[Nottingham] Introduction (repeat?)

[Duncan John Fyfe]

On Fri, 14 May 2004, Michael Whitby wrote:

>
> basically ive been playing about (and i do mean playing, notrhing
> serious) on and off for a month or two but havent had too much time to
> get too "to grips" with it, i reckon thats because the distro i am
> getting to me seem too full or bloated, i would prefer a simple command
> line no gui distro so i can get to grips with the CLI before going too
> graphical ( i like to learn from the bottom up). One of the distro's
> that seemed attractive is Core Linux, i dont know if that seems
> ambitious of someone new to Linux..i see it as the opposite really, with
> Core linux and a tutorial giving me guidelines i reckon id learn more
> about linux than by just using a distro all pre-configured, plus id be
> happier because its 'my own' so to speak! My question would be; has
> anyone used core? is it good? are they any other distro's similar but
> possibly (in your opinion) better (and why)?
>

It really depends what you mean by 'get to grips with the CLI'.
If you mean:
1. Become familiar with common CLI tools (sed, awk , man ...)
	Install any easy to install distro (Debian, Mandrake ...)
	and use these tools from terminals in X.  It just makes life
	a little easier.

2. Become familiar with configuring such things as X, DNS etc without
using a distro provided easy-configurator.
	Install a distro that doesn't try too hard to obfuscate things
	behind distro-specific tools (ie. avoid SuSe and maybe a few others).
	Debian is good for this I cannot speak for distros like
	Mandrake.
	(well, actually RedHat 3.0.3 wasn't too bad either but ....)

3. Work out how to get linux running from the gound up.
	Look to projects like:
		Gentoo	http://www.gentoo.org/
		Linux from Scratch	http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/
		Rock linux	http://www.rocklinux.org/about.html

If I were you I'd use a distro that fits (2).  That way you have the opportunity
to play and learn without the added frustration of things not working when
you need them.
Unless you are running on a 486 or low end pentium system I wouldn't worry
too much about bloat (yet).  Install a system and get to grips with linux first
then work backwards removing the bits you don't need.  It will be easier
once you understand what is bloat (which will depend on what you use) and what
is not.
If you are running on a 486 or low end pentium I would do the same but avoid
gnome and kde.  X + fvwm or blackbox (window managers) will run happily on
such a system.

> also, when is the nextxt social meeting? or newbie meeting or whatever
> it would be called! would be good to meet you all go for a drink :P I
> did check the website but i have (from the lists) that the calenders
> arent up to date so ill ask here instead :)
>

Then next meeting is a talk (Perl part 1. Introduction to programming)
on Wednesday 19th May.  The next social is 7th July but there are 3 meetings
between now and then, all of them newbie friendly.  Tyhe talks usually run
from 19:30ish and we get to the pub around 21:00ish so join us wherever.

> see you soon!
> Mick
>
>
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>

Have fun,
Duncan

-- 
Duncan John Fyfe          X-ray Astronomy Group,
                          Dept. of Physics & Astronomy,
Phone +44 116 252 3635    University of Leicester,
E-mail djf at star.le.ac.uk  University Road,
                          Leicester, LE1 7RH, U.K.