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Best Way to Learn Linux?

A

AFB

Lifer
What would you say is the best way to learn linux. I have a free computer, and currently have Suse 9 on it. I am planning to use this for a File/Web server and have some free time. I have heard that installing gentoo is a good way to learn some things. I understand that in no way am I going to learn things over night.
 
Don't intentionally screw things up - you'll know what you changed so you'll know how to fix it and won't learn much. Experiment dangerously until something breaks, then you'll have to work to fix it, and understand a lot more afterwards. What n0cmonkey said is also true.
 
Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
Stop using Windows.
Click to expand...


I can do that, The only thing I need is to have my printer,Cannon i470D to work. Any way I can use it either through the network or through USB?
 
It would appear that CUPS, at least, doesn't support the Canon i470D. However, I may be wrong. Try out various print drivers, see what happens!

EDIT: Link didn't work 🙁
 
There are "Turboprint" drivers for quite of few of the newer Canon printers on a German web site - Google for them. You can get a trial copy for many models but you have to pay to enable some features and/or get rid of a watermark that would otherwise print on each page. There are some that print without the watermark, but allow printing at only one quality level.
. As mentioned above, one of the more effective ways is to force yourself to do without Windows - no cheating! And O'Reilly books puts out generally good Linux info. "Linux in a Nutshell" is one of their very useful titles. And I used to like the "Unleashed" series of books on Linux published by Sams, but I haven't bought any of the more recent editions - they had a real pro in the field collaborating on the early editions (4 or 5 yrs ago). Teach Yourself Linux in X hrs or days is a good starter series.
.bh.
 
Ya that's too bad about the printer. Generally more expensive ones work well. Cheap ones end up being so cheap that they on the drivers to have the computer control everything. Even have your windows in charge of moving the head back and forth across when it's printing!

So cheapo that they are called sometimes winprinters because they are like the stripped down winmodems that lack all the nessicary hardware to be a modem, and do everything thru emulation. (blah, poor quality and unreliable. Use up cpu time on old computers. Not so much a issue nowadays.)

I don't know if your canon is one like that. Also for linux printing stay away from most all-in-one printers... most of those things are pretty queer, and use very propriatory systems. HP makes good all-in-one printers that support linux decently, and supply printer drivers. (special deamons that run like a service.). They work ok with all established print standards for linux and they work with the "sane" and xsane scanning sub-system stuff.

Unix printing used to be a huge pain in the but. Every *nix OS had it's own weird printing subsystem based around the old line printer crap. This made it almost impossible to support unix stuff for most printer manufacturers and they just gave up trying, leaving all printing duties to macs and windows/dos PCs.

But now we have Cups, which is the common unix printing subsystem. Which is nice enough that even Apple ditched it's brand new printing system they developed for OS X in favor for cups in OS 10.2.

This now makes Linux a great print server for most purposes. Cups uses the internet printing protocol that is new and designed to get away from the Lan sharing style stuff that is now common and causes issues with routers, switches, firewalls and all that happy crap.

To have a w2k client for a Linux print server(after you set up permissions in the linux box in the cupsd.conf file (located in /etc/cups/cupsd.conf)) go to add printer, network print, and select the URL box. In the box you type in the url for the printer your connected to. In my case I have my HP all in one hooked up and it's url is http://192.168.1.10/printers/HP.PSC.1210 (you can find this by going to http://127.0.0.1:631 on any cups-enabled OS's, including OS X.). Select the proper driver for it and your done.

Also for some industrial/professional printers you can even set Linux up as a RIP for printing. Thus replacing special propriatory RIP devices that can cost thousands of dollars. (of course with professional level stuff, your millage will definately vary and it isn't the easiest stuff to do).

For linux printing compatablity check out linuxprinting.org
 
Originally posted by: amdfanboy
Nice post, Thanks. I know it works on a Mac so I'll check on it.
Click to expand...

If it was a postscript driver or something like that it would work, but I am suspecting that your printer is one of those "winprinters" that require software emulation to control itself. In order to make realy cheap printers they've started to cut some severe corners. Like winmodems some printers have removed most of the vital hardware control that is required to operate a printer and make it so that the driver controls things (in some cases) like the head movement to while printing. If your canon is like that then they have extra software that is needed in OS X and windows to run the printer in addition to the normal printer descriptions type stuff that make up a normal printer driver.
 
there are two ways to learn linux.

1) try to do ANYTHING
2) try to do ANYFVCKINGTHING without an extra PC nearby so you can go chase down minihowto's.

the second will cause you to lose your goddamnmuthurfvckign mind in a hurry




 
IMO the best way currently to learn linux:

Go Here

pick a LiveCD distro that seems to fit your mood (Knoppix, MandrakeMove, LindowsLive, etc)

Burn it to a CD and boot it.

Viola! You have a great working Linux environment to learn in, if you start to feel insecure, you can always
reboot, popping the CD out to get back to a more familiar environment.
 
My best advice is to stop using Windows and adapt to Linux to the level you have adapted to Windows. Things seems to move alot slower in Linux, it took me a whole summer to get OpenGL games working in SuSE 8.2 Pro. Use Linux, read about Linux, and most of all, <3 Linux. 😀
 
drag I am also trying to learn linux after years of MS (DOS 5 baby). Will you come to my house and teach me. Your posts are always the most informative. Thanks!
 
Download Knoppix, or some of the other Live CD distros. That way you can mess around with stuff and not worry about hosing what you have installed on your hard drive. It also lets you see what possibilities are out there with software and such.
 
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