[LUGSB] Getting started with Linux

[Richard Yao]

Dear Justin,

She should install VMWare and learn how to use other operating systems
with that so that she minimize the risk of damaging something during
the learning process. With that said, is Linux really right for her?
There are plenty of other operating systems on which her mathematics
software should run without problems:

http://www.freebsd.org/
http://www.openbsd.org/
http://www.netbsd.org/
http://www.opensolaris.org/
http://www.openindiana.org/
http://www.illumos.org/
http://www.puredarwin.org/

With that said, there are a few ways that she can go with Linux,
depending on how much she is willing to learn. The most educational
route is Linux From Scratch:

http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/

She probably should not start with that. It would be much easier to
use Gentoo Linux, which is like Linux From Scratch, but adds a package
manager:

http://www.gentoo.org/

However, Gentoo Linux tends to be difficult for non-technical people
to access, so she might want to consider Sabayon Linux before trying
Gentoo Linux, which is a Gentoo Linux derivative that provides an
installer, a GUI environment, binary packages and makes management of
the boot loader and kernel the responsibility of its package manager:

http://www.sabayon.org/

Sabayon has fairly large usage and a fairly technical community that
could help with issues, especially on IRC on freenode. I am not sure
if things could become much easier for her, but there are other
distribution families that she could consider. Most of them are older
than Gentoo, so they lack the innovations made by Gentoo Linux, but
among the easier ones for new users are:

http://www.opensuse.org/
http://www.linuxmint.com/
http://www.fedoraproject.org/

I think those are the most suitable distributions for beginners (aside
from Sabayon) from each of the major families (aside from Gentoo).

If she decides to use a different UNIX clone and finds them to be too
technical, then I suggest she consider PC-BSD:

http://www.pcbsd.org/

Be sure that she is mentally prepared to use an OS that does things
fundamentally differently than Windows before she even attempts this.

With that said, this could very well be another one of these cases:

http://www.xkcd.com/456/

Yours truly,
Richard Yao

On Wed, Mar 23, 2011 at 12:53 AM, Justin Seyster <justin at seyster.org> wrote:
>    My girlfriend needs to get started with Linux because of a number of
> math packages that are not really available for Windows.  She's looking
> for some references, but I'm not really familiar with any beginner-level
> resources.
>    What do you guys think is the best way to learn Linux?  Are there
> any really standout websites or books for beginners?  What are the most
> important things for the average Linux user to learn?  I'd appreciate
> any thoughts everyone has.  Thanks!
>    Also, how did the Haskell talk go?  I wasn't able to make it,
> unfortunately.
>        --Justin
>
>
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