it'd be great if all experts are willing to share their experience.
 

Hi everyone, :newbie:

I'm a newbie to Linux and also to this forum. Lately, I asked a few questions on this forum and there seem to be as if there's always an answer for my questions. This thread does not relate to any technical aspect but all newbies would gain a lot from this I think. I started to learn Linux about a few months ago and I still find it hard to execute simple command like "cat , grep , so on ". But here everyone seems to know , even how the linux kernel and all those expert stuff work. So any expert can give us a few ideas how ya all actually learned that OS and become expert ?? I'm just asking this because there're a few friends of mine , they studied Linux long time ago and they just gave it up saying it's just too complicated. I now find it difficult too but I'm sure all newbies would like to know about expert's experience. Thanks for reading and please share with us.

with best regards

I'm far from being an expert, but you learn about Linux the same way as you learn everything else: by reading about it and using it. There's a lot of documentation available to suit all levels of experience.

I'm even further from being an expert than brianL, but I remember that there was a similar thread here in the past and one of the members gave us a simple piece of advice: create 10 000 posts on this forum and you'll probably be an expert:)

I know you know this but, when you ask a question on this or any other forum, you're making it available for thousands of people to look at, someone is going to have an answer for you. I myself am not an expert but one thing I do know how to do is search for an answer to any question I have. I will also spend the time needed to study so that I have an understanding of what I'm trying to do. I don't think there is anyone that knows everything about everything in linux or any other OS for that matter.

What I have noticed though is, you will have people that will have their strong points in an area, and with that have a better understanding of that subject. I think the key thing is time, don't expect to just jump in and know what you're doing. I think windows power users have some of the hardest times with linux, they come from a OS that they have invested hundreds if not thousands of hour on learning. Then step into a world they know nothing about, can't make there way around, get frustrated then walk away, and say what your friends said, "it's just too complicated." Not remembering the hours they invested in learning windows.

The commands you posted about, take each one and do some studying on it, then use them until you know how to use them. Keep a note book and keep notes, so if it's awhile before you come back to them you will have something to jog your memory. I have many books that I have read and am reading, but the best thing is to practice what your reading about. If you have an old pc set it up with linux on it just for learning, don't keep anything important on it so you're not afraid to break it. And if you do break it (and you will) don't just reinstall try to fix it. But the most important thing of all is to have fun, if you start getting frustrated walk away for awhile. Be willing to do your homework, don't expect others to do it for you but don't be afraid to ask questions either, your question may and will help others learn. It will prompt some that have some knowledge on the subject to dig a little deeper and thus learn more them selves.

I very much doubt it :)

You can download or read online plenty of good stuff from here:
http://tldp.org/guides.html

Let's not bicker and argue about who killed who:)

Another source of linux knowledge:
http://rute.2038bug.com/index.html.gz

Technical information can be learned by reading books (and web pages, manual pages and other documentation) about Linux or Unix in general, but you only really learn it well if you use it (daily tasks are good). It's frustrating to first think of a problem you could try to solve, especially if it takes time to either "find a problem" or solve it, so it helps if you have genuine will or need to use Linux. The bad way to "learn Linux" is to hear a friend praise it to heavens for being the ultimately best thing ever invented and then become obsessed to learn it even though your life goes perfectly well without it. The good way to learn it is to have Linux because you personally want to try it out or consider it good, do daily tasks with it and learn it bit by bit.

In short: read, try, succeed/fail, read more, (re)try, repeat.

The answer to that is don't give up. Have you ever noticed that people who say they "can't" do something really meant to say: "I don't want to." ?

In my experience, the way to learn these things is as you need them. First, just use the system. Try different things to see what happens. THEN go read a book. I recommend "Linux in a Nutshell" from O'Reilly. When you get tired of reading, go back to poking around.
When you get stuck on a command, use the man page, e.g.: "man cat" or "man grep"
Also "man -k <keyword>" to find commands for a specific purpose. e.g.: Look at "man -k file"

Hello everyone,

I am a relative newbie. I've been running strictly linux at home now for about 8 months out of pure frustration with windoze (even though I still have to use it at work :-(). I made a clean break, never looked back. I now have a Frankenstein-like used-to-be-Dell running as a DMZ and web cache machine running on Slackware 12.1 and using squid, an HP media center (also "frankenized") with suse 11.0 as a NFS server and secondary desktop, a custom-built machine from magic microcomputers (also suse 11) as my primary desktop, and a custom laptop from xtreme notebooks also running suse 11. I have all Intel processors (all socket 775, one single core, two duos and one quad), and have migrated from ATI to nvidia for all my graphics. I've flashed my cisco router with dd-wrt.
All my limited knowledge has come from forums (especially the ones on this site) and Google. It seems like a daunting task, but if I can do it, anyone can. Almost any answer can be found if you look hard enough. I have only posted questions a few times because I haven't really had to ask, someone else usually already has.
I'm finally getting to the point where I feel comfortable getting others started on Linux (I've given away cheap desktops that I installed ubuntu on to a couple of friends, and they love it! They can't afford windoze, but want to play, and with my guidance and forums theyre having fun with computers now).

From all of the excellent advise in this thread, I believe these excerpts from an earlier post are worth highliting:

That's very encouraging. Thanks everyone for sharing experience with the rest of us and with me. I think I should keep a notebook for learning Linux. It'll be very handy , I can look it up anytime I want. Thanks for pointing out a lot of points there . I thought using Windows is comfortable and easy without realizing how much time I spent learning how to use it properly. Thanks everyone for replies and recommended sources.

with regards

The longer you use linux, the more you remember. :)

yeah, its a good idea.

Ive got 4 of those A5 reporters notebooks on different things from the past 3 years or so while Ive been messing about with linux. got a couple for scribbling on aswell.

the notebook with all the general info in it, like compression and file permissions is gradually getting thinner, because when these things eventually stick in my head, I rip the pages out.

That's a good idea too. Otherwise, It'll look like a long script from Alexander library . :) Thanks for the tips too.

yes, the way I learned it was staying up long nights fiddling with it and reading books on it and hanging out with friends who were also doing the same thing :)