Linux newbie

[Dogbert]

Ok, I'm getting a new computer soon (XP1800, 1GB RAM, ASUS A7V333) and I want to install Linux on a spare HDD.

I want to try Gentoo (yeah, jumping straight to the deep water) so I could actually learn something while doing it (unlike Mandrake install). I already ordered the Gentoo 1.2 CD and I have a (not too stable) ADSL pptp connection.

My knowledge of xNIX is close to NULL, I know M$ shit, VAX/VMS and BeOS.

Do I stand a chance ???

[Marshmallowman]

you should do ok.

Its good to have another computer which is connected to the internet so you haved a good reference if things do go wrong.

A cool way to learn, is to leap in and do a fully customised install straight away...it usually won't work, so you may have to reformat and do a standard convential install afterwards, but you have learnt what's possible, and what areas might be worth following up later.

But if it works, you will be an instant guru
(well in your own mind anyway)

thats the thing about most linux installs, you can really go to town customiseing. Same distro is good for a little 486 router or a "n" athlon beowulf cluster....have fun

[TnT]

You can do an expert install with Mandrake. That's what I'm using, but in my newbie opinion one good thing about doing the helper install is that you can get some defaults up and then go through and change them yourself when you know what exactly it is asking/doing. It seems more helpful to me this way.

[dmason]

I would say that you stand a fighting chance, just follow the guides, and if you have any problems forums.gentoo.org is a great source for finding solutions. With compiling the kernel and such, it makes good use of make menuconfig which very straightforward process, and has help for most of the features, so that if you aren't sure as to what is going on, it will tell you. I would also listen to marshmellow man's advice, and keep another computer on the internet while you install it, I was lucky and have a unix box I can ssh to and use lynx to search for solutions. I would say in short, listen to the guides, it would probably be best to have a hard copy of them on, perhaps learn some commands from linux.org's tutorials, although this isn't needed fully needed to set it up if all goes well, but just in case. The man pages are also a good reference as to what a command will do, here are the man pages. This will show what the commands are, and a lot of other info about a linux system. I hope that this will help you. Basically my experience before using this distro is about 3 months of using redhat, and just experimenting with it to get it to work, and I have learned a lot about how linux works just in the time I installed it.