Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

What Are the Best New-To-UNIX Resources?

Posted by Cliff on from the helping-them-help-themselves dept.

cam_macleod asks: "I will soon be teaching an Introduction to UNIX course, and I usually provide recommendations on resources that students can use to further their learning. In this case, the course must be OS-, vendor- and distro-independent, and yet accessible to different levels of experience. My question is: what sites and other resources do you find most helpful, both for you and newbies you help?"

2 of 18 comments (clear)

  1. Man Pages by lw54 · · Score: 4
    Teach them the basics: ls, cd, and the filesystem layout.

    After that, there really is no substitute for man pages. Teach how to search man pages for keywords and how to RTFM. If they don't learn how to find the answer themselves, you won't be doing them a favor.

  2. O'Reilly Knows UNIX by bziman · · Score: 5
    Check out O'Reilly & Associates UNIX Homepage for a list of UNIX books. In particular Learning the UNIX Operating System is in its 4th edition and is one of the best intro books there is. O'Reilly publishes books that cover general topics such as the one I mentioned. Also they have books that go into details on the utilities like sed and awk and shells like bash.

    For programming, try Advanced Programming in the UNIX Environment by W. Richard Stevens, and for extreme beginners, try The C Programming Language, 2nd Edition by Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie.

    For system administration, try the whatever Unleashed books. On Linux, much can be learned by browsing /usr/doc/HOWTO and the man pages.

    Good luck!

    Brian