[vox] Linux beginner help

[Bill Kendrick]

On Tue, Aug 03, 2004 at 09:50:01PM -0700, Lili Sun wrote:
> I am working in Biology field, and I do not know Linux at all, but
> I really want to learn it and do some programming in bioinformatics
> field.

Hi Lily!  Welcome to the group!  Before going further, I want to make
sure you know about CVBIG, the Central Valley Bioinformatics Interest Group.

  http://www.cvbig.org/

It was started in October 2002 (with help from a few long-time LUGOD members,
Eric Engelhard and Alfredo Lopez, at least).  I'm not certain of their
activity lately, but they've got a mailing list, so you might find some
more bio-centric help over there, once you get Linux up and running with
help from us over here. :^)


> I realized that there are so many Linux books for beginners
> and distribution versions available in the market.  Could anyone
> suggest a book and Linux version good for beginners?  Thanks a lot
> in advance!

I don't have any first-hand experience, but the distros I hear mentioned
as being 'easy' these days include:

  Lindows / Linspire   (with the caveat that sometimes it's a little TOO easy)
  Mandrake
  SuSE
  Fedora


As for books, I've not read, but heard TONS of good comments on
O'Reilly's "Running Linux."  (We happen to have a copy in the LUGOD
library, as well!  Free to check out for a few weeks, if you want!
See:  http://www.lugod.org/library/ )

Of course, once you get started, LUGOD's own "vox-tech" mailing list
is a great place to ask questions.  (Also feel free to browse around
the archives; you might even hit them when searching for things on Google.
It's happened to me a bunch of times.  Once, it was even a question I had
a year or two prior, and totally forgot about! ;^) *blush*)


Good luck and take care!

-bill!