I have been using Slackware for a couple of years now and about a year ago removed Windows as I needed the space and was finding myself rebooting to Slack when in Windows whenever I needed to do anything (this used to be the other way around).

I would have liked to look into networking a little more but only have the one computer so not really an option. I have installed snort, mythtv, got my ms smart phone syncing and a few other things and got them all going without to much of a problem.

I don't know where to go from here I still see my self as a newbie and don't know how to progress anyone have any ideas? Should I try another distro? Would that help? I chose Slackware because it was the first one I installed and got a lamp going on within a day?

Thanks

Sav

Unless running a computer is your goal, then you're pretty much set ;-)

Myself I see the computer as a tool, a thing that does things for me that I wanted done by this tool. So, what would you like your computer to do?

You'll find mostly Slack users here, and if you read these forums a bit now and then, you'll see that the only complaint (more or less) here is that there are so few bugs, it's not exciting, there's no problems to be fixed... :-)

If you want to take a look into networking, you can setup some virtual machines (with VirtualBox for example) so you can let them "network". If you still want to run some Wintel applications, you can check out Wine (it does the job for me)

Also you may want to put the pictures from your digital camera on your machine, for that you could (should??) install DigiKam, and for your burning needs K3B is an excellent option.

However, what you exactly want to know is eluding me; The question seems like "I have a computer, what should I make it do?" If you want it to make coffee, you could do that ;-) If you want it to clean your house, excellent ;-) (let me know if you manage that, I'd be interested in that technology)

Maybe look for a project that you can contribute to? Slackware-current (install that if you want the best chance for problems on your computer) is switching to KDE4, but I've noticed not all software available in KDE3 has been ported to KDE4 yet...

If you want to run -current for the fun of it, try to install it on another partition. Maybe you sometimes need your pc as a tool to get things done without trowing up errors.

I am looking for a new job and work in support i feel happy in applying for windows based support but feel i don't have the knowledge to apply for a linux based roles.

What i really want to know is how to go from a newbie to a pro, i will start looking into other peoples problems on here as i don't have enough of my own but is there anything else i can be doing?

Sav

i did try kde 4 for a day but it was very slow so may give it another go now i have more ram.

Sav

Have you thought of working towards a certification such as LPIC? Opinion differs about the value in employment terms, but the Level 2 requirements cover such topics as compiling custom kernels, configuring mail servers and LDAP, etc. It might also be helpful if you could get hold of an old-ish PC for practice.

Thanks for the link just had a quick skim through looks like what i need. I have seen training in the past but only for Red Hat which i didn't really want to do.

You will learn a lot of things reading all the good stuff at http://tldp.org especially the guides.

You could begin with "Introduction to Linux - A Hands on Guide" then go on with the "Advanced Bash-Scripting Guide".

Meanwhile, if not yet done look what's under the hood of your Slackware distribution, especially explore the /etc directory and the /etc/rc.d sub-directory.

Over here, most Linux you'll see in the companies is RedHat. The LPIC (especially level 2) certification is a good way to start if you want to apply as a Linux administrator. What they say about Slackware: if you run RedHat you learn RedHat; if you run Slackware you learn Linux. And it's true.

- LPI is a good start, companies want to see you know and master Linux by showing a certificate.
- Learn (shell) scripting, too many people don't seem to know this part of the game
- to broaden your chances, when you know Slackware very well, learning another Unix brand should not be very hard (this is the way I became AIX engineer in my day-to-day job)