Sorry if this has been addressed - I did search before posting.

I have so many very old manuals and textbooks, from about 20 years ago, that I used exhaustively back when I was first using Linux (I've forgotten most of what I learned ;> ).

I haven't dipped into them recently, and having forgotten most of what I learned, wouldn't know how useful they might be now.

Is it worthwhile to refer to them when I have questions about Linux, or has the architecture and use of Linux changed to a great extent?

It might be a case of them being useful when I do know enough about Linux, again, to be able to know what isn't useful LOL

Maybe this is a question that is likely to elicit opinion (but worthy opinion ;> ).
Thanks,

Anything hardware-orientated like how to set up a sound card will certainly be obsolete. Anything about configuring X, ditto. And we have a lot of new desktop environments now. But I'd be surprised if much of the command line software has changed.

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Thanks! I remember that I spent a lot of time on sound cards and mouses. OTOH, I got a real kick out of tinkering with Afterstep.

I'd say, only useful for the command line syntax - but a modern 'Linux in a Nutshell' would likely be more useful.

You'll be surprised at just how much you'll be able to drag out of your memory, once you start back at it - don't forget, the man pages.

Most of the stuff for regular expression and other older tools like tr, sed, awk, and such is relevant. More best practices stuff for inetd, conf.modules, MAKENOD, and such are mostly useless. I have a KDE 1.0 book, that I'm pretty sure I'll never read. And a few linux books that I mostly got for the floppy or CD copy of linux installation medium back when dialup was the best (affordable) internet option available. Then again I kept a copy of windows 95 version A around just for the good times video. And I'm still kind of pissed that I had to buy windows 95 version C to format disks > 2GB, plus USB support. I keep an old java game book around, even though none of the programs compile with modern java, but it has a few equations for 3D stuff I reference once in a while.

Hi,

I have been using Slackware since PV's first release back in 1993. I still use 'man command' to help me remind options for a particular command. If the command is not used for a while then this old mind of mine needs some refresh. I do keep my cli cheat sheet accessible for quick refresh of my memory. I still keep system logs/notebooks for historical reasons for each of my systems. Doing so has saved me many times. Cheap way to aid you while backing out of a problem. I get my spiral notebooks(college ruled, more text print information/page) from Walmart when schools sales are on and spend about $0.20/notebook. Be sure to write things out detailed so you will know what's happening at the time of each entry. Abbreviations will cost you in the long run.
Nothing wrong with having to use reference material so you do not flub something. My library is dated since my retirement. I do not need to add anything since most can be acquired via web searches. My employer would pickup any cost for required material and I do not wish to spend my retirement income for such. Sure you will need to dig for treasures but not worth it if no sweat equity. Big plus is that loads are in 'pdf' format and GB/$ is cheap now a days.

Being my system(s) admin does keep me somewhat up to date. My GUI usage is limited to Desktop since my maintenance is done as root from cli. You must learn to break things down to simplest terms when diagnosing.
I am a firm believer in the above quote!

You use it or loose it!

Hope this helps.
Have fun & enjoy Gnu/Linux!

Good question. I'm sort of in the same boat. I have a slew of old Linux books dating back to the mid-'90s that I should probably be getting rid as their contents is likely to be so far out of date that referring to parts of some of them would likely cause more frustration than solutions. I can't see donating some of them to the local library, either, for the same reason. (I seem to recall seeing a book for dBase III at the local library---I don't want to contribute to their being a repository of outdated material.)

I agree with the other replies about hardware. That's where the biggest changes have happened with Linux and if you have old books that were valuable back when you were running ancient (in today's view) hardware, you might be better off getting rid of those. I've gotten to the point where I will have room to bring some of my old books back out of storage and I'm going to be, frankly, pretty brutal (not Marie Kondo-brutal, though) about which ones stay and which ones go. Oh, a few old classics will be kept (everyone needs a copy of `The 8068 Primer', right?) but space is always at a premium and after our last move, reducing what I have to move is nice too.