Need your opinion about my future reading/studying plan.

Donello · 06-13-2016, 08:53 PM

So I have been using Linux for the last 3 years and soon will enroll in an electrical engineering program, where computer science subjects are heavily involved (mainly programming languages like C and Java). The program itself does not focus on operating systems at all and I kinda want to make it up for myself and dive into Linux on my own.
I have set up a reading and a self-studying plan and here is the list of books I am intending to read respectively :

The Linux command line by William E.Shots.

How Linux Works: What Every Superuser Should Know by Brian Ward.

And lastly, Unix and Linux System Administration Handbook by Nemeth,Synder,Hein and Wahley.

What do you think of my plan ? Do you have any other recommendations ?

Looking forward to hear your advice.

The books will be read one by one, so once I finish the first one I am gonna start with the next. Do you think the list is flawed ? What further steps can I take to develop my skills ?

Turbocapitalist · 06-13-2016, 11:34 PM

If you're looking at it from an applied perspective, then you should also look at "sudo" and "ssh" use and configuration. There are good online materials for both:

There are also some good print books on both.

If you are looking at it from a theoretical perspective, then Operating Systems Design and Implementation, 3rd ed. by Andrew S Tanenbaum and Albert S Woodhull is generally highly thought of. Your library will have that.

Either way, don't let them distract you from your main studies. You need to excel at those, though you can always switch majors if the operating systems become interesting enough.

Donello · 06-14-2016, 05:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Turbocapitalist

If you're looking at it from an applied perspective, then you should also look at "sudo" and "ssh" use and configuration. There are good online materials for both:

There are also some good print books on both.

If you are looking at it from a theoretical perspective, then Operating Systems Design and Implementation, 3rd ed. by Andrew S Tanenbaum and Albert S Woodhull is generally highly thought of. Your library will have that.

Either way, don't let them distract you from your main studies. You need to excel at those, though you can always switch majors if the operating systems become interesting enough.

Thanks a lot for replying. I checked both of the books you suggested and they seem really interesting. For the distraction thing, I have decided to dumb the girlfriend-idea during college and therefore I will definitely have 1-2 hours of spare time a day and I think within 4 years I will have read a lot and practiced :-)

sundialsvcs · 06-14-2016, 06:04 AM

Frankly, the first thing that I would do is to set up a virtual machine, install Linux on it, hold your breath and plunge into the water. (Go ahead ... the waters are quite deep ...

...)

There's a certain logic that says that you can't learn how to swim by reading a book about it. You just might learn more by setting up a VM, then hanging around here at LQ.