New user and questions

[Byron Sonne]

> Although being new to Linux, I have experience with M$ windows and Mac 
> OS. Unfortunately no experience with any UNIX-related OSes.

If you've been exposed to NT or 2000, more specifically as a server, 
you'll find some of the concepts, if not alot, translate fairly well at 
a high level. Things called 'services' in NT can be considered 'daemons' 
in unix, the separate drive letters presented in windows are akin to 
'mount points' in unix, that kind of thing. Within reason, of course.

Mailing lists such as this are definitely one of your best resources, 
and google is (usually) always your friend. There is alot of good 
documentation out there, some of it obsolete, but a large amount of it 
quite good and geared for people starting out. Trust me, we want people 
to switch! Muahahaha... When I started out, I found 
http://www.linux.org/ quite handy too.

If you're serious about being an admin/'power user' there is *no* 
avoiding the command line interface, or the 'shell' as it is often 
referred to. Also, generally speaking, most programs have their own 
config files, and the OS has a bunch of them for itself too. You can 
tweak these by hand, but most distros can manage them all for you, and 
are usually set to do that by default. Some good articles here well 
worth reading: http://polylithic.net/cli/articles.html

May I ask if you've considered any particular linux distribution yet?

If you haven't, hold off for a while until you can get the opinions of 
more list members (I'll vouch for SuSE http://www.suse.com). Linux is 
just a kernel, but what you dress it up with can profoundly affect your 
personal experience. What configuration 'wizards', what desktop 
environment, software management, etc, can vary fairly widely between 
distributions. Most of all, use what feels best to you... or rather, 
make it feel the way you want. You can always roll your own!

Invest the time, it can be a very rewarding experience :)

Regards,
Byron


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