[Watford] Linux New Starter Advice (Was: Lug Update)

[Matt Marsh]

Walter,

 > Can you recommend any courses, preferably via internet/email
 > so I can get instructions and advise on building Kernels and
 > hardware troubleshooting. What I have found on the Web is good
 > but it never quite goes deep enough or I often just don't
 > understand the instructions / jargon.  I have looked at LFS
 > but even that throw up a lot of questions.

I can't really think of any online courses that I know of, but
a few tips that might help you starting out with Linux from
my experience:

  - Try and stick with one distribution if you can. Inevitably
    there are differences with different distros, configuration
    being done diffrerently etc. Playing with several different
    distros when you're starting out seems to me to cause more
    confussion than you need :) Which distro you choose isn't
    too important at that stage. I would say that distros like
    RedHat/Fedora offer more graphical approaches to configuration
    so you don't need to get your hands as dirty, but really any
    of the mainstream distros will do in my opinion.

  - Perhaps buy a book related to your particular distro. This
    will point you at how things are done in that distro, where
    things get configured etc. There are plenty of books around
    on Redhat, Fedora, Debian, whatever, so once you've picked
    a distro ask for recommendations for a good book for it.

  - Read Linux "HOWTO" documents. These are available on many
    topics and you'll learn a lot from those I'm sure. If you're
    having trouble with a specific area then these are a great
    source of information.

 > I have managed to install several versions of Linux, from Red
 > Hat to Debian but something almost always wont work correctly,
 > usually to do with a hardware device and when I get the driver
 > and try compile it I usually come unstuck.

When you say you have trouble with hardware devices, do you
mean core hardware components like disks, network, sound etc,
or drivers for peripherals like printers, scanners etc?

If you're running on recentish hardware then a good tip is to
make sure that you are running a 2.6.x series kernel instead
of a 2.4.x series kernel. Some distros, eg. Debian stable
(sarge) install a 2.4.x series kernel using the default
installation method, so it might be worth making sure you
are indeed on a 2.6.x series kernel. In case you're not sure,
from a running system you can type "uname -r" to find out the
kernel version you're running.

And the last tip of course... don't be afraid to ask for help
if you run into trouble with something, this community is
made up of people's willingness to help one another :)

Hope it helps,
Matt

-- 
Matt N. Marsh
Email: matt at mattmarsh.net
   Web: http://www.mattmarsh.net/