll ever do the full switch either but I've been trying pretty hard to use it regularly. The tactics I employ to force myself to use it, is to make sure that Ubuntu is the priority OS at boot and as I normally walk away to do something when I switch my computer on, I find it already at the Linux login screen when I get back and at that point I can't be bothered to reboot back into Windows.

What do you guys think of Ubuntu and Unity? I tried Unity and while it was pretty, I didn't find it that efficient so I installed the Gnome 3 desktop. I actually really love Gnome 3, especially how I can just flick the curser to the top-left of the screen and have the dock, programs and window switcher all there instantly, ready for use.

 

Hmm, I don't really know enough to have an opinion quite yet. I was using Mint 11 for a bit and seemed to like it. Linux reminds me of the way Macused to be when it was Macintosh, and not simply Mac or iMac. At least the layout. Not really sure why I chose Mint over Ubuntu though. Maybe it seemed more open, or "Cool" I'll be installing Mint 12 tonight though. Hopefully it offers more stability for F@h. I know it definately seems much faster at web browsing than Win 7 though so I love it in that aspect.

 

Sweet, let me know how your Mint 12 installation and experience is. I downloaded the ISO a while ago and burnt it to a DVD with the intention of installing it but still haven't got around to it. I also liked the fact that it seems more open than Ubuntu.

 

Will do.

Found this. It's why I went with Mint over Ubuntu. Guess I was having Ubuntu issues. It's an old thread I created.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/lin...e/588684-ubuntu-dual-boot-trim-questions.html

 

I can't find an application for Ubuntu that monitors System temperature. Anyone knows one that does?

 

Well, let me just say that the rest of the ubuntu community doesn't really agree with you

Gnome 3 I just find kinda stupid... too many mouse movements to do anything and the one bar they have on the desktop is hardly customizable easily. Instead they include - quick access to universal accessibility settings!!! Coz that's REALLY what the users need instant and continuous access too!

And then there are just unbelievable idiotic aspects - take for instance the calendar at the top of the screen... if you want anouncements etc to pop up... you have to use EVOLUTION... yes, that crappy email program that is not even included by default in ubuntu anymore. Gnome 3 was a big gamble and I have to say it is not paying off.

I honestly think Unity is kinda decent. I used to run a heavily modified version of gnome 2 back in the day, and unity is fairly similar to how I had customized gnome 2, so I didn't find it too bad. The new version of unity coming out (Unity 5 I think? I think you can install an alpha version, but it will be default in 12.04) has some new features which are pretty cool. But the lack of customization is really killing unity, but the biggest problem is that since 10.04, ubuntu has gotten noticeably slower, I think due to combinations of huge increases in kernal size, as well as gpu acceleration requirements and the fact that ati drivers suck really bad on linux.

What concerns me is that both new desktops (gnome 3 especially) stink of the plans of ubuntu to move to the tablet market, abandoning some of the principles of pc computing - I'm all for ubuntu to expand, and would love an ubuntu tablet, but that doesn't necessitate the need to diminish the experience for the rest of us.

Each to his own, we all have a choice... but IMO unity is better and seems to be actually improving.

A couple of things I think a gnome 3 user like you might be interested in:

Firstly, edgebound desktop - a fairly innovative desktop concept, combining aspects of unity and gnome 3.
Freed Up Thoughts

It runs on gnome 3, might be interested in giving it a whir.

Also Gnome Pie, a pretty cool app launcher, and I think a noob/gnome 3 user might like it (sorry, just a joke, couldn't resist )
Gnome Pie: A Cool New Visual Application Launcher ~ Web Upd8: Ubuntu / Linux blog

 

Thanks for the info and the links. A noob/gnome 3 user like myself needs all the help I can get...

I've been using Ubuntu pretty heavily over the last few days trying to become more familiar with it and have started to agree with you and the rest of the community about Gnome 3. I do like the slickness of it and the mouse gestures but I agree that alot of the other features feel like a bit of a gimmick.

I've been back to Unity since yesterday and am liking it a lot more now. I've hidden the launcher and have Cairo Dock installed which is alot more functional and quicker. I've also been messing around with Conky and got a few panels going which look pretty cool. I've had a look at some of the changes for Unity in 12.04 and they do look pretty neat.

I'm actually really enjoying learning the basics of Linux. It's also great that whenever I have a problem, all I need to do is Google it and find that it has already been asked and answered.

 

yeah, definitely - its FUN to use the desktop in its own - i.e. its an experience running the OS and tweaking customizing to your liking...

Just wanted to add, the unity overlay (when you hit the 'super' key i.e. windows key) has lenses that you can customize. A youtube one is coming out, allowing you to use youtube without even opening a browser, which is pretty damn neat. I feel that the power of Unity lies almost entirely with this overlay screen, and with added options will become the main benefit of unity in the future.

 

Wow, thanks for that. I found that the <super> key took me to the lens but I had no idea you could customize it. That's awesome, I'm going to play around with it now.

 

Unity felt very rough until 11.10. In it's current state, it's far from "light weight," but the 3D effects work very well and it offers great screen utilization.

Having said all that, if you have very old or very slow hardware, Unity 2D is not an entirely enjoyable alternative. If your hardware doesn't support Unity, but defaults to Unity 2D, you're going to have a very different experience.