Linux: I am an idiot, please feel free to be patronising. ?

[qwerty]

I am trying to learn ethical computer hacking and I use Mac OSX. What will happen if I download Linux? Is there another way I can open .exe and .tar.gz files on my mac? Also, can you tell me how you first started learning?

[Grant M]

I would suggest picking up a cheap PC and installing it there. You want to be able to install, tamper and possibly trash your OS without damaging your real box. A machine up to five years old is probably good enough.

You will learn by doing and learn more if you are unafraid to format the lot and start all over.

[16k-zx81]

1. you can download and install linux on your mac. Just make sure you have your copy of os-x handy if you want to put it back on.

2. you can open tar.gz in linuz easily. they;re an archive file, like a zip or rar format

3. You can only run some .exe's in Linux. They are generally windows files, so to run them in linux you need to use an emulator like wine

4. to learn how to use linux, spend time on your distro's website reading the docs and looking for similar questions to the ones you have on the distro's forums. If you have a unique question then post on the forums and someone will help you.

Linux is fun if you are prepared to put in the time to learn it.

Things to get your head around:
Package manager - repositories - dependencies
Sudo, SU, Root
File system
Terminal

[Ahmad]

wine, a windows api emulator runs on OS X you can use it to run Windows executables. Better solution is to get a vmware and install windows in vmware which will allow you to run Windows on top of OS X plus you can experiment quite nicely in a vm. Open a terminal in OS X and type "man tar" at the prompt. man -k allows you to search for commands by keyword.

[nibinaearr]

Download Ubuntu. Ubunut is one of the most popular versions of linux, kubuntu is also good and can be run together (both free). It will give you an iso file which you will have to extract and run (can be done with Daemon tools, power ISO, or Magic ISO for example). I've done this from within Windows before but not Mac OS so I don't know whether that's possible.

You will need to make a separate partition on your hard drive to install Linux to. Hope this helps.

[swenson0]

I have changed from Vista to Linux and I dont regret it.

However, I would not recommend Ubuntu or Kubuntu programs - take
Debian or Mandriva instead, they work better.

There are certain sites like banks, etc that only works with IE6 and
SKYPE is difficult to work with Linux otherwise I find Linux much
superior to Windows.