Linux newbie

[clem]

Thanks Moley.

Clem

[marcus0263]

Hi to all the Mint supporters, I have been experimenting with numerous distros' for many months and have tried plenty of live boot versions of linux, I took the plunge recently of installing to hard disk after managing to build a second system put together from bits scrounged and gifted to me. The whole learning process as been enjoyable, occasionally frustrating as I try to adapt to the terminology after many years of microsoft use. I am using Linux more and more and try to use my Xp machine as little as possible.

Mint is by far the best distribution I have come across, I have spent time going through the forums to learn as much as possible and things are slowly falling into place. Keep up the good work at Mint and I look forward to the new Bianca final release and future developments.

Moley

If you really want to know Linux and in a realitivly short amount of time -

http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/

[clem]

You're exactly right, and most people think exactly like you. This is why most people are happy with running Windows and why Linux is not for them. Why do you even try? Leave Linux to people who like spending time with their computers...

Clem

[.ee]

Leave Linux to people who like spending time with their computers...

Clem

Well, this is not what most Linux enthusiasts really want, isn't it?
If this is really the snobbish attitude of the community, I would rather abandon any hope to use linux on my laptop and remain an unhappy windowid till the end of my days.

I like to use Linux on my university's server, when it is administered by someone for me. However, it is very difficult for me to learn how to tune and configure it on my laptop (I would have less trouble if it were desktop).

[antiquexray]

Leave Linux to people who like spending time with their computers...

Clem

My 2 cents (how much is that in Euros?)...anyway, I like Linux for a number of reason, the 1st because I think it's crime to charge the amount of money MS does for it's operating software. Another is that Linux (UNIX) is a time proven, near bullet proof OS with more advantages than disadvantages. Besides, large .com companies can't be wrong...Ebay, Paypal, Google, and who knows who else, use Linux servers because they are more stable.

The biggest disadvantage I see to Linux is going back to a command line, just like in the DOS days before Windows (anyone else remember those days), but in this case, you have to learn a new language. For me, this is not easy. That's why even after using Linux for a year and a half I still consider myself a newbie.

Example of this newbie...I'm still fighting with messages from Ebay. A friend of mine told be to check my security system...I didn't even know I had one, non the less check it:(

[.ee]

keithdw,

thanks for your arguments.

In fact, windows is not that "out of box" as you present. Before buying my laptop I was just using linux system at the university as a user and I did not want to hear about windows. The laptop sold with preinstalled windows has forced me to learn how to use windows. However, I was not able to do everything I need: I need emacs, I need Latex, I need scientific graphics, fortran, etc. It was not easy for me to get all this working under windows. Add to this everyday viruses and malware concerns. Actually, to minimize my trauma, I just started to use cygwin under windows (what a perversion, someone can say here!). After having managed all that I feel that I am not happy with what I got, and I decided to go Linux on my notebook, even if it requires real learning effort (and I am absolutely not a fan of computers and programming). I hope to get in the end what I need and love. Well, I could have paid several hundreds euro to some Linux guru to preinstall all I need on my notebook. However, I don't know one who would do it the way I like. It is no problem for me to install some Red Hat version like the one we have at the university (but I don't like it) but it doesn't work the way it should on the notebook (hardware recognition problems). Our administrator, for example, doesn't know the notebook specifics, etc... Moreover, if someone would install and configure linux for me, I still need to know how to administer my linux laptop.

Though, for the mainstream people who use computers to edit photos and films, to use internet, and to play games, windows or mac are much easier an option than linux, and linux for them is (imho) just a way to spend time playing with their PC.

Another annoying aspect of Window$ is that it restricts you in what you may/can/allowed to do with your software. Linux is free. The fact that you can get it for free is just secondary. Some software I may need under Linux is not free anyway.


PS: You guys are talking about "automatix" here. I even don't know what it is , so I have to learn it.

[marcus0263]

What it really comes down it this, Linux is different from Microsoft and with Microsoft's brilliant marketing Microsoft became the dominate OS in the desktop world. When things go wrong you get nothing but a blue screen and it tells you NOTHING. You have to break out the credit card and call M$ and that's it. Then to add insult to injury Microsoft is "offering" what they call an additional service, that service is paying them to fix their flaws in their product, like I said they're brilliant marketer's.

Let's look at Linux, it's modeled from the Unix OS. Computer networking, the Internet, etc.. comes from Unix, it's built on Unix. The simplicity of Unix is what makes it so powerful and at the same time difficult to master. Fact is if anyone tells you they know almost everything about Unix they are lying.

So back to the subject at hand, the conversion from Microsoft to Linux. You just need to learn the right way of doing things, it's really not that difficult. But you do need to get out of the Microsoft thinking and do it the right way. There are tools available that give you a so called "Easy" way to accomplish the task, but if something goes wrong or if you're not doing it correctly there is almost ALWAYS a log or text file that will tell you EXACTLY what what went wrong. The beauty of Unix or any OS modeled/built from Unix is most everything can be configured through a text file and it has logs to tell you what the hell is going on.

There is a lot of Linux that is "Bleeding Edge" out there, if it's not stable either be prepared to tweak with it or don't bloody use it. Debian "stable" is rock solid, Sun Solaris is Rock solid, BSD is rock solid. But if you want to play be prepared to spend some time with it. If you want a GUI to do everything for you and be solid buy a Mac with OS X. But if you want to download and install an OS without paying the extortion of Microsoft be prepared to spend a little bit of time learning the "Correct" way of doing things, nothing is free in this world.

EOR -

[scorp123]

I was excited about Linux also, until I sat down and realised just how much time I was spending playing about / trying to get things to work.

The same can be said about Windows. Especially the new Vista. Good luck with broken drivers, DRM, security features getting on your nerves (You moved your mouse!! Allow or deny?) and software not working yet (e.g. Apple iTunes!)

I by far find Windows the far more frustrating mis-experience! If you know what you do, and if you know how to tell it Linux, it will do as you say. For that I highly recommend beginners' books such as "Linux for Dummies" or "UNIX for Dummies". I always use those books when training new apprentices (doing so since 2002) and so far I had great success.

I hadn't noticed until I sat down and thought about it.

Think again. How many times per year does a Windows user have to reinstall his Windows because some stupid spyware and/or virus (multiple infections not being a rarity but rather a normal thing !!) has managed to infect the PC and you can't get rid of it, regardless how many of all those "cool" tools you try? Kaspersky, Avast, Norton, Symantec, McAfee, AdAware, and all these tools, and all the money they cost, and yet sometimes it's all in vain and you plain and simple have to reinstall .... How broken and inherently stupid must an operating system such as Windows be that a market for such tools can even come into existence??

There is no such thing on Linux, it has all the tools on-board, and the only third-party tools a (professional) user might ever need are third-party network backup or network monitoring solutions for very large installations, but that's about it. You install it once, and if you don't do anything stupid it will run for years without reboot (Kernel patches being the only real reason why one would have to reboot once in a few months).

You run a company? Calculate again! Downtime with Windows and viruses cost real money. UNIX-like operating systems such as FreeBSD and Linux will run for months and years.

The problem with newbies 'messing' about with linux is that if a mistake is made, that's it, the whole thing is knackered (there doesn't seem to be an undo / restore feature).

That's why when I was a newbie back in 1996 I soon learned the beauty of backups and how to get stuff back It can be done. It just needs a little reading and asking the right people the right questions. And now? Ten years later I make way over 130'000 Swiss Francs per year for being a UNIX / Linux pro. For someone who doesn't have any university or doctor titles (I don't have any!) that's a damn lot around here. Talk about "pay off". My decision to "waste" my time with Linux back in 1996 was probably the best one in my life

That's why I gave up with Ubuntu.

That's something I fail to understand. Why does everyone think that Ubuntu is newbie-friendly when in fact it's not?
There are other distros out there which are by far more newbie-friendly and offer a far better starting point. Ubuntu lacks a lot of polish, it very often forces you to do stuff manually on the shell (and even I consider this unfriendly; although I don't really mind using the shell ... but you get the point), and I sometimes feel Ubuntu take their users for stupid (I don't like some of the assumptions that are made about what I as user like or dislike, and I really don't like some of the config defaults there). That's BTW what drove me to Mint, it has far better defaults.

I tried to install a piece of software from an official Ubuntu bug fix forum, which explained how to fix the bug that meant that files could not be streamed over an SMB network share. This bug fix was available for the next release of Ubuntu, but not the current release. However, the necessary 'fixed' files were available for the current release (Edgy). Installing these files, apparently removed a number of important files and I was no longer able to boot my Linux installation. With no Restore feature available,

First, when you install a package the package manager will usually tell you what it is going to do. It will tell you that it is removing packages. Why did you click "yes" then? I mean: You see that something must be wrong when it wants to remove a lot of packages, and although you see that you tell your system "yes, go ahead". Why didn't you stop right there and ask in a forum before you did anything? And as for the restore feature: At least openSUSE 10.2 has a "failsafe" boot option in its boot menu and a "Rescue Mode" on its install CD / DVD. That's what I mean about polish: Ubuntu doesn't have that, they're still discussing about this ... I really fail to see why everyone thinks that Ubuntu is newbie-friendly when it's apparent that it is not ...

I had to revert to Windows and I've suck with that ever since.

You never tried to boot e.g. a live CD and at least try to get your data from /home before considering a reinstallation? Just because you can't boot your Linux at the moment doesn't mean that all data is lost. You can probably still access it if you use a live CD.

At the end of the day, I've realised that you get what you pay for.

Not true For Windows you pay an awful lot and you get next to nothing.

A free OS is not as good as a paid for OS.

No, it's by far better and way superior than any of the commercial BS money could buy.

but at the end of the day people just want their computer to do what they want.

Exactly, and that's why I in my case I stopped wasting my time with Windows back in 1996 and use Linux ever since. A decision I never regretted.

I have spent a lot of time trying to get Linux to work for me (wireless network, network streaming, colour correction (icc profiles)

See above. You tried distributions that are too advanced for you. Picking up your argument about "you get what you pay for": Why don't you consider Linspire, Xandros, or such? They are too much Windows-like for my taste but I guess that makes them friendly for converts. Once you discover the limits you can still switch to "less friendly" distributions such as Ubuntu, openSUSE, Fedora, or whatever will fit your bill one day. Or ... Why don't you buy a Apple machine? They come with Mac OS X and as far as I can tell that's a really friendly and cool OS ... plus it's UNIX-based too

but the fact of the matter is that I would rather spend my time doing what I want

See above. Once you know your ways around you will do precisely that: What you want. The problem is getting around that learning curve. But that's something you shouldn't be afraid of, instead you should welcome and embrace this little challenge. You can only win

and not so much time working out HOW to get my OS to allow me to do what I want.

I rather have this problem whenever I have to touch one of those Windows machines in our company

and as time is money

Precisely!! Starting to mess around with Linux was the best time investment I ever did in my 34 years of life and now it's paying off like mad You have to think long-term. The time you "waste" on Linux today is time saved and money earned tomorrow.

by my reckoning most new converts will waste less time (money) by sticking with Windows

But then they wouldn't be converts, would they?

But I am curious: Why did you even bother to try Linux when it is Windows that you want? What drove you to Ubuntu? And as you brought up the argument "you get what you pay for": Why not buy a Macintosh from Apple? They are sexy, they "just work", and maybe Mac OS X is the answer to your problems?

Regards,
scorp123

[scorp123]

The simplicity of Unix is what makes it so powerful and at the same time difficult to master. Fact is if anyone tells you they know almost everything about Unix they are lying.

In the first sentence you talk about "simplicity of Unix". I think many people would not agree with that .... And what I don't get is the second part: Why would I be a liar when I say that I know "almost everything" about Unix? Why are you assuming that anyone who has knowledge about these things is a liar?

As for the rest of your posting (not quoted here): I fully agree. Log files and Google are one's best friend.

Regards,
scorp123

[marcus0263]

In the first sentence you talk about "simplicity of Unix". I think many people would not agree with that .... And what I don't get is the second part: Why would I be a liar when I say that I know "almost everything" about Unix? Why are you assuming that anyone who has knowledge about these things is a liar?

As for the rest of your posting (not quoted here): I fully agree. Log files and Google are one's best friend.

Regards,
scorp123

Unix is very easy to learn, difficult to master. As to people who claim to know everything about Unix, they're full of crap. I've been working with it for 15 years and the more I learn the more I realize I know diddly about it. When you do work with people who are Unix Deities they say the same. I work with a number of developers who are legitimate geniuses and have pieces of their code in Unix since Bell Labs, same thing.

I'd call your bluff anytime if you claimed to know everything or even close to everything about Unix. You know what a Door file is?

Cheers

[scorp123]

Unix is very easy to learn, difficult to master. As to people who claim to know everything about Unix, they're full of crap. I've been working with it for 15 years and the more I learn the more I realize I know diddly about it. When you do work with people who are Unix Deities they say the same. I work with a number of developers who are legitimate geniuses and have pieces of their code in Unix since Bell Labs, same thing.

I'd call your bluff anytime if you claimed to know everything or even close to everything about Unix. You know what a Door file is?

OK, now I get what you mean. Fully agree with that

[marcus0263]

Unix is very easy to learn, difficult to master. As to people who claim to know everything about Unix, they're full of crap. I've been working with it for 15 years and the more I learn the more I realize I know diddly about it. When you do work with people who are Unix Deities they say the same. I work with a number of developers who are legitimate geniuses and have pieces of their code in Unix since Bell Labs, same thing.

I'd call your bluff anytime if you claimed to know everything or even close to everything about Unix. You know what a Door file is?

OK, now I get what you mean. Fully agree with that

Cheers

[scorp123]

OK, now I get what you mean. Fully agree with that

Cheers

As for doors .... I suppose you're talking about Sun and their rather obscure IPC implementation they came up with in Solaris 2.5 or 2.6 ... I don't remember which one it was precisely. I don't think I've ever seen anyone do something useful with this "doors" stuff anyway

[marcus0263]

OK, now I get what you mean. Fully agree with that

Cheers

As for doors .... I suppose you're talking about Sun and their rather obscure IPC implementation they came up with in Solaris 2.5 or 2.6 ... I don't remember which one it was precisely. I don't think I've ever seen anyone do something useful with this "doors" stuff anyway

Google is a wonderful thing isn't it

[scorp123]

Google is a wonderful thing isn't it

As a matter of fact, I did hear the term "doors" before ... but that was ages ago. And when you asked about this I thought "confused, where did I hear that before .. ???" And I didn't google, I used Wikipedia Hey, but at least I'm honest here. So when I saw that this was about "Slowlaris" it all came back to my mind. I haven't had the joy of using Solaris since October 2000 ... when I last changed by job. My employer back then was a total Sun shop, totally "SUN everything". But my current employer (Oct. 2000 until now) is totally "anti-SUN" ... we're more or less a HP-UX and Linux shop here. And HP-UX ... oh well, you install it once and then you don't touch it for the next or so decade It's way too ugly. Rock-solid, yes. But ugly as hell from a user experience point of view ...

And I really don't remember ever having seen the concept of doors outside of Solaris. Even in Solaris it's just used for nscd and some other rather obscure stuff .. at least the man pages don't really give lots of info as far as I remember. As I said, I haven't messed around with Solaris for ages.

You don't really use that doors stuff in every-day apps or something like that, right? Chances are you probably googled this stuff too, right?

[marcus0263]

As a matter of fact, I did hear the term "doors" before ... but that was ages ago. And when you asked about this I thought "confused, where did I hear that before .. ???" And I didn't google, I used Wikipedia Hey, but at least I'm honest here.

So when I saw that this was about "Slowlaris"

Nowthing more than perspective and role, nothing beats Sun when it comes down to threads, not to mention hot swappable CPU's

You may want to also check out dtrace and ZFS

it all came back to my mind. I haven't had the joy of using Solaris since October 2000 ... when I last changed by job. My employer back then was a total Sun shop, totally "SUN everything". But my current employer (Oct. 2000 until now) is totally "anti-SUN" ... we're more or less a HP-UX and Linux shop here. And HP-UX ... oh well, you install it once and then you don't touch it for the next or so decade

Like I said above it comes down to the role, you don't swat a fly with a sledge hammer you know

It's way too ugly. Rock-solid, yes. But ugly as hell from a user experience point of view ...

Totally different worlds here

And I really don't remember ever having seen the concept of doors outside of Solaris. Even in Solaris it's just used for nscd and some other rather obscure stuff .. at least the man pages don't really give lots of info as far as I remember. As I said, I haven't messed around with Solaris for ages.

You don't really use that doors stuff in every-day apps or something like that, right? Chances are you probably googled this stuff too, right?

If I did google for it where did I even come up with the concept?

[scorp123]

Nowthing more than perspective and role, nothing beats Sun when it comes down to threads, not to mention hot swappable CPU's. You may want to also check out dtrace and ZFS

Yeah, heard about those things from others who still use Sun machines ...

If I did google for it where did I even come up with the concept?

Unix Geek 101? Just kidding

[marcus0263]

Yeah, heard about those things from others who still use Sun machines ...

Yeah like Banks, Government, Investment house's and others that rely on 0 downtime and computing power

[scorp123]

Yeah like Banks, Government, Investment house's

Nope, I was talking about colleagues, former coworkers and other friends of mine who are still working for SUN-shops. But as I said, SUN is a big "NO" where I work. Oh well, those SuperDomes are nice too ...

[scorp123]

JIf OS X or Linux was installed on 90% of the worlds desktop PC's, the virus and spyware writers would concentrate their efforts on these OS's and maybe these would then be suffering just as many attacks?

Sorry ... but this is nonsense!!

1.) Lack of needed security holes in UNIX-like OS

First of all, there simply are none of the security holes that Windows has. Don't get me wrong: There are security holes in Linux (DUH! it was written by us flawed and imperfect humans! Obviously it cannot be perfect in this case!) but it still takes human intelligence to exploit them. No script-kiddie can download a "virus construction kit" as for Windows, click click click with the mouse and voila, we have the next stupid VBScript virus that auto-propagates from system to system and brings the Internet to a crawl .... Nope! Simply not possible.

There was a time where UNIX-like OS had all the viruses ... I shall just mention the Morris Worm, probably the first-ever Internet worm that spread from mail system to mail system ... But that was almost 20 years ago!!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morris_worm

And believe me: In the UNIX world people learn their lessons from security fiascos. The Morris worm simply wouldn't work today anymore, as most of the mechanisms it relied upon (finger, rsh, unencrypted passwords ...) are simply not used anymore ... people ditched that stuff out of UNIX because of that worm and replaced everything with more secure defaults.

And Microsoft?? They still use some of the same brain-dead mechanisms in XP and now in Vista that is causing computers to get infected again and again. NetBIOS, SMB and some other very antique network protocols that were exploited and abused time and time again. Did they ditch that BS? Nope, with XP Service Pack 2 they came up with that joke of a firewall which wouldn't even be necessary if they wouldn't be so stupid and run those unwanted services in the first place!! (BTW --- That's at the same time the very reason why you can have Ubuntu and/or Mint and other Linux distros running and why you most of the time don't need a firewall: you ain't running any services ... so there is nothing that would need to be protected. Simple logic )


2.) Linux and its UNIX-ish brethren ARE an interesting target

Need an example?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNS_Backbone_DDoS_Attacks

UNIX-like operating systems run most of the web servers, most if not all of the mail transfer agent servers (MTA = those servers which transfer zillions of mails between the various domains! The sheer workload would make any Windows machine to crumble!)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mail_transfer_agent

And they last but not least run most of the DNS servers, particularly: The root DNS servers. No root DNS = No Internet at all.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Root_nameserver

You basically said "If Linux were more popular maybe virus authors would concentrate their efforts more on this OS" ... Linux is popular! Especially in the server rooms. And all those idiots and cyber-vandals are trying hard every day to cause mayhem. And guess what? Nothing has happened so far. I agree, here and there a web site gets broken into and defaced, but that's mickey mouse BS compared to the virus floods you get on Windows.

You assume just because you haven't seen Linux on 90% of the desktops that it is less exposed to all those cyber-threats? You are so wrong. Linux (and other UNIX-like OS such as the various BSD variants) are enjoying an extreme popularity amongst us admin folks. We are running your web servers on those OS, we are running your business databases on it, we are running your e-shops on it (Amazon!), we are running your mail servers on it (the MTA's ... the servers that really deliver the mails to their destinations ... not that MS Exchange mickey mouse $hit that people love to use because they can sync their stupid calendars!), we are running your telecom billing applications on it .... you are surrounded by UNIX-like OS (and probably have been all your life) and you just didn't realise it yet.

Again: Why are so many viruses written for Windows? Because people can get those stupid programs to work there!

My theory --- to counter your's:
Even if Windows were only installed on 10% of all desktops you'd still suffer from virus and spyware floods again and again. Simply because viruses can be made to work on Windows;

Good luck with that on Linux or on FreeBSD or any other UNIX-like OS for that matter. People would have released viruses long ago if they could have done it. Just all those businesses who are betting the house and the farm and everything on UNIX-like servers would have been an interesting target for such people.

Regards,
scorp123