My first day with Ubuntu.

[StealthArcher]

At least, the first day where dual-booting is working.

Anything to read, know etc.?

[wtd]

Apt, via Synaptic or otherwise, is your friend.

[btiffin]

What level of Unix are you at?

There are reams and reams of things to read up on (overwhelming, no one can get through all of it, well maybe our hero, wtd, prolific jealousy inducing git that he is).

Very dependant on where you are and where you want to go. Just getting to grips with the kernel docs can run you years of reading.

I found Kernighan and Pike's the Unix Programming Environment an awesome read, back in the day. Beautiful companion to the Kernighan and Ritchie C book.

For near freebies, visit a refurb store and pick up an older Ubuntu 900+ pager. Should run you around 5 bucks for a version 6 release. If you need bleeding edge, you can always drop 50 or more on the most recent, but I'd try a library copy of a previous release just to see if you like that kind of book.

Googling the web will offer up a plethora of draft and freebie PDF's, and if what I've read (I run Debian) is true, "The Official Ubuntu Book" should be on your distro CD/DVD.

And get used to humming What a Wonderful World by Louis Armstrong as you learn to forget all about non-transparent panes of glass.

Cheers

[StealthArcher]

btiffin @ Wed Aug 13, 2008 9:08 pm wrote:

What level of Unix are you at?


Cheers

absolute beginner.

[wtd]

Open a terminal. Learn about cd and ls.

Type "man cd" and "man ls" to read the documentation.

Usethese commands to explore the filesystem.

[OneOffDriveByPoster]

btiffin @ Wed Aug 13, 2008 10:08 pm wrote:

as you learn to forget all about non-transparent panes of glass.

Which question should I ask:
Windows are non-transparent?
or
Windows is non-transparent?

[apomb]

OneOffDriveByPoster @ Thu Aug 14, 2008 7:58 am wrote:

btiffin @ Wed Aug 13, 2008 10:08 pm wrote:

as you learn to forget all about non-transparent panes of glass.

Which question should I ask:
Windows are non-transparent?
or
Windows is non-transparent?

I think you mean non-opaque ...

and always remember you have a whole community to gather knowledge from as well.

[DemonWasp]

The man pages are probably your best bet to learn some basic command-line competence. Use "man man" to learn more about using the man (manual) tool.

Also useful in browsing directories:
- pwd (displays current location's path)
- piping to and from files. You won't find it in the man pages, but if you do something like "command > out.txt", then the output of that command will be written to out.txt rather than the console. This can be useful as a beginner if you have a lot of entries in the directory and it would be easier to view them in a text editor (vim, gedit, etc).

[Zeroth]

I find myself doing a lot of <command> | less which puts all the info into a scrollable screen I can read at my leisure.

Okay so:
http://www.killertechtips.com/2008/04/26/five-softwares-to-install-in-ubuntu-804-hardy-heron-recommendation/
http://albertomilone.com/nvidia_scripts1.html <--- Best software ever for installing graphics drivers. Doing it any other way results in instability and unpredictability.
http://www.futuredesktop.org/
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=202537 <--- This is essential if you have a 64 bit system. It gets Flash, Java, and a 32 bit browser working properly.

That should help ya,

[DemonWasp]

@Zeroth: Erm...I didn't have any trouble using the restricted drivers manager. Like, none at all. And I'm 100% certain that 3d acceleration is working on that machine. It used to be a huge mess, but it's pretty trivial now - in fact, it took less time than installing it on Windows did.

[Zeroth]

I'm just saying, it was a problem I ran into, and if you do so as well, there is a solution. Yes, the Restricted Driver Manager works great, but its the instability of random crashes and shutdowns that makes it not reccommended for use, at least with my comps. It was a week before I had any crashes or problems.

[btiffin]

apomb @ Thu Aug 14, 2008 8:20 am wrote:

OneOffDriveByPoster @ Thu Aug 14, 2008 7:58 am wrote:

btiffin @ Wed Aug 13, 2008 10:08 pm wrote:

as you learn to forget all about non-transparent panes of glass.

Which question should I ask:
Windows are non-transparent?
or
Windows is non-transparent?

I think you mean non-opaque ...

and always remember you have a whole community to gather knowledge from as well.

<Rant>
That poor joke was just to highlight; what you can learn about Windows, you get fed by Microsoft. What you can learn from GNU/Linux is EVERYTHING. From boot to desktop and beyond. All the magic of running personal (and professional) computers and the world network is at your disposal. Windows on the other hand is non-transparent; you are treated as a simpleton user and if you don't like what you see, too bad. What they take, along with your money, is your right to know, to change what you don't like or to help your neighbour.

Luckily for us, people like Torvalds, Murdock, Stallman and Shuttleworth don't care for that and have produced transparent systems that allow technically minded souls to strive to better the lot of all of humanity and not simply work towards the betterment of a single, power hungry, corporation.
</Rant>
Cheers

[btiffin]

StealthArcher; One thing.

You may soon be faced with a choice between vi and emacs for the stock and trade Unix developer console text editors. Choose wisely. Or, should I say, choose visely.

emacs is for 8 legged freeks. Really. Emacs is a gateway editor. It can lead to lisp programming. Eewww.

Just kidding. Best to know a little of both, but far better to master at least one and that takes time, practise and experience. Some say, including Eric Raymond, that vi is best for small jobs and emacs is an editor you can "live in". I disagree, but it becomes a great argumentative choice that you can taunt other coders in useless and contentious debate with. And this one has the benefit of having a near 50/50 split amongst us older folk.

And quite frankly, if you use KDE as a desktop environment, KATE is a wonderful tool. GNU/Linux developers are now spoilt for choice with great and productive editors along with many other tools in any and all of the GUI frontends.

I guess I'm rambling on, as I find it best to make a choice, stick with it, and try to build up that ever elusive "expertise". I choose vi some 25 years ago and still discover features that add to the pleasantries of a day (and have always looked like a flailing clown while typing - not the editors fault.).

Cheers

[PaulButler]

Well, _real_ programmers use ed.

[rizzix]

I'm glad I'm not a _real_ programmer.