What shall I do next?

[bk22102012]

It's been 2 weeks (sort of) since I intsalled Mint 13 Cinnamon. I learnt few basic (and fundamental imho) commands such as:
- File/directory operations: cd, pwd, ls, cp, mv, rm, mkdir, rmdir
- Info or manual about command: man, apropos, info, file
- Searching/filtering: find, locate, which, whereis, cat, grep
- Disk: fdisk, du, df, mount, umount, blkid
- User/group permission: useradd, groupaddd, userdel, groupdel, chmod, chown, newgrp, id
- I/O: simple piping and redirection
- Process: ps, kill

Modify few important file system:
/etc/fstab
~/.bashrc

Bash scripting: echo, read, if-then, while, case, getopt, file and directory check (e.g. [ -d "$file" ] ), piping command output as variable value
Environment variables: $USER, $PATH, $MANPATH, $USER, $TERM
Development: gcc (basic), gdb (basic), make (basic)

I am also familiar with following programming languages: C, C++, Java

So, where do I go from here? I know there are many things I haven't learn yet. Thank you.

[widget]

It's been 2 weeks (sort of) since I intsalled Mint 13 Cinnamon. I learnt few basic (and fundamental imho) commands such as:
- File/directory operations: cd, pwd, ls, cp, mv, rm, mkdir, rmdir
- Info or manual about command: man, apropos, info, file
- Searching/filtering: find, locate, which, whereis, cat, grep
- Disk: fdisk, du, df, mount, umount, blkid
- User/group permission: useradd, groupaddd, userdel, groupdel, chmod, chown, newgrp, id
- I/O: simple piping and redirection
- Process: ps, kill

Modify few important file system:
/etc/fstab
~/.bashrc

Bash scripting: echo, read, if-then, while, case, getopt, file and directory check (e.g. [ -d "$file" ] ), piping command output as variable value
Environment variables: $USER, $PATH, $MANPATH, $USER, $TERM
Development: gcc (basic), gdb (basic), make (basic)

I am also familiar with following programming languages: C, C++, Java

So, where do I go from here? I know there are many things I haven't learn yet. Thank you.

Not to sound like I am complaining but I think you maybe should start a separate thread for this question.

It would get better attention and will probably attract many answers that are not at all tips for noobs.

[Oscar799]

Split from another topic and moved here

[widget]

This is a very interseting question and probably impossible for anyone to really answer for you.

It would be easier to make suggestions with a little bit more information on what your experience is with Linux and what you mostly do on your box. Also what you want to do on your box.

Is LMDE the only install on your box?

If you have only used LMDE for 2 weeks and this is your first Linux experience I would say you are doing really well as it is.

I am a grumpy geezer that never fooled with a computer before I was in my 40s in the mid 90s. Was not Linux. Linux happened to me in late 08.

You have listed things I know of but that is the extent of my knowlege on them so this is good.

I would, from my perspective, suggest a serious study of package management. As you are using a Debian branch OS of Linux the study of APT in general and the commands for dpkg, apt-get and aptitude will serve you well. Amazing system that can work magic on a lot of problems.

I would suggest only using Linux. The idea of using MS, for instance, while using Linux is over rated.

You should have a backup OS incase something goes south on you. I suggest another install of Mint 13 Cinnamon. After installing it don't use your currrent system for learning experiences. Use the second one instead.

It does not need to be a large install. It should be, as should the one you have now, on 2 partitions. / and /home. This will save you a lot of grief in the long run. If you have 25 gig to spare go with a 10gB / and a 15gB /home. This will give you plenty of room to mess with your system and keep notes on what you are doing.

I suggest that based on my personal experience. Coming to linux was just a bit much for me.

Had pretty well mastered MSDos and then Windows and thought I knew a bit about computers. Then Linux happened to me. I joyfully found that I knew nothing at all but could do any thing I wanted to my new system.

This pretty much was break it several times the first week. Dual booting meant that this no longer happened. My wife and I had a stable usable system and I had a playground.

Great place to learn with out any worry about what happened as a result of my experimenting.

Two installs also gives you the chance to learn to chroot into anyother install. This is fun and useful, particularly if something breaks. You can go in and do things while still working from a functioning system where you have access to important things like forums, notes and, of coarse, tunes.

I am not sure but what you may want to, in the near future, stick with LMDE as your production OS but perhaps go to straight up Debian to play with. There is a lot of overlay in LMDE and it is not as convenient to experiment with different DEs on as Debian, particularly if Debian is installed with the netinstall disk which only gives you a kernel, file system and the entire package management system.

Basically it will boot to a black screen and you can log into it. After that it is up to you what you put on it. My installs generally are done that way. I boot to them and make sure the passwords work (Debian uses 2, one for user and one for root). Usually install something to make sure it works like "apt-listbugs" and reboot back to my main install and finish in chroot with the install of the rest of the system.

If you go with something like OpenBox you can put your scripting skills to work to run the thing and learn a lot about .xml files and their uses.

Now this is important so pay attention. Have FUN.

[steveking9174]

Personally if you have such coding experience the world is youroyster (or other words to that effect) I myself am an avid prgrammer, and as much as I like MATE and cinnamon and the options you get to cusomize there desktop envirnoments they seem very old school linux still. If you are good with both Java and C++ then surely you could always try building a desktop envirnoment that suits your perfect needs? There are many flavours of the mint pie that you can choose from, but one that is personnaly tailored to you and your needs is always the best case. It is of course quite a feat to build your own DE but if you know what your doing - why not

Unfortunately for me my experience is web based/server based. So languages that are C or C based escape me just a little.

I have dabbled in bash once or twice and made a pretty cool script to tidy up my directories when I feel the need to, but the good thng is that if you want to do it you can! as Linux supports most languages (i do say most) you can do alot.

It would be interesting to see what community projects could come about, there are alot of pretty smart people floating about in these forums all wanting something to do/work on to do with mint. I myself have thought of a number of things that would be cool to try. Have you checked out the mint community site? people can submit ideas and see what the general opinion of them are. then obviously if people like it you could try doing it yourself? or throw it to the forum see what help you can get to spread the work load?


stay minty

[homerscousin]

You have a pretty good background there. Do you really want a homework assignment? I'm running KDE. I want annimated wallpapers to work correctly. I've started on this project, but haven't eagerly pursued it. I have a very short video clip ( nature sceen with waterfall ) that loops endlessly and plays thru mplayer and is set to be used as a wallpaper. It works. It plays fullscreen. The problem, which I haven't investigated thoroughly, is the clip needs to run at the root level so all windows, taskbar, icons, conky etc appear above the clip, right now it doesn't.

If you are interested in a challenge of this sort, let me know. I'll share all the info I have gathered.