When I made the switch to linux, I had only one system. I bought a set of removable HD cases and had a drive for Linux and a drive for Windows. I started out mainly running Windows as my primary OS, then I would shutdown, switch out the drive and boot linux (don't know which flavor - but I installed it from floppies). Then I would decided what I wanted to accomplish - format a floppy, start X, email, browser, dialup, etc. When done - successful or not, I'd would switch back to Windows. As time went on I found the the uptime on the Linux drive was longer and longer. Soon I was running for weeks, then months without swapping drives back to Windows. Now, of course, I don't use anything but Linux.
As far as "what" to focus on first - shell commands. You need to know how to delete, edit, copy, create files before you go mucking around with network settings. Knowing what's under the hood becomes a real plus when something stops working from the web browser or GUI utility.
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... still installing service packs and patches.
When I made the switch to linux, I had only one system. I bought a set of removable HD cases and had a drive for Linux and a drive for Windows. I started out mainly running Windows as my primary OS, then I would shutdown, switch out the drive and boot linux (don't know which flavor - but I installed it from floppies). Then I would decided what I wanted to accomplish - format a floppy, start X, email, browser, dialup, etc. When done - successful or not, I'd would switch back to Windows. As time went on I found the the uptime on the Linux drive was longer and longer. Soon I was running for weeks, then months without swapping drives back to Windows. Now, of course, I don't use anything but Linux.
As far as "what" to focus on first - shell commands. You need to know how to delete, edit, copy, create files before you go mucking around with network settings. Knowing what's under the hood becomes a real plus when something stops working from the web browser or GUI utility.