18th May 2004, 10:40 AM
No, I was being serious when I said that you know a lot. I have 4 years of computer science education at a good university, but you seem to know as much as I do about a lot of the practical stuff. That's what I want to know more of, and they don't really touch on it because it is assumed you know it already. I really wish that I had learned more when I was younger.
I think most cd burning software should let you burn ISos. They might call it something different, but the idea is the same. Nero does for sure, and I think you can get a free trial version.
I use Redhat as well, because I've heard it's the most beginner friendly. Debian and Mandrake are pretty easy as well. They come with hundreds of software utilities for everything you can think of, which is good, but also overwhelming at first. They are owned by companies now, so you can buy the OS along with support and training if you want. But they are all still freely available as well. Another good thing about Redhat is that when you do want to install new software, most of the time you can download an RPM (Redhat Package Manager), which is just like a Windows self-installing program. It's a nice alternative to compiling the source code on your own machine, which can also have a learning curve.
I really don't have a lot of experience with Linux either. In fact, it still is stuck running in 640x480 because I haven't found the time to go looking for drivers for my ATI graphics card. A lot of stuff in Linux, like this, is more work, but when you figure out what you are doing, it becomes a lot of fun to customize your machine to do exactly what you want. It's not perfect, so don't get your hopes up too much. The first thing you will notice is that it takes about 4 minutes to boot up, as opposed to a minute for XP for me. You can customize you bootup as well, and make it very very fast, but it doesn't come automatically. So don't expect it to be perfect, and don't give up.
Here's a couple places to get you started, if you are looking:
<a href="http://www.nomadlinux.com/linuxreadme.html">Linux Help</a>
<a href="http://rute.2038bug.com/index.html.gz">Linux Tutorial</a>
And some good books I would recomend: Running Linux or the Redhat Linux 9 Bible. I bought both, and they were pretty similar, so I just kept Running Linux. Either should be enough to teach you everything you need to know to get into Linux. The Linux Tutorial link I gave you probably has as much content as the books, but I usually prefer paper.
Good luck and have fun!
I think most cd burning software should let you burn ISos. They might call it something different, but the idea is the same. Nero does for sure, and I think you can get a free trial version.
I use Redhat as well, because I've heard it's the most beginner friendly. Debian and Mandrake are pretty easy as well. They come with hundreds of software utilities for everything you can think of, which is good, but also overwhelming at first. They are owned by companies now, so you can buy the OS along with support and training if you want. But they are all still freely available as well. Another good thing about Redhat is that when you do want to install new software, most of the time you can download an RPM (Redhat Package Manager), which is just like a Windows self-installing program. It's a nice alternative to compiling the source code on your own machine, which can also have a learning curve.
I really don't have a lot of experience with Linux either. In fact, it still is stuck running in 640x480 because I haven't found the time to go looking for drivers for my ATI graphics card. A lot of stuff in Linux, like this, is more work, but when you figure out what you are doing, it becomes a lot of fun to customize your machine to do exactly what you want. It's not perfect, so don't get your hopes up too much. The first thing you will notice is that it takes about 4 minutes to boot up, as opposed to a minute for XP for me. You can customize you bootup as well, and make it very very fast, but it doesn't come automatically. So don't expect it to be perfect, and don't give up.
Here's a couple places to get you started, if you are looking:
<a href="http://www.nomadlinux.com/linuxreadme.html">Linux Help</a>
<a href="http://rute.2038bug.com/index.html.gz">Linux Tutorial</a>
And some good books I would recomend: Running Linux or the Redhat Linux 9 Bible. I bought both, and they were pretty similar, so I just kept Running Linux. Either should be enough to teach you everything you need to know to get into Linux. The Linux Tutorial link I gave you probably has as much content as the books, but I usually prefer paper.
Good luck and have fun!