Linux Questions

[ThatPianoGuy]

Hello! I've been using windows since back in its beta days, but I've read a lot about open source and want to understand it further. Some questions:

To start off with linux what distributions are good for a "hobbist" and not a networking professional?

Is it better to dual boot a PC or for me to use a cheapy box to play around with instead?

Where are the best places on the web/best books to buy to get started as a hobbist?

Thanks
Rob

Sorry if this is a commonly asked set of questions, I just wanted some straight shooting on the subject.

 

[NiPeng]

Q1 Red Hat, Mandrake, Debian

Q2 Up to you. If you don't want to repartition use a different machine or a different harddisk.

Q3 Linuxdoc.org. Site of the distro you're running. Lots of sites actually.

Edit: Oww don't know about books.... 'O Reilly(?)

Edit2: If you want to use a cheapo/crappy computer don't blame linux when things go wrong.

 

[neuralfx]

for a hobbyist, you might really like slackware, as far as dual booting, eck, i'd rather have a standalone machine, ya just make sure all the components work, pretty much, any popular hardware will work, voodoo, ATI, any vid cards like that.. at least pentium, i suggest, but it will *run* on a 386, but Xwindows will be slow.. sites ..
www.linux.org www.linuxnewbie.org www.linuxplanet.com www.slashdot.org
and ya any of the mirrors for linuxdoc.org thats where u will find all ur HOWTO's etc ..
The oreilley "Running Linux" is pretty good, oh ya, for software, when u get it up check www.freshmeat.net .. good luck ..
-neural

 

[SpaceC0wb0y]

I would say that you should go with a stanalone instead of the dual boot. If you just want to learn Linux the machine does not have to be that fast. I ran Redhat Linux on a 16mghz cpu, it was a little slow but worked fine. When I need information on Linux I search the forums here at anandtech and also search Google Groups along with all of the other sites already mentioned. Good luck and stick with it, I started off as a newbie this summer and let me just say it can be frustrating but worth it in the end.

 

[RJ45]

Q1: Red Hat, Mandrake, Slackware

Q2: I think it's better to install on a separate box. That way if you totally screw it up you can just start all over without having to worry about your primary system at all.

Q3: ThinkGeek has some good books. Also check out the linux.com howtos for more info & Beginner's guides. Plus there are tons of other places to get books.