Starting with Linux

[David Csercsics]

>I'm about to get a new computer at home and would like to duel-boot it
>with Linux. So, I've got a Dectalk Express, so which is the best
>distribution of Linux to get?
>
Take a look at www.gentoo.org www.debian.org www.slackware.com  and whatever the url is for the fedora project. Those are th e popular distros. Read www.distrowatch.com and www.linux.org as both have good lists of distributions. You could also google for Linux distributions as well as there  are hundreds of them to pick from . I have only listed the most commonly used ones here and you should really read about the differrent choices and figure out what you woudl like best. I wouldn't dual boot though. Try ZipSpeak if you want to fiddle with Linux while still maintaining that other horrid OS on your drive.
>After I get going, I will want to use Gnome and Gnopericunus, but I'd
>also like console access to.
> You do not need a GUI in Linux so don't waste the time with Gnome as
your effort to make it work will NOT be rewarded. Gnopernicus is no
where near ready for daily use!!! Learn the shell and console stuff
as you will be much happier. Yes the learning curve is steep so be
prepared for a bit of frustration at first and a lot of reading. Did
I mention that you have to read a lot! Oh yeah and you should read
the documentation for your preferred flavour of Linux. If you need
help with something be sure to take a whack at reading the relevant
docs yourself first so that you can ask an intelligent question. If
you don't know what you should read to figure out the solution to your
problem you will be pointed at the right docs but people will expect
you to look up the info you need yourself as this way you'll get a
better understanding of what's going on with your system and how things
are done and that sort of stuff. Hopefully that was somewhat helpful.