Trip
Sorry, but I suck at explaining stuff :P
Sorry Mike.Mike Fishcake said:
I did try to bring it back on topic and turn it into a useful thread but there is very little chance of that happening now
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How Are All The Linux Newbies Coping?
- Thread starter MikeFishcake
- Start date
I did try to bring it back on topic and turn it into a useful thread but there is very little chance of that happening now
I don't have my Pandora yet, but moved from XP to Ubuntu a while back and found it fairly painless. I would consider myself a "software power user".
Of course there were teething problems, but the community is very friendly and helpful and it only takes a little patience to figure most things out. Yes, they do tend to reel off a load of terminal commands, but all you've got to do is learn how to open a terminal then copy & paste If you pay attention at the same time you can't help but learn something too.
My pc is now dual boot, but I can't remember the last time I went into XP. Luckily, any "Windows only" programs I need run fine under Wine. Not knocking XP, I always quite liked it, but Ubuntu is a better fit for me. The biggest reasons being that it doesn't cost a penny, including the vast majority of software, and there is no need for anti-virus software!
Of course there were teething problems, but the community is very friendly and helpful and it only takes a little patience to figure most things out. Yes, they do tend to reel off a load of terminal commands, but all you've got to do is learn how to open a terminal then copy & paste
If you pay attention at the same time you can't help but learn something too.My pc is now dual boot, but I can't remember the last time I went into XP. Luckily, any "Windows only" programs I need run fine under Wine. Not knocking XP, I always quite liked it, but Ubuntu is a better fit for me. The biggest reasons being that it doesn't cost a penny, including the vast majority of software, and there is no need for anti-virus software!
Caine
Hardcore Member
That depends on what you do. To really learn Linux one must use it. If ubuntu makes it easier to do your day-to-day tasks in Linux and allows you to make the switch then learning and experimenting will automatically follow.I'm just glad you didn't choose ubuntu. IMHO, you don't really learn anything with ubuntu. Although, I am rather surprised and commend you for choosing slack.
-God Ginrai
The best way to learn Linux is to immerse oneself. That is, only install Linux on all of your computers and ditch Windows altogether. This forces you to deal with whatever problem crops up. I personally recommend ubuntu for its wealth of packages and good community.
After this you will gradually start to customize things and grow into the more advanced stuff. Don't jump directly into Linux from scratch. It's a great way to learn stuff, but it forces the beginner to deal with too many things at a time.
droneb
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Aug 28, 2009
- Messages
- 1,072
that AV is nearly useless, used to have the portable version (updated daily)TrashyMG said:
and thats not what i meant with the "joke" sentence.
i just say that the diversity makes virus creators linux undesireable, but still vulnerable.
(parting that they will make nearly no money worth infecting one sole distro).
anyway, IIRC virus for linux based smartphones started appearing.
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The thing that always peeved me about linux is that the distro's don't standardize at all. They all have their own way of doing configuration, installation, etc and if you have to work on a machine running a different distro that you run, the abstracted configuration tools will be completely different.
Edit: There are even some distro's that go and override the "real" config files with some sort of distro-specific automated tool.. This really drives me nuts!
Edit: There are even some distro's that go and override the "real" config files with some sort of distro-specific automated tool.. This really drives me nuts!
God Ginrai
Godmaster
Reknel said:I'm just glad you didn't choose ubuntu. IMHO, you don't really learn anything with ubuntu. Although, I am rather surprised and commend you for choosing slack.
-God Ginrai
That's what I was refering to in the other posts. That you learn nothing about Ubuntu is utter bullshit. I've rarely used anything more aside from Ubuntu but I know as much as my friend that messed with arch, gentoo, etc. I even know things he doesn't about Linux. But the fact that the guys behind each of the distros (devs and users too) keep fighting between them for no apparent reason is one major hurdle in the progress of the OS.
This is like a standard classroom scenario. If you take a computer programming class and they only teach part of the book, there are the people who will learn nothing, there are the people who will learn only what is taught, and then there are the people who will learn the extra stuff from the book.
Ubuntu teaches a GUI chapter from the Linux book. Anyone who takes the ubuntu "class" will be either the people who didn't learn anything, (those that quit) the ones that only learned what was taught, (those that know very little more about Linux than Windows even though they are using a Linux distro) and those that learn the extra stuff from the book. (Those that actually learn a lot about Linux) Ubuntu only teaches that one chapter which is very similar to the GUI chapter from the Windows book, whereas other distros like Arch and Gentoo teach many more chapters from the Linux book.
The less material a class teaches, the less the majority of students will learn. If you have learned more about Linux then your friend learned, then you are one of those students who goes above and beyond the class material in the ubuntu class.
-God Ginrai
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bzar
A Commando
Caine said:That depends on what you do. To really learn Linux one must use it. If ubuntu makes it easier to do your day-to-day tasks in Linux and allows you to make the switch then learning and experimenting will automatically follow.I'm just glad you didn't choose ubuntu. IMHO, you don't really learn anything with ubuntu. Although, I am rather surprised and commend you for choosing slack.
-God Ginrai
The best way to learn Linux is to immerse oneself. That is, only install Linux on all of your computers and ditch Windows altogether. This forces you to deal with whatever problem crops up. I personally recommend ubuntu for its wealth of packages and good community.
After this you will gradually start to customize things and grow into the more advanced stuff. Don't jump directly into Linux from scratch. It's a great way to learn stuff, but it forces the beginner to deal with too many things at a time.
+1
I settled on ubuntu after installing a new distro every few months for a few years. It was probably the easy installing and automatic updates for non-free (restricted) drivers that originally won me over. Also the amount of support information available is second to none. I occasionally still experiment with other distros, but so far have not found one to suit me better. I might try Arch again sometime soon to see what progress has been made though.
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If I had a netbook or a secondary laptop I didn't care about using right away, I'd commit myself to going through the motions of putting Arch on it. As long as I'd have at least two other computers with set-it-and-forget-it operating systems (and internet connections) I'd be willing to experiment with something like that. That way I'd also get a chance to try out vanilla desktop environments without all the Ubuntu-specific patches, "tweaks," and configurations to see what they're really capable of.
With Ubuntu I rarely had to use the terminal and mostly just brought it up to pipe fortunes to Cowsay, so I didn't learn overmuch about the guts of Linux. Still enjoyed the heck out of using it as my daily OS, and moving to Windows 7 (and the concurrent monitor backlight failure of my laptop with Ubuntu) totally threw off my game for weeks. I still think I got things done easier with Hardy than Win7 even though I'm more familiar with it now.
With Ubuntu I rarely had to use the terminal and mostly just brought it up to pipe fortunes to Cowsay, so I didn't learn overmuch about the guts of Linux. Still enjoyed the heck out of using it as my daily OS, and moving to Windows 7 (and the concurrent monitor backlight failure of my laptop with Ubuntu) totally threw off my game for weeks. I still think I got things done easier with Hardy than Win7 even though I'm more familiar with it now.
Dunny said:
Mint has this set up, along with loads of other obvious tweaks; for example right-click 'open terminal here' and right-click 'set as wallpaper background'.
Sure, you can set these up yourself in Ubuntu... but it takes time and effort. Mint is basically Ubuntu made far more usable from the minute it's installed, and saves you several hours of tweaking to get it how you would want it. I have feeling that Canonical omit these kind of features to not confuse casual users.
For example, Ubuntu has that top and bottom taskbar thing... which they say is easier for novice computer users. I don't heavily dislike have a taskbar at the top, but it feels like wasted screen space to me. Mint saved me five minutes reconfiguring the task bars to be the way I would want them... sure, it's only 5 minutes, but those little time savers all add up to four or five hours of arsing about.
The control center is good too, being a Linux analogue to the control panels in Windows and OS X. It's a nice touch, that makes the OS feel far less fragmented.
Mint had a bad reputation for a few years as being bloated, but I've actually found it faster than the current Ubuntu it's based on (10.4), even the netbook version (must be a driver thing) and much faster than any version of Ubuntu or Mint for the last few years.
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I really don't understand the hate for that - it's the default for GNOME. I mostly use KDE with the taskbar at the top, but I have no problem at all with the two bars. I dislike GNOME for other reasons. And I don't really have any custom configurations here - a few changes to the default theme, a few things on quicklaunch, change default terminal colors, and that's it, I think. Probably less than 10 minutes.SomeGuy99 said:
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Patrick R Ludvigsen
Member
- Joined
- May 6, 2008
- Messages
- 243
I can't stand Ubuntu. Either Windows XP or Slackware for me, thanks
puppydee
Linux Virgin!
I'm a total linux virgin, you only have to look at my sig to know that and it's been quite hard to figure stuff out but I must say a week in and I'm finally getting my head round it all and working out how and where to stick the emulators and where to put the games, take tonight for instance I've managed to figure out and get working the amiga emulator, I'd already tried it before when it was first in the appstore but after messing around with it for a while and not getting it going I gave up but with it being the main reason I bought the pandora for I thought I'd have another crack at it and I got it working, yaaaay. So stick with it people it gets easier once you've got a few more grey hairs. I'm still no whizz kid with linux but I'm getting by slowly.
We could do with a tutorials section really with how to set up the emulators and where to put stuff, what buttons to press etc and how to install Quake, hexen and the others that require pc files because us noobs haven't a clue. I did a quick tutorial on uae4all now I've figured that out because I know a few people where stuck on that one. You can find it in my sig below if you're stuck. I'm super happy with my pandora now and wouldn't change it for the world but if you'd have offered me some cash the other day I probably would of snatched your hand off, funny how things can change over a few days so stick in there people it'll only get easier.
Right, off to play some of my favourite amiga games now, yippeeee
We could do with a tutorials section really with how to set up the emulators and where to put stuff, what buttons to press etc and how to install Quake, hexen and the others that require pc files because us noobs haven't a clue. I did a quick tutorial on uae4all now I've figured that out because I know a few people where stuck on that one. You can find it in my sig below if you're stuck. I'm super happy with my pandora now and wouldn't change it for the world but if you'd have offered me some cash the other day I probably would of snatched your hand off, funny how things can change over a few days so stick in there people it'll only get easier.
Right, off to play some of my favourite amiga games now, yippeeee
