Thinking of upgrading to linux...

Over time I have always heard nothing but bad bad bad about windows and nothing but good good good about linux and mac. I know that this isn't by chance. They must really be better. So I researched them and now I'm thinking of converting to Fedora 8 Gnome. It's almost a gig in file size, and I'm on dial-up, so I haven't gotten around to downloading it yet. I'm sorry if these questions seem stupid, but I know absolutely nothing about linux. I have never actually ran a non-windows computer before, and I have spent a great deal of my life on them now. Due to this I know so much about windows, and yet I don't even know one iota about mac or linux.
Only after research did I learn how linux was open-source and a simpler OS than windows and mac. This concept got me hooked on getting linux.
As a freshie to linux would I be able to learn about it's internals and systems quicker than normal because of my experience with windows?
Is linux really what I want? From your experiences, what sort of flexibility does linux have?
Seeing how linux is capable of running on the same hard drive and FS as windows, does this mean I can run my windows programs and code on linux? I ask because I have so sickening much code that was designed to run on windows. And I would hate to practically start over in my development of programs. And speaking of development, is it easier and/or smoother on linux than windows?
Opinions and suggestions are appreciated.

I installed Ubuntu on my old laptop a couple of weeks ago, with no Linux experience, and so far I love it (My new computer dosent even get any attention now). There seems to be quite a difference in the file system, and where files are stored, but it doesent take long to get used to.

Installing things can be a bit confusing at first as its not like windows where you have an Installer wizard for everything, but you learn as you go. With Debian/Ubuntu installing a lot of stuff is very easy as you just use the auto package transfer, which does everything for you. EG:

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sudo apt-get install wordpress

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Installs wordpress along with apache2 and PHP. Also its nice to be able to run any installed prog from any directory. A lot of windows stuff can be run through wine too, as you probably know. The only thing I have had problems with so far is getting my wireless drivers to work as they don't seem to be able to detect the hardware even with the drivers installed with no warnings and my interfaces manually configured to be correct.

Like I said I really don't anything about Linux yet, but its only been a short time, and its much fun to play with :)

> Over time I have always heard nothing but bad bad bad about windows and nothing but good good good about linux and mac.

Hmm. When and from whom? And why don't you like it?

I only say this because if you buy a decent version (like Home or Ultimate) you might actually like it. I know most of my friends do, and the tech community is coming around.

Most of Vista's early problems are going away, and, at least in my opinion, it's current problems are founded on misunderstanding. A lot of people were complaining about the performance, but, at least according to a podcast I listen to, that was because Microsoft doesn't use GDI to draw the screen anymore. It all goes through DirectX now. Most of Vista's security problems are fixed with the immenent release of SP1.

Not that I'm against learning and using linux. My school's IT program mandates at least XP Pro SP2, so I'm stuck with it (and need to upgrade). You may run into this problem. It's a windows world, so you might want to keep windows on your machine in some form.


> It's almost a gig in file size, and I'm on dial-up, so I haven't gotten around to downloading it yet.

You should do what my dad does: buy a book and use the CD in the back. Much faster, and you have a resource to learn linux from.

Ive given linux a shot several times over the years, and while it does run faster, Its just too 'differnt' to make it useful. I think mor epeople woudl switch if the linux community wasnt hell bent on changing everythign about the interface. It puts a lot of people off and its not like linux is just all that to where people will get over the differences. I think the ReactOS project has a much better chance at competing with windows.

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Ive given linux a shot several times over the years, and while it does run faster, Its just too 'differnt' to make it useful. I think mor epeople woudl switch if the linux community wasnt hell bent on changing everythign about the interface. It puts a lot of people off and its not like linux is just all that to where people will get over the differences. I think the ReactOS project has a much better chance at competing with windows.

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To that I would reply, Linux is Not Windows. Honestly, I have difficulty adapting to various Linux GUI environments, simply because they are different from what I am used to on Windows. On the other hand, I never really got used to the Windows command line, because my first experience of using the command line was on a Linux box over SSH. Familiar is friendly.

I wouldn't classify Home as a decent version although 2K Pro, XP Pro and even Vista Ultimate are good OS'es in my opinion. I run all three, I thought I would have more problems with Vista Ultimate (64 bit) but I have no complaints yet and I've been using it since June.

I would advocate dual booting Windows and Linux. Just don't give up and try as many different distro's as you can until you find one you like.

Most Linux magazines have a recent distro or two thrown with them every month. Last month for me was SUSE & Ubuntu, and in this month's I got PCLinuxOS & Fedora 8, so you dont have to rely on dialup. And as many of them are packaged as live distros, you dont even need to install them to give them a try - throw it in the CD-ROM & reboot

I'm a long time time windows advocate. I've used it to code COM, .NET, WSH, MFC, ATL, WINAPI and all sorts of stuff over the years, but after paying for Vista (which is a pretty dire upgrade in my opinion) I decided to move to Linux for a while. I'd installed Mandrake & Red hat in the past, but the recent distros are far better than what they used to be.

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Originally Posted by Yarin

Over time I have always heard nothing but bad bad bad about windows and nothing but good good good about linux and mac.

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Actually OS X Tiger has received as many complaints (if not more) than Windows Vista and I only hear modest acclaim for Leopard, so far.

Don't drop off the Windows bandwagon... it has far more support than any other operating system and if you know how to use it and what to use it for, it isn't all that terrible. I would personally recommend dual-booting with Linux, though, as it is first and foremost a good platform for program development and understanding of Linux is expected by most programming careers. Right now, I am triple-booting Windows XP Professional, Windows Vista Ultimate, and Slackware Linux (which I personally use KDE as my desktop environment). It works fine for me and it allows me to develop properly in both Windows and Linux. However, I must admit, right now, I find myself using XP more than the other two for day to day stuff.

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Originally Posted by SlyMaelstrom

Actually OS X Tiger has received as many complaints (if not more) than Windows Vista and I only hear modest acclaim for Leopard, so far.

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Like what? I tried OS X and Vista nearly at the same time after using XP for years, and I've had far fewer problems with Tiger (I haven't tried Leo yet). The only major thing was getting used to the UI mechanics, but now that I've gotten over that, I prefer it.

I remember when I first tried Linux . . . it was MEPIS Linux, a live CD. I couldn't figure out how to search for files. In Windows, it's easy -- press Win-F! Finally, I found the menu item for "Find Files ..." . . . .

Now, whenever I switch over to a Windows computer, I miss so much stuff. What do you mean there's no KDevelop? No bash? No Valgrind? No logging on to computers remotely? No virtual desktops? No source for all of the programs I use all of the time?

I mentioned live CDs. I highly recommend you try one if you're not sure about Linux. They let you try Linux without touching your hard drive. If you like it, then you can think about installing.

As a dial-up user, I understand exactly what it's like. (My dial up is not even 56K -- it's 28K if I'm lucky!) I installed MEPIS for my first Linux distribution. Later, I ordered Debian 3.1 for AMD64 from a reseller of Linux DVDs. Now, I've downloaded Debian 4.0 and later Lenny (another Debian version), and I must say, it's the way to go. How did I download it? At public libraries. They usually have reasonably fast connections. You should see if your local library or university will let you download stuff. Or just grab a laptop and go to any wireless hotspot. Many places have wireless for free. It's not always very fast, but it beats dial-up, and you get recent software, and you don't have to pay much or wait for anything to be delivered.

Dual-booting is great! You have Windows; then you reboot, and you have Linux. Emulation is okay, too, for faster computers, but it can be a bit difficult to set up.

You should at least try Linux -- you never know, you might love it. :)

I do have Fedora 8. It runs very fast. Compilers are available and nice packages such as LAMPP. It does runs very or extremely fast on my dual core intel chip, when comparing to Windows. Open Office is ok. The e-mail software, antivirus and firewall are fine too.

The thing with Fedora is that, you have to set up things such as wireless, second monitor etc, through a configuration file, that make things messy if not set properly, or no compatibility.

The way that the file system is set up, provides a faster and more secure environment, but still have its weaknesses, like anything that exists. Beryl is a nice and great desktop effects package, like the rotating screen cubes etc. That is kind of the way Apple manage its software icons. Firefox works fine, and there are plug in players. LightScribe has a Linux version available, and for burning cd's or Dvd's, the OS is great with K3B.

The real truth is, that once Fedora has been set, up, and with the very frequent updates, Fedora works trouble free, as in my case.

How do you set up dual booting anyways?

I would've already done something like that by now except that the manuals I searched for to set up Linux didn't seem to do it that way.

Somehow, regardless of MinGW and Dev-Cpp at my fingertips, gcc still sends me a siren's call. I had it in computer lab at school and it hasn't been the same since.

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How do you set up dual booting anyways?

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For many distros, you just follow the installer's steps and keep the Windows partition. The boot loader installed will then allow you to choose at startup.

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Somehow, regardless of MinGW and Dev-Cpp at my fingertips, gcc still sends me a siren's call.

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Uh, MinGW means GCC. You know, Minimalist GNU for Windows, GNU Compiler Collection. Dev-Cpp means MinGW by default.

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Originally Posted by psychopath

Like what? I tried OS X and Vista nearly at the same time after using XP for years, and I've had far fewer problems with Tiger (I haven't tried Leo yet). The only major thing was getting used to the UI mechanics, but now that I've gotten over that, I prefer it.

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http://www.appledefects.com/?p=261

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Originally Posted by laserlight

Uh, MinGW means GCC. You know, Minimalist GNU for Windows, GNU Compiler Collection. Dev-Cpp means MinGW by default.

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I had the idea, didn't know the acronyms in such depth until now, but using a command line with gcc instead of fumbling around with a DOS window was awesome. And the ttyl's! Good times. I'll have to find something that doesn't automatically start up with a GUI. And thanks.

Thanks for the comments. :)
I'll download it at the library, burn it, and see what I think.

I suggest Ubuntu Linux. It is very nice, and it is a fairly easy switch. They will mail you a copy for free (not even any shipping and handling costs)

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From your experiences, what sort of flexibility does linux have?

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One word: Bash

The bash shell (a.k.a Unix/Linux command line) is SOOOOOOO much better than the Windows command line. Although I use Windows as my primary operating system, I love the Linux command line and I hate the Windows command line. Even Windows PowerShell just simply doesn't match the power of Bash.

SSH is also very nice. I like the ability to SSH into a Linux/Unix machine. It is one of the nicest things about them, in my opinion. Windows simply doesn't have that capability, although they have come out with some free SSH servers for Windows just recently (not by Microsoft of course...by third parties).

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Most of Vista's early problems are going away, and, at least in my opinion, it's current problems are founded on misunderstanding. A lot of people were complaining about the performance

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Psh....the least of my Vista complaints is about its performance. My Vista complaints are:

1. 20 million different versions? Who the heck do you think you are? Make 1 version for everybody, just like Apple does. I tried to upgrade my WinXP Home Media Center 2005 edition to Vista Business (because Business is the copy that I can get for free through the CS department), and it wouldn't let me. It wanted me to reformat my entire hard disk! That's absolutely ridiculous! There is no way I am upgrading to Vista if it is going to force me to format my hard disk...mainly because it would take me days to reinstall everything and back up all of my data.

2. I have yet to hear one compelling new feature of Vista. If someone would tell me something new about Vista that is actually useful, I might upgrade, but so far I haven't heard a single thing. XP is doing great! :) (Mac OS X Leopard on the other hand has several compelling new features)

3. Finally....last on the list....compatibility and speed. These issues are being resolved as time goes on.....but Microsoft still hasn't resolved my primary 2 issues which are found above.

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I'm a long time time windows advocate. I've used it to code COM, .NET, WSH, MFC, ATL, WINAPI and all sorts of stuff over the years, but after paying for Vista (which is a pretty dire upgrade in my opinion)

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Although I use Windows XP as my primary OS, I have never really been a Windows "advocate." I like Windows XP, and it is a good OS. I see no "dire need" to upgrade to Vista...as no one has shown me that it is really needed in any way. As of late I have become quite the Mac OS X advocate. That is quite a nice OS.

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whenever I switch over to a Windows computer, I miss so much stuff. What do you mean there's no KDevelop? No bash? No Valgrind? No logging on to computers remotely? No virtual desktops?

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ditto. :)

Heck Windows doesn't even have native support for ISO CD images...

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1. 20 million different versions? Who the heck do you think you are? Make 1 version for everybody, just like Apple does. I tried to upgrade my WinXP Home Media Center 2005 edition to Vista Business (because Business is the copy that I can get for free through the CS department), and it wouldn't let me. It wanted me to reformat my entire hard disk! That's absolutely ridiculous! There is no way I am upgrading to Vista if it is going to force me to format my hard disk...mainly because it would take me days to reinstall everything and back up all of my data.

2. I have yet to hear one compelling new feature of Vista. If someone would tell me something new about Vista that is actually useful, I might upgrade, but so far I haven't heard a single thing. XP is doing great! (Mac OS X Leopard on the other hand has several compelling new features)

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I never really wanted to become the Vista poster boy. I happen to agree that Microsoft overdoes it considering the horribly fractured "versioning" they like to do to their new operating system. There are a couple of fundamental truths as to why this is.

In fact, even the third issue you raised (which is unquoted) can be dealt with by examining who it is. There are only two versions of Vista that would need to be available to a majority of consumers: Home and Ultimate. But Microsoft has a lot of special interests to pander to. I haven't heard you complain about Media Edition, and that's probably because you're a person who takes advantage of the things they packaged with that version (you work with a lot of digital media). This differs vastly from the needs of students or other corporations.

If Microsoft just sold the OS then you would have the freedom to put whatever the hell you wanted on it without all the extra fluff that comes packaged with it. But that's not who Microsoft is: creating versions of things is the great simple machine that helps Microsoft make money. I think it's stupid. I would rather see the copyright's of stupid things like window design go into the public domain so that the legal foundation Microsoft can stand on sort of erodes, competition can grow, and the user is presented with more alternatives. I mean, that's just reasonable: but Microsoft is free to copyright its whole image.

And they don't throw anything away either. Microsoft iis sort of stuck in a position where because they hardly manufacture any of their hardware (they are a software company), then, if they stop getting things to work on older hardware they lose part of the market if someone wants to build a computer on cheap old hardware or a computer for a specific job. Supporting everything is also another way Microsoft makes money.

So performance and compatibility issues are going to happen. As long as the company keeps doing what it's doing and whenever Microsoft moves on to a different technology (like the move from GDI to DirectX for drawing on the screen) the ........'s gonna hit the fan because it's not as fast or something. It takes time to get used to, but people will get over it as computers themselves get better hardware performance.

Apple works so nicely because Steve Jobs likes closed systems, where effectively you don't own your hardware. Instead, Apple sort of sold the whole computer instead of just software, so you're stuck with whatever's in the machine. That's not awful, just a different business model. But if you don't own your hardware then how are Mac manufacturers encouraged in any way to open up the system to a bunch of third parties like Microsoft does? It's so easy for Apple to develop something that works because of the control their company exerts over what developers use and what they need to make to some extent.

Both companies have their own little evils (if you will permit me to ignore linux flavors which is built for a different reason than capitalist successs). And I completely agree that if XP is working for you, then stick to XP. But maybe if you're buying a new machine try Vista. The store is going to sell it to you anyway.

in response to two, I can't really give you anything specific other than the usual better security claims, or bells and whistles type of stuff. Things are pretty settled in the OS world. Developers know what works and what to build. Innovation is sparse, you know, so if you've owned XP long enough it probably has all the security and bells and whistles you need. The only coersion Microsoft really has (and again this is because they own most of the market) is when Microsoft stops supporting XP. Switching to Vista now might ease the burden rather than waiting until you are forced to.

As an American, you don't need to listen to me though. Hell, I haven't switched over.

I apologize if most of this turns out to be rederick. I just had a lot to say on the subject.

You can expect MS to support XP for at least another 8 years. They only recently stopped supporting Windows95. In fact they still do support it to some extent, although that 'support' is limited to having the final service pack available fro download. From an engineering standpoint, there is absolutely no reason to witch to vista. In fact we recommend that our customers 'skip vista'. Vista eats too many processor cycles to be of use in HPC. The fact that a comparable version of vista costs $300 while a copy of XP pro only costs $140 just seals Vista's fate.

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I haven't heard you complain about Media Edition, and that's probably because you're a person who takes advantage of the things they packaged with that version (you work with a lot of digital media). This differs vastly from the needs of students or other corporations.

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Eh...The only reason that I have Media Center Edition is because that's what came on the computer. And the only thing that I know of that it has extra compared to other versions of Windows XP is Windows Media Center.....which I never use by the way. I use other DVD playing software...and for music I use iTunes.

I agree that there isn't a dire need to run Vista.

I have to ask where do you shop $300 sounds a bit steep to me!

I recently came across an article with that - why you should upgrade from Vista to XP!
http://dotnet.org.za/codingsanity/ar...indows-xp.aspx

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,14...s/article.html

Vista named most disappointing tech product of 2007.

'nuff said.

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You can expect MS to support XP for at least another 8 years.

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While they will support XP for some time to come I doubt it will be 8 years. I look for them to drop support for XP within 3 years. That will give them enough time to rid themselves of Vista and have another hit OS - according to the 'sine curve' theory proposed in another thread.

Vista may end up like ME. A little known, barely used, but hated by those who did use it operating system.

Didn't this thread start out about Linux? :p

I tried Mandrake (Mandriva) about 5 years ago, which basically sucked. Two years ago I tried Slackware, which was fun and extremely educational, but generally sucked for practical purposes (dependency hell, lack of packages). Last year I tried Gentoo, which was also fun and quite educational, and got AIGLX/Beryl working. Pretty awesome, I absolutely love the Scale and Expose effects (i.e. clones of Mac OS + wobble) as well as the cube - which I bound to an extra mouse button. And emerge = teh win for dependency hell purposes. Used it as my primary OS for a while, then accidentally hosed my system with an ill-fated 'emerge world' (:confused:). On the whole a good experience, minus the 30-hour-not-including-breaks installation time, and randomly discovering packages that hadn't been installed, every few hours, for the next 3-4 months. I then helped a friend install Ubuntu, which took 2-3 hours including download and trying random hex values in xorg.conf to get the screen resolution to show up correctly (docs gave the wrong codes). It came with newer packages, more of them, updated everything automatically, and looked better.

With my exam period just about to end, I'm planning on starting fresh. This time I'm thinking of trying Sabayon Linux, which is supposed to be essentially a pre-configured Gentoo system with an installer and a theme, using AIGLX/Beryl by default. Hopefully things will turn out nicely this time, and I'll be able to go another 6-12 months without needing to boot into Windows and leave all the beautiful desktop effects behind (yes, I love them that much - I swear, they're not just a gimmick.) ;)

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Originally Posted by Yarin

I'm sorry if these questions seem stupid, but I know absolutely nothing about linux.

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Theres all sorts of Resources on the internet, not to mention countless books on every different flavor of linux.

And hey, think of it this way: It's just 1's and 0's man. Don't like it? Install a different linux variant or go back to windows. Whatever works, ya know?

I don't know if someone already mentioned this, but a lot of distros offer free CDs (you have to pay postage).

openSuSE has my vote, I love it -- Gnome of course. Not krap KDE ;)

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Originally Posted by zacs7

...Not krap KDE ;) ...

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haha!!!

ah, c'mon, it's not that bad is it?

I much prefer KDE, myself.

http://cboard.cprogramming.com/showt...ight=gnome+kde

Debian is amazing. I like it for several reasons. (It should be noted that Debian is the only distribution that I've used for any length of time, so this is extremely biased. :) )

• Debian's package management is incredible. I haven't tried emerge, but it's definitely better than rpm.
• Debian's free software philosophy is good. This might not matter to other people, but I love having a virtually completely open-source operating system (alas, fglrx -- an ATI DRI driver -- is not).
• It's quite popular. I don't know if Debian or Red Hat is more popular now, but Debian's probably first or second at least. This means that you can get support reasonably quickly . . . .
• It has Gnome and KDE and Xfce. :)

Anyway, I'm sure other distros would be great as well, I just haven't really tried them out. :)

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(It should be noted that Debian is the only distribution that I've used for any length of time, so this is extremely biased.)

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Debian is the best distro, IMNSHO. Though I'd recommend Ubuntu for someone who's just starting with Linux, it has much better hardware support and non-free drivers, so you don't have to worry as much about force-arch-installing an i386 arch package onto a amd64-compatible processor, and going through 3rd party .deb archive sites.

If you choose Debian (and I highly reccommend it), go to these forums: http://forums.debian.net/ . For Ubuntu, there are many around. Fedora is probably the most popular distro, but I personally don't like it. There's too much of a RHEL-based environment.

Personally, if you don't mind a learning curve, go with Debian. If you like an easier ride, go for Ubuntu or Fedora.

Whew. Long first post.

Debian is fine if you don't mind getting packages 3 years after they're released. I'd vote Ubuntu or Fedora.

For stable, yes. Get unstable or testing and you'll get very recent code. Only space shuttles use stable. ;) I use unstable myself. I'd use testing, but I don't get on the internet often enough to make it worthwhile.

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Originally Posted by Perspective

Debian is fine if you don't mind getting packages 3 years after they're released. I'd vote Ubuntu or Fedora.

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What's this about Debian releasing packages three years after they are released into the rest of the world? Ever tried Sid? Experimental? Lenny?

Lenny is packages that have had no bug reports for ten days (I think). Sid is those that have had no bug reports for one day (Again, I think). Experimental is not even officially supported by Debian, they are packages that are so new, they haven't had time to port them yet.

dpkg is probably similar to Fedora/Red Hat's rpm, but I've never tried the Fedora version of apt or aptitude or dselect.

So either I'm sadly mistaken, or you have some incorrect info. ;)

EDIT: To prove the point: I'm posting this from a "out-of-date" Debian Lenny computer that has had no updates since, oh, I don't know, say, two weeks ago?

I'm not talking about updates to existing packages, I'm talking about acceptance of new packages. Debian is notoriously slow at permitting new packages in the distro. At least that was the buzz a couple years ago when I was more hardcore about using linux. Since upgrading from windows to linux, I've now upgraded from linux to mac ;)

I figure I might as well throw my two cents in.


Point in case: I love linux (quasi-related: I am also a BSD fan.) I have been running ArchLinux and OpenBSD for over a year now and I do not regret looking back (although I will admit I am typing this on XP.) I have just recently started using DragonflyBSD as well. Many of the following statements will probably apply to BSD as well.


Why do I love linux? Because I like being me, and linux facilitates what I do. I am a programmer; keyboard efficiency is important to me. It is for this reason I almost never use graphical interfaces and resort to applications like mutt, irssi and xmonad. On the same note, I like extensibility. It is for this reason I use extensible software which is quite common in the Linux world. I also like language choice, and many if not most all major programming languages (sans .net-based languages) are quite well supported on Linux.
These things make it really hard to even imagine programming on windows again. I would miss a lot of stuff.

I also believe in open source software. While I do not believe this should get in the way of choosing a better solution given two options, I will say at the very least it is an advantage and highly preferable in my instances (no vendor lock-ins.) Luckily, Linux is all about this as well.

I am a fan of choice. I get this from Linux too. I like having configurable window managers, terminals, kernels and a configurable system in all aspects. I get all of these; if there is something I don't like, then I know if I wish to, I can change it. With a little effort? Perhaps. Then again, I would rather have a difficult route than an impossible one.

I like the tools. The command line alone is a reason enough to try it. In fact, for several months I simply never ran a window manager, and instead would SSH into my boxes and work entirely from a terminal using nothing but GNU Screen as my window manager. (I'm a recent xmonad switch because I also love Haskell, so the choice was inevitable I guess, but that's not the point.)


These are not all of the reasons. But I will digress, and simply come full circle: I love linux because I like me, and it facilitates being me. You are not me; therefore it is reasonable to assume that you will not love it but hate it as it may not facilitate you. Windows or OS X may be the one riding a gold chariot to save your day.

Then again, you can't know until you've tried; a process in which there is no real harm.


Addendum: if you would like a distribution to start off with, I recommend with high praise ArchLinux. It will drop you into an environment that might not be "the most user friendly," yet also not impossible. I feel you may learn more about Linux and how it works from taking a somewhat more difficult route like this rather than Ubuntu (this implies nothing about Ubuntu, mind you.) There is more than just the skin, and this is something I think is critically important to realize as a Linux user, especially a new one. Starting off simple with just the terminal and your base OS installed, you will probably learn a lot (this is what arch drops you in with, but it is trivial to install packages after the fact such as mail clients, desktop environments, etc. etc..)

I personally believe that UNIX and now more likely Linux are the open-minded Operating Systems. Being the fact that Windows has been a leader for quite a while now, it's pretty much everywhere still in use, and it's going to be like this for an unknown amount of time. When it comes to the GNU/Linux platform, I think things are just starting to get better, especially with the Google Chrome OS that Google is going to release soon (someday next year (2010)). If you're a developer, I think it's best to learn both just as well. There are plenty of jobs out there for both of the platforms. You may even end up working for a miscellaneous company that produces software for both of the platforms. This year you may work to a project that's for the Windows platform, the year after you'll be working for applications that will be specifically for the Linux platform, etc. Do you understand?

So yes, the best advice is to buy a book of any distribution of GNU/Linux, and make sure it's for a beginning level and has a CD/DVD-ROM with it that offers one or more distributions of GNU/Linux. ;-) Take care, and enjoy the stress learning Linux for the first time. :-D

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