I would recommend C or C++ for a couple of reasons. There are several good free compilers available for C on both windows and linux. Alot of linux stuff is written in C so there should be plenty of source code to look at and play with. Visit <a href="http://www.cprogramming.com/">http://www.cprogramming.com/</a> No certificates but alot of good info and tutorials on the C language. <div>On 7/15/05, Mustafa Abbasi <<a href="mailto:lordverminard@gmail.com">lordverminard@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> i have recently started using linux and since its my summer vacations i wantedto learn a language. i'll be honest part of this is so that i have a certificate to show when i apply to colleges but mostly its cuz i wanna learn. so what language should i start with. i was thinking C or visual basic but i am not sure if visual basic can be used in linux ( can it???) are these easy to learn, if only at the begginer level. is there some place that would offer me a certificate for completing this thing. i live in pakistan so an online coarse that offer a certificate would be incredible. thanks. -- ubuntu-users mailing list <a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="mailto:ubuntu-users@lists.ubuntu.com">ubuntu-users@lists.ubuntu.com</a> <a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-users" target="_blank"> http://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-users</a> </blockquote></div>