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Can anyone tell me where to start with LINUX. Is there a good book I should read fisrt or any sort of tutorial I should go throught that would teach me the premice of LINUX. I just don't know a thing about it , but I am strongly motivated to learn
and use it in my work.
1. linux in a nutshell (o'reilly) is one of many books that may help you.
2. personally i like Suse but many programms i download myself so i see a distro as a nice help to begin.
in the long run you will need a distro less and less, i guess.
cheers, jens
You might start at the "Linux Documentation Project" Website at http://www.tldp.org/. Specifically at the official Linux FAQ at: http://www.tldp.org/FAQ/Linux-FAQ/index.html. One of the problems with Linux documentation is that it gets out-of-date quickly. Some of the docs on this site are up-to-date.
When I first started (still pretty new) I just dove in, read alot of docs and got great help here on the forums. You will you learn pretty quick. But the O'rielly books are awesome as well.
You'll probalbly find reading linux texts good for reference rather than reading. When I first started (not long ago, still a newbie), I would just try to do something simple, like read a cd, and then use whatever references I had available to get through each step - how to mount, list files, etc.
I had the RedHat 7.1 bible at the time, the internet, and this wonderful sites seach feature. There are tons of books on basic linux usage. To me, there were more or less the same. I like having a real text to read. I would suggest shelling out 30 bucks on some gigantic linux text. That may be out of the question for some, but I've gotten more than my money's worth from mine. Enjoy.
The Linux Cookbook is like my bible. Its also under a free license, but you can buy it. Here's the web site. The book is VERY good.
dsl.org/cookbook/
If you want to jump in the deep end, and have a broadband connection, I recommend Debian or Gentoo. Debian is actually really easy to set up, and Gentoo taught me much. I don't have broadband, so I really suffered. SuSE's install is crazy-easy, and it works really well. If you don't have bandwidth, try SuSE or Mandrake, or even Red Hat.
I haven't seen linux in a nutshell but I bought Running Linux (also by O'reily) 3 1/2 years ago and it is still my favorite Linux book. Helped me out many times. Almost as much as this forum's search feature. But like previously stated by tunedLow, better for reference. Try dual booting your machine and enjoy!
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