what is the best book for learning linux

A Practical Guide to Linux by Sobell. Better than the next ten books.

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although a bit distro specific but quite general actually - http://slackbook.org

BTW no book alone is good for learning linux and also only practice makes perfect. That is no book can teach you the solutions to the problems that you have not experienced yourself. You may read the best books in the world, then sit behind the linux and discover that actually you cannot remember almost anything. You have to go through the learning curve yourself unfortunately.

"Linux" is the name of the kernel. Are you interested in learning kernel development?
Or how the command line works?
Or how to get to facebook? (groan)

If you're into learning the command line, there's a whole list of resources available here.

http://www.abebooks.com/Learning-UNI.../5261858270/bd

If nothing else, the $1 is more than for the best vi command summary I have ever seen.

All of that in the unix book relates directly to linux.

The first linux book I read was 'Thomson Linux+ 2005 In Depth'.

Now I look back on it, I think it was an ideal book to start with because although the title said 'In Depth', it wasnt very difficult at all, and at the end of each chapter there was a short test. I liked that, and passed each chapter, and that gave me more encouragement once Id finished the book.

It seems to be freely available online, here:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/89454626/10/Linux


It was written 7 years ago, but I still think it would be mostly relevant today, as it covers the basic's.


The first chapter of the book,'Introduction to linux', is fantastic. Its very well written.

Try http://rute.2038bug.com/index.html.gz & there's a load of manuals at www.linuxtopia.org

I personally think that this forum, and the Internet at large, are your best sources of information ... although I do not deny Tim O'Reilly his proper due.

I suggest that you buy a copy of VMWare and with it install a virtual machine on whatever system you now have ... and upon that virtual machine, install a copy of (your choice of) Linux.

Then, look carefully at yonder fire-hose and prepare yourself as best you can for a blast in the face ... from which you will strive to "take a sip." Then, turn the valve. Dive in. Brace yourself ....

In all honesty, I think that's the best way to do it. (And, just so you know, I've been wrapped-up in "this crazy infatuation" for thirty-one years now.) You need to prepare yourself for "the firehose" and, well, "get over it" as best you can. You need to strap your life-vest firmly around you and grab a really deep breath of air.

... be-cause ... you're gonna go through it and then you're gonna bob back up to the surface and find that you actually didn't drown, and then the fun begins and someday you might even find yourself writing a blog-posting just as crazy as this one to a perfect stranger half a planet away!

In other words, "c'mon in, the water's fine." Given that your objective is to learn how to swim, you may as well get into the pool.

I vote for RUTE. You can buy it in print, or you can read it online for free:

http://linux.2038bug.com/rute-home.html

Not to counter, but to supplement the recommendations above, there's a lot of great stuff at The Linux Documentation Project.

Hi:

Linux In A Nutshell is good-
http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9780596154493.do

Ubuntu Linux Bible (if your using Ubuntu)
This is a good book IMO I read it on and off for about a year; learned a lot-
http://dtrask.wordpress.com/2007/03/...1-pages-worth/

The Linux Bible
http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyT...470929987.html

Also there is a website called 'ebookee' and on that site there is a boat load of Linux books.
Good Luck

Why is that? I have found VirtualBox to do everything I need in a VM for free.

I must agree.

A book will teach you the right way to do something, but you'll never remember it as well as if you spend an hour googling and attempting 4 wrong ways to do it before finally figuring out how to do it right. Of course it will be slower, but you will learn so much more...and it will be actual learning rather than simple memorization.

Nothing has taught me more than the few times I have screwed up and bricked the OS by doing something stupid. No amount of text, even in bold capital letters, will teach you as much as ONE command that's run as the wrong user in the wrong directory, and the resulting 48 hours of attempted recovery before you format and reinstall the entire OS.

The Linux Cookbook by Michael Stutz is good.