Hi. I would like to learn Unix. (By way of introduction: I am a translator of French, German and other languages into English. I also have a background in math. I have been doing word processing on computers since the 1980s but no programming.) I have a Compaq Mini 110, currently running Windows XP. I also have the book Beginning Unix by Paul Love et al., which includes a CD. The CD boots as described in the book but soon I get screens that are not in the book and I am lost. Could you please either give me advice about how to use that CD or recommend to me another method for teaching myself Unix, preferably on the above computer? Many thanks in advance. Tony
@Magoulas , welcome. That's an pretty old pc you've got there, nice to see it still being used. How much ram, disk space does it have ?
As for seeing screens not in the book, I don't think that's unusual per-se.
When you say 'The CD boots as described in the book ....' - (I have neither book or cd) so no idea what that means, does it boot a virtual unix OS ? ask you to create a login etc ....
As with all learning
- having a (set of) goal(s) is key, so what is/are your goal(s) ?
- leverage the rich toolsets available
- self improvement
- curiosity
- why *nix
- programming ? (you can do that on windows)
- ...
Before jumping into a book (I see from amazon this is a heavyweight tome of over 1000 pages), take look online for introductory (free)courses (Coursera, edX, and Udemy), youtube videos ... to get a 'feel' for what you will face.
When stuck, google search in the first instance (almost ALWAYS), supplement that bying using BARD, chatGPT as query tools (be mindful of the quality returned from these platforms as they are definitely still artificial wrt intelligence but used sparingly can be helpful. Posting questions into forums with caution: ask yourself - if was asked verbatim what I'm about to ask is there enough detail for me to respond, if not, think on and re-word the question, some platforms will quickly bar you if you post poorly thought out requests , ie 'help me write a script to count verbs' ... ask google/chatgpt/bard these.
Your machine is probably a bit long in the tooth to adequately run anything other than a minimal unix/linux system
(i used the following compaq-mini-110 as a reference to your h/ware.
I'm sure other teammates will chip in with sage advice/recommendations.
The CD is Knoppix, right?
There are different Knoppix variants, especially regarding their graphical desktops. What do you get after booting it?
For what it's worth, here's my two cents...............
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You need to be sure what resources you have to run a Linux distribution (distro), especially the amount of RAM you have. Check that against the minimum requirements of the distro.
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Many Linux distro's have 'live' CD/DVDs that allow you to "try before you install" which boot directly from CD/DVD and some provide a USB stick image if you hardware can boot from USB. This will allow you to run Linux without overwriting your Windows XP.
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As far as learning Unix/Linux is concerned, you should always be able to "start a terminal session" to break out from the GUI (whichever one it is) to a command line shell. From there you can try various Unix/Linux commands from the CLI.
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For learning the actual command line commands search for "freecodecamp linux" where you can find training material. As already said, there are numerous similar resources on the web.
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If you are having particular difficulties with using a GUI there is a Linux distro designed to look and feel like Windows to avoid Windows users having to retrain to use it. Search for "Zorin linux" or "Zorin Linux live" or "Zorin linux live USB".
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If you have booted a 'live' CD/DVD/USB and it has auto-configured the network interface, you can even access web training resources directly from the 'live' running linux via a browser provided with the 'live' version.
Many thanks, , and , really.
I am trying to learn Unix out of curiosity, i.e., a wish to learn.
My Compaq-mini-110 has a CPU N270 1.60 GHz, RAM of 2 GB and hard disk capacity of 149GB (88 GB free). It is not connected to the Internet (I use another machine for that purpose). The CD is supposed to use only its own space and leave the hard drive untouched.
As rightly surmised, the CD is Knoppix 3.7. The book has circa 440 pages (and is therefore probably different from the one referred to).
When I boot from the CD, I get various screens, starting from "Knoppix 3.7" (which is exactly as in the book, let's call it "screen A": so far so good), and then I read successively "Uncompressing Linux", "OK, booting the kernel" ... etc. ... "Starting X11".
Then I can NOT see from the CD a screen shown in the book after "screen A" and having a penguin-like figure at the top and beneath "Welcome to the KNOPPIX live Linux-on-CD!", "Found SCSI device(s) handled by BusLogic.o." and "Scanning for USB/Firewire devices...". Let's call it "screen B"
After "screen A" (common to the book and the CD), I get, with "enter", a screen that looks like a rough imitation of Windows, with a menu bar that reads "Location-Edit-View-Go-Bookmarks-Tools-Settings-Window-Help". Let's call it "screen C".
Instead of showing screen C, the book, after screen A, shows a screen (call it "screen D") that reads:
"SunOS - Intel Platform Edition - Primary Boot Subsystem, vsn 2.0
Current Disk Partition Information
Parts Status [... and other ... elements and lines numbered 1-4]
Please select the partition you wish to boot: - ".
Unless I miss something, the book contains no screen C.
Screen D is Greek to me and I find in the book or the CD no hint as to what I should do with screen C or, generally, how to continue.
That's my problem.
Once more, thank you very much.
Tony
Many thanks, munkeHoller, MadeInGermany and hicksd8. Your names were in angular quotes and disappeared from my first reply.
Well, the Windows-like screen C is the graphical desktop!
(A "Welcome to Knoppix" splash screen or a login screen might not pop up, if not configured.)
Hold the right mouse button, maybe a menu pops up. Click or double-click on icons to open them.
You see, I don't know what exactly happens; there are so many different Linux desktops. (Knoppix is a Linux distro.)
The "SunOS" screen in the book is from a Solaris Unix, quite different from a Linux distro. Certainly not on your CD.
Also MacOS is quite a different thing.
Read more about Knoppix
It says your desktop is the LXDE desktop.
Click on 
icon in your taskbar?
And nobody else can reply? 
Why reply to an exact and helpful answer? That icon will bring up a "terminal" window (actually emulating a stand-alone terminal) which gives you a command line interface talking to your default shell. I usually have four or five of those up.
You might hover over all those bottom-row icons and see if they have some explanatory text, which you could google. I think reading from the left, they would be:
Settings;
About Linux (the penguin is a mascot);
Spreadsheet;
Drawing tool;
Home data files (your personal directory);
Terminal;
Don't know;
Image editor;
Don't know;
Calculator;
Note the scroll bars on the right: I suspect there is a whole bunch of helpful stuff below that KNOPPIX INFO banner.
You can do a whole lot in the terminal (I still use that, plus a browser, for 95% of my time). You probably will not find an IDE (Integrated Development Environment) small enough to run here, but you can try.
Windows XP hasn't seen a security update in 10 years. Maybe it is time to wipe that install out with a fresh *nix installation. Besides, if you really want to learn Unix/Linux/BSD, there really is no better way. If you run any *nix platform full-time, you will learn it! There are many Linux distros out there that will run well on older systems,. Dual booting and virtual machines are an option too, but with that system I doubt that they are viable solutions.
I suggest booking a Red Hat exam and starting to learn it. That's the best confirm way.
I'll do you one better - as materials for Red Hat certification exams mostly teach using Red Hat products, the materials for LPI certification exams teach using multiple different distributions.
Well said, but if I were looking for a job, I'd at least learn red hat. Linux skills are very transferable.