> Yes, I'm clueless about linux basics. I'm three days into my installation > of linux and have never seen it nor any unix operating system before now. > I've been using pc's since they came out (70's onward). The funny thing is, > I'm a pc tech support person working for a multi-billion fortune 200 > company and I assumed that linux would work as many other computer systems > work, i.e. with drive assignments. (Cocky Translation: 'If it's on a pc I > can figure it out'. I've been humbled...)
Don't freak out or give up. It's not so bad once you get used to it. I recommend picking up a guide to UNIX for DOS users (there are many of them out there; "UNIX in Plain English" is an example of one book which helps the DOS-to-UNIX transition.) Check out www.linux-howto.com as well. And buy O'Reilly's "Linux in a Nutshell"; you will find it to be very useful in time. (There's nothing in it that isn't in the manpages, but it's nice to have paper docs sometimes.) > I know dos and windows and thousands of applications extremely well. I > don't know linux other than what shows up when I type 'help' and what i've > gleaned by perusing the linux newsgroups and linux web pages. Lots of stuff > there that doesn't apply to navigating or altering kernels. You're familiar with the "man" command, I hope. If not, type "man man" in Linux. You will find "man" to be your best friend when you start out. And "man -k keyword" can be used to search the online manual for any keywords. > For now I can only associate what I know of other operating systems with > linux. I've read a ton of sites, and none that I've come across so far are > written well enough to go from install to expert. They waste a lot of > words and tell very little about navigating about linux and very little > about controlling linux kernels. They all assume that since I already > installed linux I must know how to use linux. I think I just got lucky > installing debian -- others say it's a challenging installation and it's > running on my pc... sort of :) Yes, Linux needs better documentation, and Debian is tougher to install than Red Hat or the other common distros. Pick up a good UNIX-to-DOS book, as mentioned, and it should get you started. - Bill