The "Linux for stupid people" thread.

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cheesehead

Lifer
Aug 11, 2000
10,079
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I've been trying to teach myself Linux, and the learning curve is pretty steep. Can anyone reccomend some resources for Linux information? The basic syntax of commands I've yet to entirely figure out, which is pretty sad.

Also, does anyone know a way to make Ubuntu's battery optimization better? I get 50% better battery life under Windows, making Linux hard to use.
 
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bersl2

Golden Member
Aug 2, 2004
1,617
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Originally posted by: Cheesehead
I've been trying to teach myself Linux, and the learning curve is pretty steep. Can anyone reccomend some resources for Linux information? The basic syntax of commands I've yet to entirely figure out, which is pretty sad.
Click to expand...

Shell syntax is well documented, and in many places.

Also, does anyone know a way to make Ubuntu's battery optimization better? I get 50% better battery life under Windows, making Linux hard to use.
Click to expand...

Do you have the proper powersaving utilities installed? (I don't know what they are for Ubuntu.)
 
Nothinman

Nothinman

Elite Member
Sep 14, 2001
30,672
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Can anyone reccomend some resources for Linux information? The basic syntax of commands I've yet to entirely figure out, which is pretty sad.
Click to expand...

Depends on what you're looking for. www.tldp.org has a lot of HOWTOs and there should be a man page for every command on the system which explains the different options.

Also, does anyone know a way to make Ubuntu's battery optimization better? I get 50% better battery life under Windows, making Linux hard to use.
Click to expand...

Hard to say without knowing the specifics of your hardware, I would have assumed that Ubuntu would have installed the laptop-mode and cpufreq stuff already.
 
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nweaver

Diamond Member
Jan 21, 2001
6,813
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when I was learning linux, it was to perform specific tasks and do them. I would set goals that you want/need to reach, and then try and hit them.

For example, I needed to automate FTP, and didn't know how to on windows, so I wrote ncftp scripts to put firmware files on HP printers, then I tied those (very crappily) into cgi scripts for apache. I later went back and redid them in perl. I needed to get ntop running (no easy task on RH9) and get mrtg running.

Set specific goals, and chase them. For example, get this output csv to input into another format (modify stuff), script stuff like backups over samba for your windows box, etc.
 
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slpaulson

Diamond Member
Jun 5, 2000
4,414
14
81
If you haven't already, you should check out the Ubuntu forums.

I think I learned the most by installing gentoo. I don't use it anymore, but just doing a stage 2 gentoo install will teach you a lot. Gentoo's documentation is very good, which helps.
 
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Brazen

Diamond Member
Jul 14, 2000
4,259
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ubuntuguide.org and fedorafaq.org

I also agree that picking a task and working towards that can make learning easier. I dabbled in linux, but was never confortable with it until one day I decided I wanted to setup Mambo on a linux web server. Carrying out that project from beginning to end made a world of difference in my linux understanding.

On the desktop, you might just pick simple tasks like sharing files with your Windows computer so you can listen to your mp3s, or whatever.
 
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drag

Elite Member
Jul 4, 2002
8,708
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Ya.. That's how I learned Linux the best.

Pick something you want to do and go for it.

First thing I wanted to use Linux for was a on-demand dialer/router for me and my roomates to share a single phone connection for voice and internet. You had a little icon on your Windows desktop to indicate wheither the internet connection was up or down and you'd click on it to have the Linux box dial out and then click on it to have it shut off when you wanted to make a phone call.

worked out a lot better then the previous Windows 98 were you had a socks proxy and you had to log in via vnc to turn it off or on and most everything other then browsing didn't work properly.

Lots of stuff you can do such as:
3d art and rendering.
programming games.
Setting up mythtv (tivo-like thing)
setting up a streaming media server
network router
secure file server
desktop email, browser, IM and games.
x terminal

One thing that would be interesting would be to setup a software RAID file server as a SAN-like thing and use iSCSI enterprise target to use a Linux box as a emulated SCSI storage volume were you can then use Microsoft's iSCSI initiator (or Linux in kernel stuff) to mount a terrabyte or two onto your desktop as several volumes and format them ntfs or linux native stuff (if you want to use Linux on the desktop).

That way instead of using SAMBA or NFS to share out files to multiple machines you can mount a remote Linux box as a SCSI device. One system per exported volume. (or you can use some linux clustering file systems stuff like GFS, OCFSv2, of CLVM to manage multiple machines sharing the same storage device).

All sorts of weird stuff. From easy to very technical. Just pick out something that is attractive to you and run with it.

For basic admin-style stuff check out the guides linked to tldp.org in my sig. Lots of very helpfull stuff.
 
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magomago

Lifer
Sep 28, 2002
10,973
14
76
Check out ubuntuforums. Also, I highly reccomend you just use guides to try things. Obviously make a backup of your system (whether it is ghost or any alternative method) , but then go and expirament with stuff. Even though I still am an extreme beginner, I've learned and deduced what MANY commands do by following a LOT of different guides. I really beleive that is the best way (well mixed in with maybe a nice site that gives an intro to some commands), because while you don't know why you are doing something the first time, by the time you've seen the command the fifth time in different contexts you being to understand what is going on.
 
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pkme2

Diamond Member
Sep 30, 2005
3,896
0
0
For those who need a LINUX machine.
Well, I've been recycling old PII and PIII machines. Using Ubuntu and Fedora Core has helped the installation with 99%+ of the PC drivers for older rigs.
My oldest machine was a eMachine PII 533MHz and Ubuntu was an easy install. I've setup Automatrix and updating is a forgone conclusion. Always updated w/o the worry.
You can do the same with all those unwanted, obsolete and just old machines nobody wants. Turn them into LINUX Ubuntu rebuilds. Just pop in a CD and the rest is history. You're making history by recycling an unending resource.
 
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SleepWalkerX

Platinum Member
Jun 29, 2004
2,649
0
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I always googled, but if I was clueless, I'd ask in a forum like this one or a forum catered to my distro. :)
 
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cheesehead

Lifer
Aug 11, 2000
10,079
0
0
Heh.
As it turns out, my mother happens to be a Unix user; when in grad school many years back, she used a Unix shell on a VAX, if I understood her entirely. Although she can't stand linux, she's yet to try using the command line. (I think she'd like it much better.)

I, on the other hand, don't know a danged thing about the command line, but I can easily do everything else.

Finally, something on which I may connect with my parents!
 
Nothinman

Nothinman

Elite Member
Sep 14, 2001
30,672
0
0
As it turns out, my mother happens to be a Unix user; when in grad school many years back, she used a Unix shell on a VAX, if I understood her entirely
Click to expand...

I could be wrong, but I think the only OS that ran on VAX hardware back then was VMS (later renamed to OpenVMS). There are/were ports of NetBSD and Linux to VAX hardware, but I really doubt your mother has used them. =)
 
Nothinman

Nothinman

Elite Member
Sep 14, 2001
30,672
0
0
So it would seem. Although I still think it's really doubtful that she used something other than VMS.
 
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