Hi guys... Another Linux noob...

agnes

agnes

agnes

Soldato
Joined
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Amsterdam, NL
Right, I will be brutally honest, no idea how Linux works or how to run it.

I have come in here in search for help!

I recently started a new job in which I will be trained up in software (in general) across the board in all types of software. I am a skilled/trained hardware technician/engineer but have never ventured into the software side of things.

As you would expect, I have the basics of how software works and all that jazz. But, if you asked me to build a webiste in HTML I wouldn't have a monkeys where to start! Just to give you a idea on my software knowledge. However, if you asked me to change the comm chips on a EPOS system board... Blindfold me lol.

So, this new job as I said, will be teaching me about server software software configuration and installation to a AD to blackberry setup... So a wide variety which has really got me excited.

Started 3 days ago and I already showed them a few things regarding hardware which is great. But now I really want to start teaching my self basics on what they will be teaching me so I can at least understand what they are showing me.

All in all, I wish to install Linux on a partition on this machine at home just to get started. But, as usual I have no idea where to start with it, let alone if I can actually dual boot with Linux (along side win 7).

So, any advice, links, references and general terminology explanation, just anything would be grateful! Explain it like you would to a child lol.

I really hope I haven't intruded in this section with something asked often and causing a pain to anyone in asking or this help. If so, please say so and I will ask a Mod to delete this thread.

Again, I am over the moon this company is teaching me the side of IT I have always backed away from, love to better my knowledge and I hope by doing the basics at home, it will help in my new job to ease my training.

ags

P.S. Thanks :)
 
It may be easier for you to virtualize a linux distro instead of dual booting. If you have a decent PC then you'll have no problem running a linux vm within Windows.

VirtualBox is a decent vm tool and Ubuntu is considered a good start. Ubuntu have some great documentation https://help.ubuntu.com/

Enjoy :)
 
Congrats on the new job! Sounds good.

I'm no linux guru, I can just about to install it and type a few commands so I'll give you my newbie perspective. Best thing to do for experimentation is to install vmware or virtualbox so that you install it and play about with it without it affecting your Windows. Installing Linux or any OS on Virtualbox is a piece of cake. Wizard type thing, so will be pretty much self explanatory.

As for linux, you can try Ubuntu or Slax which are user friendly. Might help you with basic stuff like directory structures which is a little different to Windows. In a work environment I don't think they will use either but will help you as a beginner.
 
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Thanks guys! Got a Ubuntu image on the download from here:

http://releases.ubuntu.com/lucid/

Will be installing it on the VirtualBox I just setup! Such an easy program lol, halted at the first run setup as the image is not downloaded yet...

Awsome software! This will give me the chance to run all the OS's I will be taught at home with ease. Such as all the server OS's. Again, thank you so much! Don't know why I didn't think of this before...

10 mins left until image is downloaded! Come on! Excited lol.

ags
 
I'm in love. Just dual booted with Ubuntu (10.04) and I am loving it! Just installing updates/drivers.

ags
 
agnes said:
I'm in love. Just dual booted with Ubuntu (10.04) and I am loving it! Just installing updates/drivers.

ags
Click to expand...

Welcome from one newbie to another Linux newbie :)

I have 10.4 dual booted om my lappy at the moment with Win7. To be honest... I use the 10.4 98% of the time :) I even have a Linux only desktop at home to train/break and test with.

Huge community online so if you have any difficulties with anything a simple Google will come up with a wealth of knowledge bases. Including the guys on here who just helped me with Linux based stress testing software :)
 
Hi Agnes,

Glad you're liking linux! I've been calling myself a noob on linux for ten years now, mainly as I play with it for fun and not as part of my job.

For a slightly more work focused linux distribution it might be worth trying Fedora or maybe Centos. I'll explain why.

There are a few very much business and enterprise focused Linux distributions, one of the biggest and best known is Red Hat. Now Red Hat costs money so I wouldn't suggest going down that route, but Fedora Linux was originally based on Red Hat and is sort of considered the development arm of Red hat. i.e. Fedora is cutting edge software that once stable and proven will end up in Red Hat. CentOS is actually a very funny distribution, as it is basically Red Hat linux with all the red hat logos removed. As linux is open source, Red Hats source code is freely available so a group of people removed any trade mark/ protected elements from Red Hat and made CentOS.

I use Fedora as it allows me to play with all the new and shiny stuff even though it might not be 100% stable all the time, yet gives a good grounding in Linux. Its probably not quite as user freindly as Ubuntu, but to be honest the couple of times I've tried Ubuntu I found it had been dumbed down a bit too much for me. That might just be because Fedora was the first distro I tried and I've been playing with it since version 2 (its currently on 13) and I'm just more familiar with it.

Great thing about virtualbox is that you can run numerous distros to see whats different.

Most important thing though is to start to get your head round the console side of things.

Enjoy,

E-I
 
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It certainly is possible to dual boot with Linux and Windows 7. Just remember when dual booting, you install the earliest version of windows first then linux afterwards, (In your case, you're good).

As for a distro i highly recommend ubuntu. It has a MASSIVE community behind it, so if you ever need help, you'll certainly get it.
 
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