How to learn Linux – Part I — Linux Users Group Manipal

This is probably the toughest question which I have ever faced in my life. Linux isn’t a programming language or networks paper where you have tabulated contents or a language specification. Its something more than that. Sounds Weird? Isn’t it?

To learn Linux you don’t need pen-copy and other stationary at your disposal. Just a cool mind, bubbling with confidence. Get a cup of coffee, sit back and relax. The plane is about to take off!

Learning Linux isn’t getting some specifications. Its a complete Operating system, which has user friendly GUI and has some great OS concepts for the geeks. The former part is not a big deal as its similar to learning windows, the latter part needs to be covered.

Before getting started please read these two FAQ: FAQ 1 and FAQ 2

1) Get to know about the other distros: Do you know any other distros apart from the distro you are using? Say if you are using Ubuntu, do you know about other famous and friendly distros which are making as much news? Other great distros include Fedora, OpenSuse, PCLinuxOS and some examples of geeky ones are Gentoo, Slackware. Leave these geeky ones if your taste doesn’t match. Be a n00b till you feel free to break out to the wider world.

2) Know about the history of the distro you are using: It may look foolish! What do I have to do with older versions? This is a nice way to know about the trend which your distro is following. What are the features they expect to include in their future releases. What mindset these distros follow while releasing their new versions. What is the release cycle of your distro? What is the next release date? Isn’t it useful? Think twice!

3) Learn about the different desktop Environment: There are many desktop environments available out there which include GNOME,KDE, XFCE. What are their features? What are the specialties? What are their requirements? Which one is lighter, which one heavy? I have hundreds of question to ask, you might be having much more!

4) What is a Kernel: Quite basic but a big geeky question! I have heard people looking at each other’s face when this question is asked and then they look at me. In Layman’s language, we can explain it as a heart of OS. Compare it with engine of a car, where kernel is engine, gasoline is external power, mouse as driving wheel. Oh wait! My explanation is becoming too dumb! There is not just Linux kernel available, search for GNU Hurd and many more kernels available, out of which Linux is most popular. Hey did I mention that Linux is just a kernel, the whole OS is called a “Linux based distro” or simply GNU/Linux.

5) Linux File System: You should learn about the filesystem tree of Linux, how different partitions are mounted/accessed. Did you know that each device connected to the computer is represented by a file, each disk, partition are also represented by a file. These are called special files. Even directories are files, they are infact a file which point to an array of files. Where are all the configuration files stored? Its in /etc. Where are partitions mounted to be accessed (Ans: /media). Where are all the installed software’s executables go? (Ans: /usr) Where are all the device files stored? (Ans: /dev)

6) Permissions: This is one of the biggest hurdles for a newbie coming from windows world. According to him, this one is the most annoying feature at the beginning until he/she learns why is it actually needed. It contributes a lot to the security enjoyed by Linux boxes. You can make a file read-only for others, writable for the whole world or give the write permissions to some limited people by forming a group. Fine tune your policies as you like, nobody gonna stop you anytime.

7) Root User: If God who holds unchallenged powers exists, then why cant we apply the natural law to this beautiful OS too? There can be many users whose powers are at par with root user,but never equal! Heard about sudo? It’s used by non-root users.This is a keyword to be prefixed before those commands which require root access like installation,network configuration. For this the user must be in sudoers list (by default most users are in this list)

8 ) The different Applications for Linux: Who says that there are shortage for applications/softwares for Linux. Bring him to me, rest I will take care Coming to the point, I can say that there are thousands and lakhs of softwares available all of which are in the repositories. Now what is repositories? Hope you have already checked out the FAQ’s Link given at the start of this article. You don’t need to hunt them down and install, just an apt-get or yum is self sufficient.

9) Package Management: This is one topic which I would speak less and ask you to work on more. This is one of those topics which had unlimited theories and similar crap to waste time by writing in the blog. Trying it out hands on would be the best way of learning. Basically there are two types of Package Managers, Debain based which uses APT and Red Hat based which uses YUM. Both are good and provides you alternatives in case you arn’t satisfied with one. I think I have said enough of package management. A Linux software doesn’t come packages as one single exe file. Many different packages constitute an application. Don’t worry about which all packages you need to download, this is the place where package manager comes into play. It resolves all dependencies which are required for installing some simplest to complex software. For more knowledge Click Here

These topics are just pointers for “How to Start? Where to start from?”. It isn’t a complete reference, remember “Google is your Friend”

Wait for another blog post, you would be able to gulp down the second one only if you read this and did tried out yourself most of the things.

Have Fun Mates!