Beginner's guide to Linux

**pj69482** · 16-May-2010, 11:17

Hi,
I have been creating screencast How To's about openSUSE and Linux in general.

The previous videos use openSUSE 11.1 as an example system, mostly because I use openSUSE at home and are most comfortable with it. This is my attempt to give something back for this great distribution and it's community.

"I've started a series of screencasts called "Beginners's guide to Linux", in which I use openSUSE 11.1 to demonstrate how to install and use a modern Linux operating system. Of course the choice of Linux distribution and the desktop environment can be argued to infinity, I've decided to use what I use currently myself and following videos will feature openSUSE 11.1 with KDE4 desktop.

There are several ways (the case always when dealing with Linux) you can choose to install openSUSE 11.1. First you could download the LiveCD's, so called because you can boot your computer from them without installing anything, although you can actually install a basic system from the LiveCD also. Nice thing about LiveCD's is that you get to see a preview how you desktop looks and behaves, how openSUSE detects your hardware and so on, without actually installing anything. Keep in mind though that booting to a LiveCD environment will present you with slower system and with less functionality than you would get with doing a real hard drive installation. If you want to try out a LiveCD, you need to choose between the two (main) Linux desktops, KDE and Gnome. Second way to install, which I like the best, is to download the DVD and install using that. The DVD offers a better installation program, more choice in software and you can choose between several different Desktop during the installation. Head to Software.openSUSE.org to download the CD or DVD image.

First screencast starts where any Linux beginner would, installing the system. While it is nowadays very easy to install any modern Linux distribution, there might be some points like partitioning where beginner can feel out of their depth. The video is fast forwarded during the tedious bits of installation, so expect to spend something like 20-60 minutes when installing it, depending quite a lot about horsepower on your computer. On this screencast we are using 32bit DVD."

The screencast itself is available here:
http://www.youtube.com/v/RFGIcAq2Aeo&hl=en_US&fs=1&hd=1

**oldcpu** · 16-May-2010, 11:25

Originally Posted by pj69482

The screencast itself is available here:
http://www.youtube.com/v/RFGIcAq2Aeo&hl=en_US&fs=1&hd=1

Thanks! I found this link worked better for me:
YouTube - Beginner's guide to Linux: openSuSE 11.1 installation guide

**pj69482** · 16-May-2010, 11:36

Next one in series: Beginner's guide to Linux: openSuSE 11.1 exploring the desktop and system configuration

In previous screencast we demonstrated how easy it is to install modern Linux distribution (openSUSE 11.1 to be exact). In this screencast we explore a bit the newly installed system and the new KDE4 desktop. We also learn how to access YaST, a superb system administration tool and how to change display resolution with it.

KDE is one of the major desktops available for Linux, the desktop means in this case the graphical interface that user sees in front of him when he is using his openSUSE system. KDE went through major changes from the "old" KDE 3.5 series to the new KDE4 series, to a point that the new KDE is a complete re-design of the desktop metaphor. KDE has always been my choice on desktop and because openSUSE does great job 'releasing' KDE it has only deepened my admiration for the openSUSE project. KDE.org has a nice visual guide to KDE4, check it out!

YaST is no doubt one of the single most greatest aspect of openSUSE Linux distribution. People that have not used it seem to think that it is yet another package manager (if that was the case it would be called YaPM). Truth is that YaST is so much more than simple software installation tool, it is everything that is missing from most other Linux distributions and that is a centralized system administration tool that makes configuring your system easy. Want to partition your drives? Simple, use YaST. Want to setup your monitor to correct resolution? Again thats simple just launch YaST. Want configure file serving or other server functionality? YES, use YaST!

In video below I'll shortly present the two aspects I like most about openSUSE, as described above they are: great KDE desktop implementation and YaST. By KDE implementation I am not saying that openSUSE devs did all the work, but they compile a great release with fixes and polish to the KDE code.

The screencast itself is available here:
http://www.youtube.com/v/F3KZjwy2Xsg&hl=en_US&fs=1&hd=1

**pj69482** · 16-May-2010, 12:15

Beginner's guide to Linux: (Advanced users tip) openSUSE 11.1 upgrade to openSUSE 11.2

Next I am going to show how to update your openSUSE 11.1 installation to openSUSE 11.2 by using command-line tool called zypper. While the process may seem intimidating it is actually quite straightforward and requires only little skill to accomplish. You will only require an active connection to internet, you do not need to burn any images to CD`s or anything of the sort. The same can be achieved also via GUI programs, but in my experience the CLI way works better, at least for me.

The screencast is in two parts because of the maximum length of the Youtube videos is 10 minutes. The process itself does take quite a lot of time, you will first need to update the existing openSUSE 11.1 installation with latest patches and then download over 1 gigabyte worth of updated packages for openSUSE 11.2.

Part 1 of the screencast:
http://www.youtube.com/v/WFuVqA8EEqM&hl=en_US&fs=1&hd=1

Part 2 of the screencast:
http://www.youtube.com/v/_b0QgTE-6zw&hl=en_US&fs=1&hd=1