Linux What is this Linux thing?

Here is some good news: http://arstechnica.com/information-...x-course-will-be-free-and-online-this-summer/

You can never know enough fundamentals. I'm always guilty of jumping in to deep.

 

Wow, Amazing Guide wit index about Linux. That's very useful for beginners. keep sharing it up.

 

Is Ubuntu easy to pick up (yet)?

Every few years I try Ubuntu and end up having to fight it to get something to work "as it should". It looks good and is snappy, but I don't have time to tinker with everything just to get it to work!

I have been spoilt by windows for too long...

 

I installed Ubuntu on a new build machine a few days ago and the wifi doesn't work, and I haven't even really finished commissioning it yet.

So basically: same old same old.

 

It depends on what you are installing to. Laptops generally require some level of work. Desktops generally work without issue. Virtual machines work quite well.

 

Short answer, yes. Long answer, almost, but not quite there.

In my experience Ubuntu (I run Mint which is based on Ubuntu) detects most hardware on all the systems I've run it on fine. The only real exceptions have tended to be things like printers.

Accessing the internet is usually fairly similar across different platforms if you're used to Chrome or Firefox.

 

I had the same problem. Ubuntu doesn't work out of the box. In this regard, linux mint is flipping awesome. Comes preloaded with all the apps you need and is stable as f***. Been using it for the past 3 years on an old celeron M laptop and recently on my main gaming desktop. Even finished half life 2 on it and it worked flawlessly!

 

It can take some getting use to.

 

Really enjoying linux at the moment. Planning on taking the Comptia Linux+ course. Not sure why... just felt like it. Not really useful to my job. About 3/4 of the way through the official cert guide and have some CBTnuggets videos also.

Some of the recent awesome linux things is I now have freeradius using googleauthenticator and ldap, so I have user accounts set up nicely and anything accessible from the outside world has 2 factor authentication.

 

Try http://www.cybrary.it for completely free e-learning on linux+ and the other Comptia courses. I found it really good so far for other courses.

 

Thanks. Top tip.

 

I've been running Lubuntu on a 7 year old laptop (Acer Aspire) for several months. Setup and installed just fine, detected all hardware and running like a dream.

Ubuntu on a more recent Dell laptop, c2014, again, detected all hardware and running flawlessly. I ended up buying a £17 30GB SSD from eBay and reinstalling, now boots in seconds (UEFI + SSD + Linux = WIN) and I get Chrome, file management, Libre Office etc running splendidly.

And for all low-power Linux dudes out there, get OOLITE. It's an open source remake of Elite and totally rocks

 

SSDs are the best things that have happened to computers in decades.

 

Count me in on Linux, first time installing it over the weekend,

I got a dedicated laptop and downloaded Ubuntu, like the above poster found no Wi-Fi so was then preparing to roll my sleeves up but from google search found that Ubuntu actually package up ISO for your laptop so if you have a fairly common dell laptop, they will have an ISO for you.

Got 12 on to the laptop did the upgrades to bounce it up to 14, then found the actual latest version is 16.04 but that, that does not come live in the built in updater until its out for a while, there is a term for it. Any one issuing the following command from the terminal forces or makes the invisable option of the "upgrade 14 to 16" happen and it gives option to download.

sudo update-manager -d


What I am doing is just every time I hit some thing I don't know I am google it, like this sudo for example after this post Ill go read that.

 

Linux commands are weird, but they make sense at the same time. Sudo - means super user do. Which basically means do this as an admin. By default you don't run with admin privleges, you only elevate yourself to that status when required. Which generally you don't need to do unless you are installing software or editing config files or something like that.

 

Speaking of privileges and users, and forgive me for not quiet understanding all the stuff I've read online about the subject but as I'm going to switch to Linux in the next few months from Windows, can anyone put it in simple terms why it's such a bad idea to be the superuser.

I've used Windows as a daily driver for years and always used the Admin account, rightly or wrongly it was because I'm an incessant tinkerer and Windows telling me i couldn't do something was annoying, added to that was having what were in effect two admin accounts seemed pointless as if Windows got FUBAR reinstalling was often easier than trying to mend things.

I guess the question is why would i be better of having two accounts with the same privileges on Linux, if i recompile the kernel and end up with an unbootable system, if i remove a package that breaks things, if i change a config does having a second superuser account help in anyway?

 

The idea is that you authorize system changes with your password. So you don't accidently do damage and code can't run by itself that will do damage unless you authorise it.

It's basically like UAC on windows but more stringent. Once you settle into a system youre not constantly sudoing this and that to get things done. You mainly log in, authorize updates and installation of software and that's it. Once your system is up and running you have access to everything you needed for daily computing activities which usually doesn't involve modifying the system.

 

The more you know.

When I added myself to the Sudoers list on CentOS did I not make myself a super user?

 

And if you need to run multiple commands in row, instead of prepending each and every with sudo, you can just get a root shell via :

Code:

sudo -s