a good book for a higher level
 

Well im new to the forum and i hope to be here awhile and learn and maybe one day help...but onto my question.

Im currently a junior in college, working on my Computer Science degree, i have basically no experiance in the linux environment or with the commands.

I was wondering since the class i am taking now deals with Computer Graphics and coding in a linux environment but there is no part of this class devoted to learning how to use the linux environment. I have taken it upon myself to try and learn it on my own, or begin learning it on my own.

My actual question is what would be a good book that would teach me the basics, while incorporating things that i will find useful after i become efficient in the Linux Environment. As well as maybe encorporating some things such as information on shell programming.

Would this be a good choice:

A Practical Guide to Linux(R) Commands, Editors, and Shell Programming

Your help is greatly appreciated.

This one's a good read and you don't have to pay for it... :) http://rute.2038bug.com/index.html.gz - the site is geared towards "Redhat like" distros which tend to be easier to learn.

However, since I'm biased towards Slackware and you might enjoy a challenge, I should also mention http://www.slackbook.org/html/book.html

PS Good luck with your studies...

I have to admit that I am not familar with the book that you have mentioned. But if you are looking for a book to provide you with a starting point in the world of linux I would suggest:

The underground Guide to Unix

for a fairly high level flyover. If you glance over this book and decide that you want more meat I would suggest:

UNIX Systems Administrators Handbook

(I am using the third version, the purple one) which goes covers a wide variaty of topics, in several diffrent OS versions (UNIX/Linux). Both of these books get into a bit of shell programing, but if this is something that you find interesting, I am sure that you will want to find a text that focuses on that matter directly.

Happy Hunting

O'Reilly is a good resource: Linux in a Nutshell, Linux Cookbook, etc.
Also "Classic shell scripting"
also "Linux 2005+ In Depth" (published by Thomson)