From LQWiki

This article is an introduction to Linux. If you are already familiar with Windows, you can read migrating to Linux from Windows instead.

Contents 1 Getting Help 2 Guided lessons 2.1 Choose a Linux Distribution 2.2 Install Linux 2.3 Open a console 2.4 Install Software 3 Lessons in no particular order 4 Tips 5 Applications 6 Commands 6.1 Hard drives 6.2 NetWorking 7 See also

Getting Help

You learn a lot when reading and writing into forums like http://www.linuxquestions.org. You can also ask questions and give answers in a chat. e.g. if you have a question regarding KDE, point your xchat to irc.kde.org, port 6667, channel #kde and start asking. If you have a question regarding Suse, just join channel #suse and so on.

Guided lessons

As a beginner you might want to experience how to…

Choose a Linux Distribution

Main article: Choosing a Linux distribution

It is a good idea to use the distribution your guru next door uses, or, if you do not have a personal guru, start with a wide-spread distro like SUSE, Ubuntu or Fedora. You can just click on SUSE or another link here to find out where to get it.

Install Linux

Main article: Linux installation

You can install Linux for dual-boot so that you can choose between Linux and another operating system when you start your computer. Or you can install Linux into a VMware virtual machine, or another virtual machine like Virtualbox. In this case, you can have two operating systems running at the same time. Anyway, installing Linux is basically following the install screens and answering the questions that are asked there.

Open a console

Main article: open a console

You need to open a console to give commands to your Linux system. These commands will be interpreted by a Shell. When you open a console, you will be presented with a shell prompt typically giving your computer's hostname (in this case it is tweedleburg) like this:

tweedleburg:~ #

This means you can start typing commands.

There are several ways to open a console. Depending on your Desktop environment, installed software and distribution, one or more of the following procedures might work for you:

• press ALT_F2, type "xterm", then ENTER. This works for most distributions.
• press ALT_F2, type "konsole", then ENTER. konsole is very user-friendly. This will work if KDE is installed.

Now that you have opened a console, you can try your first command, so enter

ls

and you get a listing of files in your directory, about like this:

tweedleburg:~ # ls
a.out  dom  index.txt  main.cpp  structureparser.cpp  structureparser.h  structureparser.h.gch

Great - now you are ready to read and understand the article about installing software.

Install Software

Main article: Installing Software

As opposed to other operating systems, the easiest way to install software is not to download an installer from the web. Instead, you should use the system management tools from your distribution to do this. So, find out your distro and install the software by its installation measures. E.g. to install firefox in SUSE Linux, you use

yast -i firefox

You can find a complete listing for all distributions at installing software.

Lessons in no particular order

Main article: HowTos

• Pack and unpack files
• Surf the web
• Burn a CDROM
• Scan
• Print
• Do Office tasks - word processing, spreadsheet, presentation, image manipulation and other
• Get help with Networking
• Make backups
• Play Games
• Do Multimedia tasks: listen to music and watch videos
  • Use Digital Cameras and Linux
  • Use Camcorders and Linux
  • Use Webcams and Linux
  • watch TV
• Talk to friends online - how to access common instant messaging networks, see also IM.

Tips

Main article: Tips

Tips are clever solutions to questions that may not even have come to your mind. Here are some examples:

• KDE specific tips
• Distribution-specific tips & tricks
• Programming tips & tricks
• one-klik-installs
• Passwordless logins

Applications

Main article: Applications

• firefox for browsing the web
• mplayer for playing multimedia files
• openOffice for creating texts, spreadsheets and presentations
• kmail for reading and writing mails

Commands

Main article: commands

• ls : show a directory listing
• df -h : show how much disk space is left
• du -csh myfolder : show how much space is in use by the folder myfolder
• cd : change directory
• cp -r : copy a file
• rm -r : delete a file
• mkdir : make a directory
• chmod : change the file permissions
• pwd : show current working directory
• whoami : show your user name
• hostname : show your host's name
• uptime : show the uptime of your host
• top : show the top CPU consuming processes

Hard drives

Main article: hard drive commands

• hwinfo --storage-ctrl :discover your hard disk controller
• hwinfo --block :discover what disks you have
• hwinfo --partition :discover what partitions you have
• fdisk :divide your disk devices into partitions     (USE WITH CAUTION!!)

NetWorking

Main article: Network commands

• hwinfo --netcard :find out your NIC's type and abilities
• ethtool :find out if a cable has been plugged in (link detection)
• ping :find out if a computer is reachable
• ifconfig :set your IP-address
• route :set your default gateway
• nmap :find out about ports information on a computer

See also

• A useable example desktop
• Linux Newbie FAQ