The Cruncher's Guide to The Linux Operating System

Okay, so I was writing that guide I promised. Writing... writing... bah!

I realized I made an incomprehensible mess of it. I also realized it got way too big to go well with the "forum format" - writing it in a "forum format" made it into an even worse mess.
So today I decided to scrap it all and start over from scratch. But this time, I went on writing it as a printable document && scrapped the idea of also making it into a forum post. A printable mini-book / brochure in a PDF format should be heaps better anyway.

I also decided I should post my WIP and update it frequently. Thus, all of You Gentoomen could give insta-feedback on what to improve and in what way. I mean, some thing might make sense to me, but that doesn't mean that thing makes sense to others, eh? Gotta fix all such problems 'n all. And that should also keep me from getting carried away and turning it into a complete mess again. Not to mention the fact that WIP might be useful for some from the very start.
I shall update this post regularly with a link to the newest version + add an update timestamp.

When the guide hits v1.0, i.e. when it is ready for prime-time / release, I shall rewrite this post entirely.

/* last updated 2013-11-07 18:05 UTC+0 */
Get the mostly-empty, typo-ridden, hardly-formatted and not-yet-comprehensible version 0.2 of the guide here! (direct link to the pdf file)
(the scripts tarball here. The link is also present inside the guide itself.)

of the guide PDF:
filesize: 103270 bytes
md5sum: dc82675672be5ed47fe6b45c83b666d2
of the scripts archive:
filesize: 3614 bytes
md5sum: 9ca4febb7d473218bfb69cff7e05dad4

Don't forget to bring a towel!

P.S. I decided to use free fonts for this guide, so please bear with me in case You feel like "OMD! Muh... Muh... Times New Roman, Arial and Courier New!". If You want to hear the looooong and boring reason for this decision, do ask.

P.P.S. I don't trust Dropbox much, so I plan to host it somewhere else in the future. Preferably in my own server. (Preparations for that have already started a couple of days ago)

Hmm... I tested it on firefox pdf viewing plugin on Windows & Linux, on Adobe Reader 11.0.2 on Windows and 9.5.5 on Linux and on the FOSS / "native" Gnome/Mate PDF viewer Evince/Atril, and it was fine on all of those.
It's quite possible that You got an incomplete download. Since dropbox tends to be kind of a b*** at times, I wouldn't be surprised.

From now on, I am going to include the exact filesize in bytes and a md5 hash of the latest version in the OP. So You'd know if the download is fine. (filesize as a "sanity" check - if sizes do not match, it's a clear sign that the file is corrupt without the further need of hashing the md5 sum of the file. More convenient, since unlike on Linux, on Windows obtaining a md5 hash of a file can be a non-trivial task)

ACidBaseD said:

What exactly is the guide about?

Is it safe to download that pdf?

I am looking to install Linux [Mostly Ubuntu] as dual boot with windows 8.1

Click to expand...

This guide is still very much WIP and doesn't cover installing Linux yet.
It is written mostly with WCG crunchers in mind, but when it becomes more complete, it should be useful for all Linux users.

TL;DR
wait for a newer version.

WIP == Work In Progress

WCG (website) is a distributed computing project. We, the Team TechPowerUp! participate in it. Look around in TPU's WCG forum section if You're interested

Updated with a new version.
That was way overdue. Baaaaaaaaaaaaaah.

wait. what.

NOTE: Don't use this guide at the moment – found several MAJOR issues. Next release will fix them.

I'll keep that in mind and will try to push a proper update in time for Your install-fest
(not too much time on my hands lately since university started again, but I am sure I will manage)