[lug] New to the group

[Jason Barnes]

Thank you Maxwell, David, and Glenn,

The information you gave me helped me know where to get started. I have a laptop that I do not use a   whole lot so I would be able to put Linux on there to play around with and get to know.

When it comes to the distro's of Linux I know Glenn suggested Debian as a good one but is it newbie friendly? Is there one that would be good for starting with, or is it one of those situations of preference?

Also when it comes to learning a language would C# even be a good choice or should I stick with C++?

Thankyou all for your help it has really given me a great jumping off point. 

Sincerely 
Jason Barnes


________________________________
 From: Glenn English <ghe at slsware.com>
To: Boulder (Colorado) Linux Users Group -- General Mailing List <lug at lug.boulder.co.us> 
Sent: Sunday, August 18, 2013 1:14 AM
Subject: Re: [lug] New to the group
 


On Aug 17, 2013, at 9:50 PM, Maxwell Spangler wrote:

> On Sat, 2013-08-17 at 14:57 -0700, Jason Barnes wrote:

>> If anyone has any suggestions on a good place to learn more about Linux and how to use it better I am open to suggestions.
> 
> The best thing to do is get a (presumably) second computer, put Linux on it and FORCE yourself to use it as much as possible.
> 
> If you do so, and ask concisely and clearly on lists like this you'll often be rewarded with an overwhelming amount of ideas and opinions to help you.

And there's always Evi and her bud's book on *nix:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0131480057?ie=UTF8&tag=wwwadmincom&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0131480057 

And O'Reilly's got some good explanations and suggestions. I second the second computer suggestion -- on a 'toy' computer, you can make mistakes on a server that'd take down a network, then just re-install from backup, and you're on the air again...

Since you're going into computer security, it might be a good idea to just cut the Windows umbilical completely -- the 'Net was and is largely *nix based, and Linux is a much better sport (than OS X, too) about futzing with things and writing new software. My experience, anyway.

Far be it from me to start a flame war, but DebianStable is a reasonable distro. It's fairly simple to get going, it works good, and Debian has a good attitude (wonderful packaging system; and serious about OSS, but they keep some non-free stuff in their mirrors too).

You've made a good choice, looking into Linux; it's a better platform for getting bits under your fingernails (my dentist and cardiologist couldn't exist without Windows XP, though). You'll be an ever so much happier computer geek :-)

-- 
Glenn English
Disclaimer: Any disclaimer attached to this message may be ignored.




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