Thanks for the help

[Randy Reames]

Mike McVey wrote:
> 
> Thanks to everyone for the little bits of advice I have followed that
> now have me up and running with Linux.

Cool. 8)

> 
> 1.) So far I am liking Mandrake 6.1--with my good harddisk and a bit
> of fiddling with Disk Druid, it was a breeze. I hope I made a good
> choice:   80 MB of swap space;  700 MB of root space; 600 MB of user
> space. (The rest is for Windows.)

I use Mandrake 7.0 myself.
I feel Mandrake 7.0 has come along way from 6.x and more distint from
Red Hat.
Is that 600 mg /user or /home ?

> computing, I feel like I am in the cockpit of a Boeing 747 or
> something with Linux: thrilled with the "power" of such a big
> dashboard but also a bit overwhelmed with it.

Boeing uses Linux.

> 
> However, as is my compulsion, I did try to crash it, and it appears I
> DID. I opened files and folders like crazy and then the thing locked
> up--only the mouse pointer would move--four hours later the thing was
> still frozen. No idea how to recover from a frozen system. At least I
> had to put effort into crashing it, while in Windows I only have to
> blink.

I don't think you actually crashed Linux only xwindows. Actaully KDM
under KDE.
Next time try crtl-alt-bckspce which will close X or ctrl-alt-f1 which
would
bring you to console.
I have only "locked up" linux with hardware conflicts.

> 
> Ok, enough with bottom of the learning curve babble. What would be
> the ideal "accelerated learning path" for mastering the fundamentals
> of using and administering this OS? Typical a lone ranger in using my
> computer, I suddenly feel the need for the company of geeks and
> gurus.

Just use it all the time, break it, ask questions, RTFM, and  fix it.
Thats how I learned/am learning.

-- 
Randy Reames

    ~
  .   .
 /  V     Geeks, take back the net.
/(     )  ^^-^^