TrackbackLearning Linux/Un*x
I‘ve got a friend who is a software engineer too, but who has never worked with Linux or Unix. Now he wants to start learning something about it, so he asked me about good sources for beginners. My friend is a Java programmer with some work experience, so when I say “beginners” I just mean “newbies to Linux”, not “computer illiterates” or “programming dummies”.
What he wants to learn (or rather what I believe would be best for him to learn) are the basics about Linux installation, configuration and administration, command line rudiments and tools, typical open source programming languages and environments and general development methodology.
There must be some good general introductory-but-not-too-basic books, documents, tutorials and web sites out there. It’s just that the ones I can think of (which I may have used in the past myself) are either in Spanish (which he can’t read), a bit too old or centred on very specific aspects.
Can you recommend any good source? What was your first book about Linux? Any classic must for beginners?
He prefers books to web sites.
Books? About Linux? What about the O’Really’s ones? That’s always a good choice ;-)
Up there in London you got lots of good libraries where you can find those books.
“* in a Nutshell” series are usually a good starter for this sort of challenger. As, for example, Linux in a Nutshell.
And if you like to aim higher, you can also try with the LPI Linux Certification in a Nutshell. I now this is a exman orieted book, but it covers linux very well.
I hope this help you a bit.
See you londinense ;-)
First thought: “this guy is already a software engineer and he hasn’t got a nice linux experience?”. F*** him!!. Here comes just another “wanna-larger-cv” looking for a “Linux Inside” stamp for his resum. Anyway if you think he deserves your help…
My first contact with Linux was through Carolyn Meinel’s GTMHHs (http://www.happyhacker.org/gtmhh/index.shtml). They were quite great but I guess they might be to simple for him.
The next book for me was the Slackware 3.4 Manual, which I found pretty fantastic. After that I have not found something comparable, only PDFs tutorials, etc. Packetstormsecurity.nl is a nice web for that. He might also enjoy my tutorial: http://monoevo.sf.net/jaime/docs/dragones.html who knows…
I learned with Suse Linux handbook, the one that comes with the packaged distro.
The best way to learn is learn by demand. Let him install one ubuntu (easy one!) and start crawling the web.
linuxquestions.org and ubuntu forums are a good start point he can use to try to fix problems that could arise.
And about open source languages… He already knwos Java why he need more? ^_^
Let us know how he do with this.
The best way is having a best (linux user) friend. :)
It is one of things I can never understand … how people can think that way. It’s so illogical that it can only be based upon moronity.