So... I"m looking to find a group of people to form a 'Linux Book Club' with. My idea is basically that we get a group of people together, then find a linux book that we're all interested in reading, then work through sections or chapters and discuss as we go along.

Off the top of my head, here is a list of online books that seem like they would have enough meat to discuss for a while:

• Advanced Bash-Scripting Guide
• Apache Documentation
• Bash Guide for Beginners
• Bash man pages
• Linux: Rute User's Tutorial and Exposition
• Securing & Optimizing Linux: The Ultimate Solution
• SSH man pages
• The Linux System Administrators' Guide
• Using Samba, 2nd Edition
• Version Control with Subversion

Anyone interested in trying something like this? Are there other interesting titles out there?

It could work if integrated into a Linux User Group. "Book Club" just doesn't sound right and, by the ideas associated, kind of limiting.

Well, I'm not sure if it will work. I mean, it would need to have a goal, otherwise it won't make sense. And it would only work for complicated books that most people would not be able to conquer on their own, or that are confusing. I can't think of too many people that will have a problem reading say RUTE and understanding it. The ABS is a bit more complicated, but I'm sure if you read it through most people will get it. And again, what is the purpose, how many people would be interested in these book. I know ssh, samba, apache, and svn do not interest me almost at all, and I don't care too much about them (even if I do use svn and ssh rarely).

I figure that quickly and thoroughly learning the subject matter at hand would be the goal of individual members. Fostering focussed discussions and forming relationships between the members would be either happy side effects, or meta-goals, however you want to look at it.

That all depends... I come from a programming background, I would see the Advanced Bash Scripting Guide as fairly straightforward, but I don't know mail server or DNS administration from a hole in the ground, and I have a feeling that those parts of Rute might be difficult for me. I'm willing to RTFM, but sometimes in that process I come to a point where certain concepts just don't make sense. I don't have a coherent concept of what a DNS zone is, for instance. I've read a couple of 'intro to DNS' texts, but I just don't quite get it. If I could piece together the parts that I've read and do understand, and work with other people doing the same, I'm sure that it would come quickly.

The RTFM network maybe? I'm definitely open to better suggestions on what to call this beast.

Well, that may work, but probably you'll have to tell everyone to read beforehand, bring questions and discuss them. Because, usually you don't realize what you don't understand until you finish reading and try it out.

My plan is to choose a text, then set up a schedule, something like this:

Chapter 1 October 6
Chapter 2 October 8
Chapter 3 October 13
Chapter 4 October 15
Chapter 5 October 20
Chapter 6 October 22
Chapter 7 October 27
Chapter 8 October 29

Obviously, it works better to read, then discuss, Slashdot notwithstanding. Since this is a forum, rather than an IRC chat, I'm guessing that people will be trying things as they go along, posting snippets of code, etc. I would prefer to keep the discussion loose, although I might have a few canned questions per chapter, if the discussion got slow.

Yeah, try it, it might work (especially if they actually read something beforehand).

You forgot to add the two most fascinating and influential works in the postmodernist fiction. They span a number of genres, from romance to poetry, from horror to documentary. I am obviously talking about emacs and vi manuals

On a serious note, well, doing it for the sake of discussion is not the most productive way of spending time and that kind of books usually leave very little to interpretation/discussion. Perhaps a better option (IMHO) would be to colaborate with other members of LQ to write some comprehensive wikis/tutorials on eg. how to secure/optimise linux, or how to cook pasta using sed/awk and put them on LQ. Alternatively, open a section of LQ where some people would work together (in a form of blog/thread) on some small (or not) but useful projects (eg. in python/bash/C etc.) and post their progress step by step along with all the comments/reasons/remarks so that programming ignorants like myself could see how you approach such a task from incubation till its mature state.
just my 5p

Ok, the poll is winding down, and it looks like the two books that people are most interested in reading are Bash Guide for Beginners and Advanced Bash-Scripting Guide. Unless the poll alters drastically in the next 24 hours, I'm going to start with Bash Guide for Beginners. I figure that's as good a place to start as any. There are 12 chapters, I figure that we can discuss three chapters a week (Monday, Wednesday, Friday) for four weeks, starting on Monday, October 19.

So... if you want to poll really hard to discuss something else, get your friends together and vote early and often (ok... maybe it's too late to vote early). Votes for "None of the above. This idea is stupid." are no longer being counted.

I've started a discussion thread for the Bash Beginner's Guide here