Getting Started In Linux

In previous posts, I've asked for the Slashdot community to help me identify good books and websites for developers and I thought the response was really useful. This time, I'd like to ask you all for your recommendations for great Linux beginner books and also what you think is the best way of showing off Linux on TV. Read on for more info ... I do this thing twice on month on TechTV's "The Screen Savers" where I try to show off something neat about Linux and Open Source software. At the end of each segment, I give out my email address for people to send questions. The question I get most is "What book should I get to help me learn Linux?" I have a couple of books that I do recommend, but I want to hear what you guys think so I can link to this conversation and have it be available for everyone to refer to.

Additionally, any tips on what you guys would think would make good open-source oriented TV and make people really want to try out Linux would be appreciated.

Comments

Good example for TV:

[Saint Aardvark]

Go to a site that makes you play whack-a-mole with pop-up windows in Explorer. Then go there in Mozilla.

Very visual, easily understood, and it'll appeal to everyone who's ever had that happen to them before.

Re:Good example for TV:

[dirvish]

On the same not, go to a site with one of those annoying adds that flashes Red "YOU ARE A WINNER!!! CLICK HERE TO CLAIM YOUR PRIZE!!!" and is so bright it hurts your eyes. Then right-click on the image and select "Block Images from this Server" from the menu that pops up. Most people have no need for any images that are hosted on doubleclick.net's servers.

Re:Good example for TV:

[Oliver Defacszio]

your bank's webpage is broken, you should tell them to fix it. Mozilla is more standars compliant than internet explorer. If they won't use correct HTML, then that's their fault.

Are you linux guys that naive? Seriously. What company of any size just suddenly jumps to attention to appease the nasal whines of someone using -- and let's be honest here -- an oddball product? Standards compliance means, say it with me, nothing in this world that is essentially run by popularity contest.

'Tell[ing] them to fix it' means bringing in some HTML or JS or PHP or Perl or ASP or whatever jerk, who doesn't work for free mind you, to make it go. And, why again? Oh yeah, for 0.03 percent of all potential clients. Ideally, sure, that's just what happens, but in the real world that e-mail never even gets read.

Your idealism is heartwarming, but in order to "tell" anyone anything, you'd better bring some actual business reasons that aren't comprised of a whiteboard presentation of HTML standards and a pocket-full of hope. You (and I) as Mozilla users are ostensibly alone and no one hears our screams.

Re:Good example for TV:

[los furtive]

I spent 3 years doing tech support with IBM for almost two dozen different companies, including no less than 4 banks. You would not believe how much the banks will compete to keep you as thier customer, and if it means making their browser Netscape/Mozilla compliant, most of them will do it. After all, for the pidly sum of $38,000, they can expect to keep at least 5,000 customers happy (and you know i'm guessing on the very very low end of the scale). 11.5% of the browser population is still a large part of a business' clientel. Another way to look at it, a user is just as likely to be gay as to use a non-MS browser. I'm just sayin'....

A Book just doesn't cut it

[Ignorant Aardvark]

Face it, a book just doesn't cut it. Nobody should be required to pick up a manual and read through hundreds of pages before they're able to use something. That's the main difference between products that fail and products that succeed. It all hinges on the usability and intuitiveness of what you're dealing with. What is needed is a really good "teaching Linux" distro. It installs automatically and flawlessly, and it first boots up into a tutorial that the user can go through while exploring the system and learning the ins and outs. Obviously you'd want to keep root access away from the newbie user until they get more adjusted. You can't expect someone to read a whole book and just "get it". You need to acclimatize people in gradually. This is one of the reasons Windows is successful and Linux isn't, for the most part: ease of use. Windows just works. To get a Linux install to my satisfaction took over 100 hours. Most people simply don't have that kind of patience.

Re:A Book just doesn't cut it

[SystematicPsycho]

Nobody should be required to pick up a manual and read through hundreds of pages before they're able to use something.

Err yes they should and that goes for anything technical. Reading and training are essential but practice is most important. We're not learning to ride a bike here. I think what your trying to say is that reading a book on programming isn't going to make you a good programmer because it won't. Often I see ppl ask dumb questions that could be solved by typing in a man command. I think the absolute first thing any newbie should read are these 2 documents ->

Asking smart questions
How to report bugs effectively

Re:A Book just doesn't cut it

[Radical Rad]

I have known many office workers who only became moderately productive using MS Office and Windows after studying books and going to classes. Contrary to your FUD, MS Windows doesn't 'just work' and it never has. There is an entire industry devoted to training users on Microsoft products and the fact that it exists is evidence that those products are not intuitive and only usable after many long hard hours of study and practice.

Furthermore, 'ease of use' is no longer a valid argument in the battle for the desktop. An office worker using X Windows has no more reason to open a command prompt than one using MS Windows. Star Office and Mozilla are accessible through icons, and the filesystem is easily accessible through Konquerer or Nautilus.

People who are resistant to switching to Linux are mostly that way because of their preconscious memories of the painful, slow learning process that they struggled through when they learned MS Windows. They fear 'learning a new operating system' when they don't even feel confident in the one they have been working on for a decade.

It is such a wonderful feeling when I show people that X Windows is just like MS Windows. Everything is done by clicking on buttons and files can be cut, copied, and pasted just like they are used to. Star Office 6 looks so similar to MS Office and Corel Office and Lotus SmartSuite that there just is no learning curve. They are immediately productive on their new, free system.

Well I have to go now and spread the joy of Linux elsewhere...

PS. What in the heck did you do for 100 hours? It took me about 10 minutes to tweak Redhat the way I like it.

Re:Learn the command line

[Anonymous Coward]

Gotta love the tab key!

Actually, I got so used to the tab key that when I got back to *gasp* Windows, I kept hitting it and expecting it to complete the directory/filename for me.

Re:Learn the command line

[Waffle Iron]

Learn to use the command line and not a pretty gui, it will teach you alot about how Unix and Linux works, Plus it makes you look cool to your friends when ur flying though the command line:)

Yeah, I saw chrisd on the Screen Savers showing how to set up a UT game server on a Linux box. He got to the part where you start the server, which required typing in a command with some arcane options.

On TV, it looked just as impressive as Richard Nixon did debating JFK. The camera zoomed in and tried to focus on the tiny text, but to no avail. The Screen Savers host rolled his eyes and made a snide comment; viewers were referred to the show's website to find a copy of this magical command sequence.

The command line does not make for good TV.

Day to Day

[MBCook]

When I first started using Linux a few years ago, I did it just to see what it was about. At that time, I thought it was interesting, but didn't know that you could really DO anything on it other that use it as a server. Sure you could surf the internet, but...

It was only later that I found out you could wordprocess, play games, and do many other things. I would suggest showing how to do everyday stuff, as a comparison to Windows and/or OS X. I don't mean a "see Linux is better 'cause it doesn't crash and it does this and doesn't crash and..." kind of stuff. I mean showing that you can play MP3s and they work just as well as under windows. And that they sound just as good as under windows. Show a wordprocessor or two. Show some web browsers. Show it can play shockwave flash, java, and other things. Show Quake III and UT2k3. And make sure to point out that the performance is always like in windows, if not better. I don't mean braging, but more of "see we're just as good." Show how Linux can be used for many things. Play a DVD, burn a CD, etc.

Other than the above "practical" things, show some neat stuff. Show a few windowmanagers. Sure there is GNOME and KDE, but what about showing Enlighenment, WindowMaker (my fav), and other cool ones. Show Quake III in one window, UT2K3 in another (or maybe just two Quake III connected to eachother) and have something else up doing something; to show that Linux is good at juggleing things.

I know you've shown at least one of these things in the past (MP3s) but I don't get to watch much TV lately. And of course, these are just my ideas. I'm sure the other posters have come up with some cool ideas by now.

books

[sstory]

Probably the most important thing for a Linux beginner is a book on how to withstand infantile criticism by hordes of 17-yr-old nerds with a superiority complex. You'll see a lot of that if you try to learn linux. For not already possessing all the esoteric knowledge, you will be berated and demeaned in the foulest terms. Hopefully you'll encounter enough of the good free-software people to keep you involved. Furthermore I'd suggest reading In the Beginning Was the Command Line by Neal Stephenson. Good layman overview of the history/philosophy.

Re:jump right in

[EvanED]

While there are a breed of hackers who would consider "many hours" getting to a point where a system is set up, most people just want to use a computer and would consider that time fustrating rather than "gratifying." I know I got extremely fustrated trying to get XFree working under Mandrake, and the gratification of getting the nVidia drivers downloaded through Lynx and installed only slightly made up for it. Oh, the reason I had Mandrake? Mainly because I was having problems getting Red Hat to talk to my sound card. Despite many hours of work on that, I made no progress at all.

Re:jump right in

[IceCat]

Keep in mind there are two types of people (well, at LEAST two types of people) who want to use Linux, those that want to hack and tweek and those that just want to use it to get their work done.

I definitely agree though that for the hackers and tweekers your way works best in the long run. Often times when I am helping a friend with a Linux question the first thing I say is "Well open up a terminal window and then..."

Uhh.. Mozilla is for WINDOWS, too

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering there are perfectly good (if not better) builds of Mozilla and Phoenix for Windows that would not only be unimpressive, it would be misleading and irresponsible.

Re:Learn the command line

[madfgurtbn]

Learn to use the command line and not a pretty gui, it will teach you alot about how Unix and Linux works

Please, no CLI! This is for newbies, and newbies don't want to know command line stuff. I have never seen Linux on TV where Chris or anyone else on tv who bothers to show even the simplest tasks accomplished without CLI.

Best thing to show on tv is that you can actually can get by without a command line. Show the config gui's. Show that you can accomplish real work without having to understand command line. CLI scares away newbies.

Newbies do not want to use CLI.
Newbies should not want to use the CLI
Newbies should not be expected by BOFH's to understand command line.

Newbies should experience free as in freedom. In the long run, that is the only real advantage we have.

Newbies need to understand where OSS comes from as a community, and how they can contribute to that community without writing code more than they need to "how Unix/Linux works".

Sorry, I will get off my soapbox now.

Carry on.

Start with Rute!

[digitect]

Start with Rute.

Linux on TV

[chunkwhite86]

The best way to illustrate the power of Linux on TV, is to demonstrate a Linux box doing something that is considered unusual and desireable. Something that will make people say "Wow... I can't do that with this other OS I'm using. I should try Linux." It shouldn't be too hard to come up with a bunch of gee-whiz cool tasks that Linux can do, and that other OS cannot.

Either that, or have Linux performing some intensive server oriented task, alongside a computer running one of those other, more common OS's. Show how Linux does more and does it faster.

Showing off

[gnixdep]

For a TV demonstration, try CD Burning.
I installed knoppix on my IBM thinkpad, default install (which may be the only way with knoppix) and plugged in my USB CD/RW drive, it was automatically detected as a SCSI device. Launch CDBakeOven as root (also already installed), drag and drop, and done.

It's as simple as using Roxio/Nero under windows, which means it's come a long way from writing bash scripts for mkisofs and cdrecord.

As it's something that people do regularly, it would be nice to show off that linux can be user friendly for day to day tasks.

Also, OpenOffice.org is quite impressive, intuitive, and visual.

In my (humble) opinion, the programmes included with the knoppix distro are a good general selection for showing off. (:

Demonstrage *the power* of the command line!

[aquarian]

While newbies shouldn't be forced to use the command line, it might be nice for them to see why it's a great thing. Show them something really neat that they can do with the command line, which is awkward to do with a GUI. Make it something useful, which even if they're not doing now, they might want to later.

3 Req's

[Shelled]

1. To Start: Mandrake, Redhat or Suse. On the assumption that anyone interested in trying Linux has some computer experience (otherwise they wouldn't have heard of Linux), start with a 'does-everything' distro. Gnome and KDE are windowish enough to be manageable by anyone who knows that retractable tray thing isn't a cup holder and supermount will prevent the pain I went through trying to mount make my CDROM work in Redhat 5.2.
2. Neatest Thing: NFS. Show them how remote servers appear as as completely transparent subdirectories of Home and not as drive letters or mappings outside of the C: drive. Simple, but amazingly natural compared to the default Win method. (Yes, XP and 2K do mounts but not as default.)
3. Best Book: None. Google Groups all the way. Anything a newbie could ask has been answered ad nauseum and there's no chance of alienation from RTFM if you don't ask in the first place. Distro forums are also a valuable source of information.

Re:Favorite book

[tricknology]

This is a great book, however it is not for beginners. It is more of a reference for the intermediate to advanced user. A book for beginners should not assume that the user knows anything about Linux (or computers in general, for that matter).

Mod parent up

[Cutriss]

He's too right about the elitism attitude on the part of many in-deep Linux users. It's probably one of the biggest barriers-to-entry for well-seasoned Windows veterans.

Likewise, Linux users need to drop the whole "All Windows users are morons" attitude, because the odds are pretty damned good that at least 3/4's of those preaching the message are probably doing so from a Windows box. I'm on one right now. It's not long left in this world, however - I just need some disk space on the network to back up everything before I format the disks.

Hey. We all have to start somewhere. At least respect the fact that some of us are *interested* in Linux.

*Jump* at the chance to add another one to the fold.

Do what you can to help others out. This doesn't mean "go to LUGs and help out people". This means to actively keep an ear out for people who are interested in Linux. You might view it as signing a support contract for life, but the fact of the matter is that if someone's interested in Linux, you probably wouldn't have to support him for that long, and they're probably wanting a minimal amount of handholding anyway (Since they're being adventurous enough to switch OSes).

You want Linux to succeed? Show people why it's better. If Windows works for them, that's fine. Leave 'em the hell alone. If they come to you with a problem one day, though, then think of a way that Linux can solve it. It might be just the ticket.

Slackware and the internet.

[gergnz]

It all depends on your audience.

Are you looking at tech savvy newbies (the BOFHs of the future) or Joe User?

For me, a growing tech savvy young man a while back, being introduced to linux was cool. I finally had control of my PC. Several years ago someone introduced me to Slackware and all I did was start playing.

I had at first someone to help me, then I read some books, but my best resource has been the internet.

Slackware does not hide you behind something fancy, but is a little easier to use compared to LFS or Gentoo.

I can now jump in and use any distribution. You have to be careful not to change config files without changing the database, but you learn the hard way.

If you are trying to get Joe User to use it, you need to find a book related to one distro, because all the config things are different.

This is what makes Linux hard from Joes perspective. If he buys a book written for Suse and then buys Redhat, the gui config tools won't be the same. The other problem is everything changes so quickly that books have a hard time keeping up with GUI changes and config tool changes.
Joe doesn't know that "ethernet card config" is the same as "network config". This makes it very hard for them.

Anyway... don't buy a book if you are wanting to be the BOFH of the future, dive in and give it a go. Join a LUG, jump on some mailing lists, find a friend who already has some experience.

Things to show off on TV: All the cool stuff that open source is used for everyday: rendering LOTR for example.

Some non-technical reading and other suggestions

[jhiltz]

In addition to books on how to get Linux up and running your first time, you might also want to consider letting the viewers know about such great works of art as:

Eric Raymond's - The Cathedral and The Bazaar (ISBN:1565927249) ..A great book that describes some of the details behind how open source has come to be, and the processes that go on in the background that make open source software advancement possible in a seemingly chaotic environment...Extremely well written, and very motivational to getting involved in the Open source community!

Rebel Code: Linux and The Open Source Revolution by Glyn Moody (ISBN: 0738203335) - An amazing history of the Linux and Open source, from the days of RMS building the GNU tools, right up to the now infamous IBM investment into Linux and Open source. This book filled in many of my gaps in knowledge of where some of the projects I use everyday came from...A truly great account of the Linux and Open source history.

Couple other simple things you could show:
- I can't imagine a more meaningful display of the benefit to Opensource software then finding a bug in a piece of open source software, submitting the bug and receiving a response from one of the main coders within 3 minutes to say that the problem has been addressed..Then conversely going into Windows getting IEXPLORE has crashed and you have the option to click OK or Cancel and thats about it... :)
- Mozilla Pop-up blocker! What a great piece of software that Mozilla is...!
- Mozilla Tabbed browsing! Another amazing, yet simple in concept feature, implemented in a piece of open source software...
- Any time the above two things are shown to non-Linux and non-Mozilla users they never cease to be impressed..it's a simple thing, but a very nice thing.

- Finally, for those users who still need their MS Office applications and/or Quicken...Throw on a copy of Codeweavers Crossover office. A great application built on Wine that helps thousands of people every day keep from having to reboot their computers!

Just a few random thoughts of mine....Good luck with the show, it's always a good show whenever I get a chance to watch it!

Jeff

for a demo you can use Knoppix

[Anonymous Coward]

It boots linux off the CD drive, doesn't touch
the Windows partitions (by default they are
marked read-only)...

http://www.knoppix.com/
http://www.knoppix.net/

Good Web site?

[rajeev_king]

I have been a Win32/MFC developer for last 4 yrs.
When I started my development, I know how websites like CodeGuru/Codeproject helped me.We usually get most of the commonly used code there and sometimes very specific ones.
Recently I have started some development on GNU/Linux, I couldnt find any sites similar to Codeguru/Codeproject. That's definitely a problem,that needs to be addressed. What we need code snippets/workarounds for console/gui applications at a centralized location.

Uh... know the audience?

[jdonnici]

For the "Screen Savers" crowd (and I watch, so I don't mean that to sound condescending), most of these suggestions aren't gonna cut it. You're talking about people who are (A) primarily Windows users, (B) not sysadmins for a living, and (C) are generally of the "weekend techie" variety. Sure, they have Palm Pilots, they may crank out some HTML for their personal web page, and they may even hack together a little "My Grateful Dead Tapes" database in Access or FileMakerPro. But Mastering Regular Expressions? Linux Admin Black Book? Show them only the CLI? I think Chris is smarter than that.

These aren't all people who are going to compile their own kernel or debate the merits of different file systems over their beer (though some are in that crowd)... taking the usual l33tist attitude of "You don't need no steenkin' GUI, just build from source using the command line" approach is going to turn people off and drive them away -- defeating the purpose of "spreading the word".

In terms of books to recommend, take a look at Linux for Windows Addicts or Add Red Hat Linux to Your Windows Desktop In A Weekend. I've not looked over the latter in person, but the "Addicts" book is one that I read through myself a year or so ago when I wanted to start doing Linux development (after developing Win32 software for several years). It's great for taking general desktop/workstation concepts and tasks you know from the Windows world and explaining how they work or are dealt with in the Linux world. For me, it took me past the initial hurdle after installing Red Hat, firing up Gnome, and thinking "Where to next?".

As for OSS, in general... find some useful apps or utilities, ones that would "show well" on television, and highlight them. Evolution (an Outlook clone) is an easy choice. Churn through SourceForge for others... some that come to mind are the Horde project (web-based PIM, mail client, and more), or dotProject (web-based project management and collaboration tool). There's no shortage of these types of things that could be set up inside of an hour or two, show well visually, and show the useful and usable stuff that's out there in the OSS world.

Show Knoppix

[cslarson]

It's not perfect, but it's pretty damn great. They just make/buy the cd, throw it in and check it out. No worry/ No changing/partitioning, just a quick demo. Specific directions on what to check out in Knoppix would also be helpful

Define Beginners ...

[spannah]

There are 2 very distinct classes of beginners, the technical power user that is beginning in Linux, and the absolute beginner that still has trouble with windows.

For the power beginner the O'Reilly books will do, as a number of people have mentioned before.

The absolute beginner won't be able to make it through all the geek speak in O'Reilly books. Although I hate to say this probably a "dummies" or "idiots" book would be better. I remember seing also a "visually" series with lots of pretty pictures. Which one of those I don't know, I'm a power user.

Re:Favorite book

[Pieroxy]

Yes, but it is so easier to read on a piece of paper than on a screen. Not even mentioning that a good index and some cross references are priceless compared to a man page.

But I agree, a good book should have some added value.

Confirms all Linux problems

[m00nun1t]

This thread is exactly what I was expecting... the vast majority are people saying "read the man pages", "just work it out yourself and install it", or "read 'Linux for 1337s'".

These people are newbies. They don't know what man is. They don't know what bash is. Many of them don't know what a CLI is, and if they do, have no idea of the power of the Linux CLI. They probably don't even know what a distro is. They've probably never even installed Windows, much less any sort of *nix. They need their hand held, people . This is the exact attitude preventing main stream adoption of Linux.

Aren't you the guy they call "Lefty". . .

[kfg]

because you thought using the bandsaw should just be "intuitive?"

By the way, you're right, Linux isn't intuitive, neither is Windows. People have to learn Windows. They use, ummmmm, books to do it. Go into Borders and look at all the books on Windows explaining how "intuitive" it is.

"Ok, now click this, pull down that, go over to the other thing, don't ask us what it's called, we don't know either, now stick out your left elbow and scratch the cat with your right foot and chant . . . "Please don't crash again.""

Yeah, intuitive. No book reading needed here. The Video Professor must be some sort of philanthropist paying for all those ads, just for something to occupy his time, because "Windows is intuitive."

This is the single biggest load of malarky that anyone ever says about Windows, or Macs for that matter. Windows and Mac OS's are *learned.* They only seem intuitive because you've already learned them. My 70 year old mom learned KDE alongside her Mac OS8. She prefers KDE.

It's "intuitive." Or at least it was *after she had learned it for a while.*

*Linux* just works. Most of the Windows books at Borders, however, are about how to make Windows work despite itself because it's "intuitive."

Linux *at the command line* is arcane, but just works. Always.

English is arcane too but most one year olds manage to pick it up. They even resort to reading books by the time they're five or so. You should read one too. Maybe that install wouldn't have taken so long if you'ld read the bandsaw manual and had both hands to work with. My last install took about half an hour and consisted of putting the CD in the tray and clicking "Ok, whatever" a couple of times.

Wish I could do that with Windows, but the Goddamned wizards puke on drivers all the time and keep asking for second floppies that don't exist because "Windows just works" and is "intuitive." To uninstall a program cleanly I had to hack the "intuitive" registry and to make the "Start" button do something as simple as change its label I had to hack the *binary code* of the GUI shell itself because Windows "just works" and is "intuitive."

But at least people seem to have "that kind of patience" for this stuff.

Well, actually, they don't. A study about stress in the workplace revealed that the majority of stress in the workplace these days came from their computers not working right, computers running Windows, which "just works" and is "intuitive."

Am I anti MS? Damned straight. After more than a decade of being a loyal customer they damned well made me that way and they damned well deserve it.

Am I anti Windows? No. I'm writing this under W98 right now.

But it DON'T "just work." And it AIN'T "intuitive."

Tell you what, use your remaining hand to crack a a book. I'd recommend you start with Vonnegut's "Welcome to the Monkey House." From there go on to reading the bloody manual. It might save your remaining hand. And get your kids bike assembled in time for Christmas-WITHOUT any "spare parts" left over.

KFG

Missing two important points

[Ektanoor]

Apart of any books you may read, the gurus that may advise you, the tons of information that you may get on Internet, there is two thing that are highly important to take into account.

The first one is what you expect to find on Linux. You can be sure that you don't get the same thing as Windows. So any expectations should be put in the typical rule of economics: "You choose something for the price of loosing the other choices". However, take into attention that this thing is more tricky than it seems. You may loose some present choices, which, in the moment you are now, may be very important for you. However nothing can be said about the potential of your choice. Here you may obtain some important personal victories or get such a slap in the face, that you will always flame Linux for the rest of your life. To avoid such desilusions, you should not only read books and news, but also take care to search for real goals in this world. Linux, and *NIX in general, is a world too vast and too amorphous to show you a direction. Here there are no arrows and signs asking where do you wanna go. You choose your path.

But here enters the second important factor. On choosing your path, you will have to manage this new system. And this is not so simple as it seems. For the last years, a lot was done, that approached the *NIX world of interfaces to the more common Windows GUI. But, still the *NIX never has lost its rawness in the bottom line. Besides, it keeps paths of development that go quite far from what you may expect in Windows or some other systems. The *NIX world is a mix of rational conservatism and risky progressism. Coming here, brings a feeling much like the one that some people may find on changing cars of different countries. Imagine that you go from an confortable american car, for which you are offered service, maintenance, features and choose a rough jeep where even the driver sits in the "wrong" side. Worse, this "jeep" is much like those weird australian cars that made so much fame in certain stories. A mix of an old car and some fresh new technological mess. With exception of a certain skeleton, everything else is what you put into it. You may find a mechanic or some service that may check and maintain some general parts, but which will surely not help in everything you have there. By changing cars in this way, you will get some sort of psychological shock. You will get some feelings about the positive and negative effects of this change, you will be surely forced to change some driving habits, and you will surely need to know, more deeply, the mechanics of the monster you drive with. However, there can be a big danger here. Before you get real acquainted to the positive or negative effects of your move, despair may overcome you, and you quit early in the race. That's what happens to 90% of the people who try Linux. Unfortunately, the majority does it in a very superficial way, much like installing a new game, so, their critics cannot be taken seriously. The *NIX world is rough and wild. It needs time to reach the level of flexibility you may need to feel confortable in it. So think, that no matter the books and howtos, you may need some good months of patience before you can make a wise and weighed judgement.

And remember - negative results are also results. There can be lots of them before reaching a certain level of practice and knowledge.

A very nice piece has been written about this...

[Erpo]

... The people who contacted you want to know how to get started using GNU/Linux, not Linux.

I'm not writing this to berate you or get into some political issue about giving GNU credit, although I do think that's important. (Actually, I still slip up and write Linux instead of GNU/Linux, or NIC card instead of NIC or network interface card. [hey, it happens ;)] ) I'm writing to underscore one of the problems that your viewers will come up against: there are too many distros. Well, ok, that's a value judgement on my part, but in reality your viewers are going to be confused when they hear there's more than one GNU/Linux. In terms of picking a good beginner's resource, my only advice would be (this comes from experience):

The fastest, most effective way to turn a user off to GNU/Linux and send him back to his Windows or Mac box is to tell him that the easiest way to do any task is through a CLI.

Avoid books that say that if you can.

Yes, I know that's the truth sometimes (one of the great parts about *nix is that everything is scriptable, and scripts are great tools for getting things done), but Joe User wants to do everything graphically. The problem is that Joe User is already very comfortable with a GUI, and so even if there were a task that he wanted to do on a regular basis that would be easier on a command line, the extra work and annoyance of having to get used to a CLI would more than balance out the gain in productivity.

Re:jump right in

[haroldK]

You need a physical book because we're not talking about you. When I started out, I hated having to check syntax in man. I had to either write down the info I wanted or try to remember it. Most of the time, I couldn't figure our what I wanted from the man page because there was too much there and it wasn't in plain English.

A book will help a newbie get the info they need and help them understand it, and they'll be able to quickly reference it in the future. A book has a lot more space to explain options and arguments than a man page does.

People learn in different ways. This TV show isn't targeted at the people who would just, out of the blue, decide they wanted to try it out. They need to be shown what it can do and why it's neat. That's not likely to be a person who will want to learn what commands do by digging around.

Re:Favorite book

[lousyd]

Definitely not Linux in a Nutshell. That's the book I first bought when I decided to go Linux. It didn't help a bit.

Now, Running Linux, on the other hand. Running Linux helped me tremendously. Running Linux was such a cure for my newbie-ness.

-Todd

I know this was a joke, but it can work.

[Artifex]

The deal is, a lot of people worry about functionality while learning Linux or a BSD, etc. With VMWare, you can still run your old MS-Windows software in a little box, and gradually move to *nix-based tools.

When I was working high-level tech support for a major ISP, a small number of us got approval from our boss (and pissed off the IT department) to reformat our workstations, install Red Hat, and then drop the demo version of VMWare in on a trial basis, installing NT 4.0 (it was a while ago, but a lot of shops STILL use it, you know).

We could use things like Matt's Traceroute and other stuff that we normally had to ssh into production machines for, we didn't have to deal with those stupid NET MSGs from the lower level teams, and we could still use Microsoft Office apps (we had the licenses already) to fill out our expense reports and use IE for whatever internal webservers had been built using ActiveX or other IE-only stuff.

I think if you show this type of thing, you can get people hooked. Especially if you take a windows-crasher test program and show it running under WinXP vs. WinXP-in-VMWare. BSODs become a joke, a chance to say "silly old MS" and restart the virtual PC.

The accountants for small businesses should like the fact that they won't have to burn the money they paid for licenses, like I mentioned in my example. I think IT people will still grumble because for many people IT = MS (MCSE drones, etc.) and they don't want to have to learn new stuff and support it.

Re:Learn the command line

[Lumpy]

if you show an OS on tv.. you must use the pretty buttons, fading menus, shaking dialog boxes and transparent dragging all with anti-aliased everything and alpha blending.. if you can have every icon animated and have a fading red letters over the top of it all blinking WARNING! you will have the TV audience rivited to their sets...

reality has no place on TV. espically on tech TV and screen savers. Only one of the hosts there has a clue.. and I have stopped paying attention to the show cince that wedding band appeared on megans finger.

Tech TV is NOT for anyone but the fresh newbie or clueless CEO that is trying to be techno-hip. what they need to do is shoehorn in their 8 hours of programming that they rerun over and over every day with a "screen savers" for the sysadmin. cover advanced topics and advanced things... in the morning become the Bloomberg of the IT caste... become THE channel that is on the tv in the rack in the server room.

Best methods...

[Anonymous Coward]

You can show the /true/ power of linux by going into a chat room and asking "Can anyone help me with setting up KDE?" and watching all of the morons respond with "RTFM IDIOT" "HAHA YOU WINDOZE LAMER" "GO JOIN THE FLOCK YOU LUSER" etc etc until eventually you get kicked with a reason along the lines of "BILL WANTS YOU TO SUCK HIS COCK AGAIN!".

Only Linux can create this kind of respsonse! Such Power!

But seriously. I use Linux and Windows everyday for programming to word processing. I put off using initially linux just because of the attitude problem from what seems to be 99.9% of the Linux community. It appears that if you aren't already a BOFH you are some sort of Microsoft lacky and treated like shit. I tried many times to get started but I couldn't get ANY help from anyone on newsgroups, web forums of chat rooms other than suggestions that I let Bill Gates rape me etc...

Until this attitude problem disappaears Linux is doomed.

How 'bout TheopenCD

[Anonymous Coward]

There was a fascinating article about TheopenCD a few days ago on Newsforge, this is a neat package for introducing newbies to Free Software. Also the Suse 8.1 LiveEval disk can be fun for showing newbies what they're missing without the hassle of doing a full Linux install