What is the best general, up-to-date, 'Missing Manual'-style Linux book for newbies? I'm using Fedora 11 (for now).

TBH The Linux "scene" is a pretty fast paced environment and there is no such thing as "up to date" book. You are better off using the net. Most Distros have a 6 month cycle so imagine how quick things change...

Also, matters what you mean by "book"

A great place to start would be reading the Slackware book and other Slack stuff
http://www.slackbook.org/
http://www.slackbasics.org/

Many distro's are slack-based
slax, wolvix, goblinx, absolute-linux, etc

Another good book would be the Damn-Small-Linux DSL book, as it has alot of stuff in it that can be
used for DSL-N, Feather, Knoppix too.

And here's some good fedora stuff too
http://www.fedoraguide.info/index.php?title=Main_Page
http://www.howtoforge.com/the-perfec...edora-11-gnome

Hope that helps some, other members may know more about Fedora 11.

The thing is, there is so much I don't know that I don't know what I need to find out. There seem to be a lot of guides which go: 'here is how to install Linux' — yes, I can do that bit, but then: what are all the configuration files in my user folder? What do they do? How do libraries work? How do I manipulate my environment? What are all those folders? How do I get stuff done?
Can you point me to tutorials/guides that cover this sort of stuff?

Unfortuneatly I don't use Fedora, however I can provide you with a portable-fedora-11
via my portable-qemu which runs on any parttion type, on usb or out of folder on hd.

basically, it's a qemu-img parttioned with swap, with fedora 11 installed.
it runs on windows or linux and you can make the vhd any size.
I will provide you wiht materials and info, you don't need qemu or qemu.exe installed
that;s why it's called Portable.

Now, why am I talking about a virtual system, 'cause you can experiment around and mess stuff up, learn linux without risking PC or Operating system

Now, see my post here, and download Portable-BrowserPuppy47.zip and that is small and will give you an idea of what's up.
( http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...d.php?t=736043 )

And, if you wanna set up fedora 11 in real installed qemu vhd, we can do that too.
There are alot of members here who run fed 11, so also maybe start a new POST
named "I wanna learn Fedora-11" or similar.

Yes, that meets my definition of book (but it seems very slackware-based). I am missing something in these general user guides ... they skip from 'here is how to use a lot of boring unix utilities I already know about' to 'if you want to do some advanced networking stuff I've never heard of...', or like one of those links give screenshot after screenshot of a lot of automated steps.

I want something that explains what the advanced networking stuff is, how it fits into what I already know, and what I can use it to do. A Virgil-guided tour round Linux, gently pointing out what there is, what it's for, how it fits together, taking the new user step by step through the landscape until they become familiar with its layout.

Have you joined the fedora forum bro?
( http://fedoraforum.org/ )

also, look here on forum site, down the page a bit, look at all that stuff.
( http://fedoraforum.org/?view=forum_help )

This one looks good too dogpound
http://www.techotopia.com/index.php/...nux_Essentials

+1

Best way to learn is to experiment with it. If you get stuck with a problem then google it or ask specific questions. You can read books all you want but half of it wont stick without practice, you'll probably end up having information overload anyways. The best way to deal with it is just to do it.

Reading your post, you already have an idea of what you want to know so just google them one by one. Thats the best answer I can give you.

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en...G=Search&meta=
http://beginlinux.com/desktop_traini...desktop-course

Have a look at some of the stuff here, The Linux Documentation Project:
http://tldp.org/guides.html
Read online, or download.

Linux For Dummies

Linux Bible

I can't vouch for either of these because I learned everything I know about Linux from the included manuals and the many great resources on the web such as the ones mentioned in previous replies.

yeah, definitely make a list, then research each item one at a time. You need to try stuff out as you go, or it won't stick.
You will get info overload if you try to read it all in one go.
Here's another set of useful sites:

http://rute.2038bug.com/index.html.gz
http://www.linuxtopia.org/online_boo...ion/index.html (as this runs behind Fedora, 99% is still useful)

I wanted to recommend rute as well, but I don't think it really fits the OP's request of a book for newbies. I see rute as an excellent guide for would be admins, but not for newbies. Since the date on the linked copy is 2002, I don't think it would qualify as up-to-date either.

OP, you'll learn a great deal if you have the time and patience to work through rute. If it seems too advanced for you, put it on your reading list for later.

Most of it is still accurate, the *nix essentials haven't changed. Most 'up to date' stuff is to do with the way different distros handle installs/updates and different pkgs are installed by default. Also the GUI.

I'm not sure how you are defining the difference between novice and newbie either ...

It is an excellent work. Notice that I'm not disagreeing with you.

My fault for not thinking someone might actually read what I had written. Fixed.