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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.
I found Slackware unleashed an excellent Slack book for beginners.
Linux in a Nutshell, concise, to the point, reference manual for just getting stuff done.
Guess what? I got a fever! And the only prescription.. is more cowbell!
Let's just all get our RTFM's out of system now.
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:)
Gotta love the tab key!
keanmarine.com
Very visual, easily understood, and it'll appeal to everyone who's ever had that happen to them before.
Carousel is a lie!
The fourth edition of Running Linux came out this month. Great for beginners.
Great Expectations ... then follow it up with ...
The Great Failure
And dont forget The Communist Manifesto
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Killer Linux app to show off:
VMWare
Try THAT under Windows!
slashdot!=valid HTML
"player 4 hit player 1 with 0 stroms"
Mark Sobell's A Practical Guide to Linux is the best beginner's book on Linux I've ever found. After reading this book, all the man pages and HowTos finally started making sense.
** The opinions expressed here are my own, and do not reflect those of my employers - past, present, or future**
Here are some sites you will find useful which are going beyond newbie level.
/ rtfm.mit.edu/pub/faqs/unix-faqm /autobook/ (automake autoconf book)n elnewbies.org (kernel info)a t/booksIndex.html
www.linuxdoc.org (Linux documentation project)
www.xml.com/ldd/chapter/book (linux device drivers 2nd edition)
www.advancedlinuxprogramming.com
ftp:/
sources.redhat.co
www.scyld.com/network (network device drivers)
linuxassembly.org
linuxsocket.org
ker
freebooks.boom.ru
www.maththinking.com/bo
Analytic & algebraic topology of locally Euclidean meterization of infinitely differentiable Riemmanian manifold
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.
Cyde Weys Musings - Scrutinizing the inscrutable
This was the book I read before even touching a Linux terminal. It was an invaluable lesson in the ways of Linux and provides a nice gentle intro for new users (and by new, I mean new to Linux, not computing. A good deal of technical understanding is required to appreciate this book. Not for Grandma is what I'm trying to say...). The 4th Edition just came out so it's all up to date again, and I would reccomened it to anyone interested in, well, Running Linux. This book is much more useful to a new user than Linux in a Nutshell since it is a narrative guide to learning Linux, and not a reference book like Nutshell.
Getting started in Linux is easy. First, read this . Then, follow all the steps in it Backwards. Backwards is key. After that, you should be all setup.
Karma: Not Particularly Funny.
Just a thought...
Since the submitter (chrisd) asked for opinions and got feedback, wouldn't it be nice if someone filtered the responses and provided a digest? The original queries were for books for developers and books for web development. Furthermore, if someone already has done some filtering, it would be great to see the results.
S
While what I have in mind is nothing special or cool, it is something that I think many people really need to see. My parents, for example, use the computer to play games, mostly card games, browse the web, send email, and other every day things. The thing that bothers them is that they have no control whatsoever. Something crashes and they have no clue what they can do as a user.
It would be beneficial to many average users to see that Linux can do all of the every day tasks they perform. Show them the simple things. They can use email, web browsers, play games that come with kde or gnome, and still play web-based games like Yahoo! Pool. Getting them started on something they feel comfortable with will be an easy step they can make. Then they can move onto controlling and customizing the OS one piece at a time.
Here's my first two books I bought, and why I like them. First of all, for any distro: Running Linux, latest edition you can get. Why? It is a book you can read cover to cover. It has some scary stories of the old days of installation in the beginning. You realize how easy it has gotten. Then you will learn the many different ways to do the same thing. You don't have to be on a computer to learn from this book. If you are using Red Hat, then grab Red Hat Linux Unleashed. Why? This has MUCH more specific information. It's not something you can read cover to cover, you read the different sections as you need to learn them. In general though, I've never found a bad O'Reilly book...
Some of the books I have on my shelf are:
-O'Reilly:Linux in a Nutshell (good reference, somewhat bad as you need to know command)
-Sam's: Slackware Unleashed
-Coriolis open Press: Linux System Administration Black Book
-Sam's: Linux Complete Command Reference
Finally:
- Sam's: Maximum Linux Security
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.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
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.
We've all seen the IBM ads with the basketball team, and specifically the one featuring Linux ("Because He Loves The Game" So TRUE!). Now, here for all of /. to see, is my Linux Commercial pitch.
The commercial opens with the side of a large house shown. This house has many, many windows, some ornate, some plain. After a few seconds, a baseball smashes through one of them, shattering it. After a few more seconds, another baseball smashes another window. Several quick cuts of different windows being smashed by more and more baseballs. Cut to a pile of baseballs laying on the ground. After a moment, a black CG flipper reaches down and picks one up. The camera follows the ball to reveal Tux, wearing a ball cap bearing the "official" Tux logo, and he's got an EVIL grin. The final cut to the product screen, which says "Linux: Smashing Convention. http://www.linux.org" and a final sound of a ball shattering glass.
Let the Love Fest Begin...
Blog Prophyts - Right On, Man
Go to http://sunsite.dk/linux-newbie/ and get the Linux Newbie Administrator's Guide.
:)
I've bought different linux books in the past to try and get me started, and none were as good as the LNAG. Best of all - it's free! Read it online, or download it and print it off at work to piss off your co-workers.
- Dave
There are two seasons in my world - Hockey and Construction
Graham Glass is a skilled writer who is capable of introducing complex topics and commands easily to the reader, regardless of their skill level. His book benefited me greatly, and even allowed my father to gain a good footing in unix commands and philosophy.
I have recommended this book to numerous people over the years, to people who just wanted some familiarity with unix commands, to people who were interested in learning Linux, to students looking for interesting things to delve into, and to many others. The book has benefited them all. Although it is not directly a Linux book, it is exceptional at providing the tools necessary to use any unix-like system. This makes this book a wonderful reference or a great starting out point if you're just beginning.
In other words, I highly recommend it.
---
"Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong." --Dennis Miller
Start with Rute.
There is no need to use a SlashDot sig for SEO...
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.
I'd rather be a conservative nutjob than a liberal with no nuts and no job.
That is one thing that really impressed me when converting, i install a program and it worked.. no reboot! *gasp* As for showing things on tv, play some dvd's and mp3's, chat a little on gaim, stuff that people do on a regular basis. I've been talking to people about linux lately, and there are a lot of misconceptions... try to debunk some big ones. I have a friend who swears that whenever you add any new hardware, you HAVE to re-compile the kernel. Another thing i hear a lot is that even if a game has linux binaries, it runs like crap. play some unreal or wolfenstien (the new ones ;)) to show it's quite fine.
Another good idea would be to show them some of the free software out there. if they need to edit some pix, they can just d/l the gimp... no need to pirate/look for cracks.
One last thought about helping people that are new to linux: it's a completely different perspective of an operating system. It's taken from a muilti-user perspective, whereas windows is pretty much one person on one computer. Once you understand this, things make more sense..especially the file system layout. when i first started i always wondered why everything went on / instead of breaking it up into drives. and why do i have a home directory? if you tihnk in terms of only one person on a computer, it's hard to get the concept.
# man man
http://www.linuxnewbie.org
Don't think anyone posted that yet.
SecondPageMedia - Wha
*presses ctrl-z and looks up*
;)
Eh? What am I using here?
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.
Agreed -- but he was also asking for good examples of Open Source goodness for TV. That's what I had in mind.
Carousel is a lie!
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.
A lot of people are recommending "Running Linux", but I never found that one I wanted to refer to most of the people who ask me.
Sobell's "Practical Linux" is good, as someone noted. Lasser's "Think Unix" is also excellent, and the only text I know of that does such a good job of explaining why Unix is *different*, not just in command names but in philosophy and structure. It's the grammer to Unix, where most other texts are only the vocabulary.
I also used to recommend the install and reference guides for Mandrake's distro, as I found it one of the better newbie guides around. I haven't read it over in a few major versions, though, so I don't know if this is still true.
I'm generally not a big consumer of computer books because most of them suck, but when looking for a general Linux book I found Linux Cookbook to be pretty neat and useful. It's somewhat Debian-centric, but useful for anyone. Another good book in the same vein is Linux System Administration by Michel Gagne. Both these books are centered on doing typical things that people want to do with their (Linux) computers. I like them both, but I do like the Linux Cookbook better.
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.
"Mod, mod, mod...and another troll bites the dust."
I think a late night infomercial with that Ronco guy would be extremely effective [It slices, it dices, and makes juliened fries].
Excitable Announcer: Are you sick and tired of this? [shot of some dude downloading porn then getting the BSOD. "Aw man!"]
Lame-ass closed-source software getting you down? [same dude hunched over with BSOD in background. thought balloon: "THIS SUXX0R5!!!!11"]
Well move over Winblowze, 'cause RONCO LINUX is here!
It slices, it dices, it humps, it dumps, it bakes a cake and takes a leak on the seat while it's in heat. fo shizzles ma nizzle, linux is the tops, ma man be linus (he's got his big penis!). it starts up a riot and it never stop, you want me be quiet? well then call the cops...
ahem
Yes, linux does it all and it's guaranteed to NOT make you gay. It's fun for the whole family, just watch:
[little girl using bash: "Heehee, I'm l337!! w00+!!!"]
[grandma using mozilla to view goatse.cx: "You M$ f4gg0ts can blow me!"]
[dude from earlier successfully downloading porn: "Dude! I feel less gay already!"]
How much would you expect to pay for such an amazing system?
$99.99?!?
$89.99?!?!
$79.99?!??!!
!?!?
Order the Ronco Distro today and pay only three easy instalments of $14.99!
BUT WAIT! That's not all!!
Order now and we'll toss in two CDs of free software at no extra cost!!!!
Operators are standing by! This is a limited-time offer!! ORDER NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!111111111
(ronco enterprises will not be held liable for time wasted setting up linux. ronco enterprises does not endorse rms or any of his views. ronco enterprises has never been affiliated with the communist party. ronco enterprises is a god-fearing corporation. ronco enterprises is required to reveal the following: ronco enterprises is being investigated for fraud in thirteen states; please check with your local authorities.) tt
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
Make sure you do a trial first. I've tried the service twice and found it slow and sometimes buggy. The selection of books is okay. I have access to a books24x7 corporate account through my employer, and it is a slightly more polished service with about the same selection of tech books. Neither of these services is something I'd pay for yet.
[Set Cain on fire and steal his lute.]
Unfortunately I wasted a week with maddog's Dummies book. Jon's a great guy, but a computer manual for novices author he ain't.
Then I got Running Linux. I was up and going in no time and years later I still refer to it. At this point I don't recommend *any* other book for the newbie. There's no fluff in this book. It's the straight dope, dense but completely readable, technical but not over the newbie's head (at least if they're the sort who's eyes don't glaze the second you say "compiler," but I don't think of The Screen Savers viewers in that catagory), more in depth where it needs to be than any other newbie manual I've ever seen while at the same time running a broad overview of everything you need to at least hear about ( and refering you to other great O'Reilly books that cover the subject in greater depth).
Throw in Linux in a Nutshell and the Armadillo book ( Essential System Administration) and you've pretty much covered everything you'll ever need to keep a basic Linux system ( or network) up and running in any enviroment from your home desktop to the small corporation data center.
These three books are the grand triumvirate. The first to buy, the first to read and the first you'll turn to when all others have failed you in some way. All others are but shadows on the wall of the cave.
Beyond these three the first book a newbie is going to want is a dedicated manual for his choice of text editor, that would be vi of course. Running Linux gives an overview and In a Nutshell gives a reference but nothing beats a dedicated book for learning. Once you know it pretty well you'll keep it on the shelf but really only need In a Nutshell for a quick reference. O'Reilly wins again here with their Learning the vi Editor.
Ok, ok, some wrong thinking people are going to want to go with emacs instead. For them O'Reilly has Learning GNU emacs.
Congratulations, your viewers have just gone from newbies to system admin gurus in just four short books.
Here's where I step away from the crowd a bit. I'm a firm believer that any serious Linux newbie should do a little programing right off the bat, and do it in C, on the command line. O'Reilly loses here. The two volume C For Dummies books are the ones to grab. They're the best Dummies books I've seen. They're the best newbie intro to programing books I've seen for that matter. Not for the hardcore geek, but complete, understandable and fun. They'll have grandma writting her own prank commands in a couple of hours and LIKE it!
Now we've gone up to a full library of Linux books, all the books most people will ever need, including C programing manuals, and we haven't even used up a foot of bookshelf space yet so I guess throw in the Camel book for good measure.
Done, your viewers are now Linux grandmasters and *still* have a couple inches short of a foot of bookshelf space left they can fill with whatever special interest book catches their fancy from what they learned in Running Linux.
What can you do on the show to impress people with Linux? Damned if I know. The most impressive things about Linux aren't visual. In fact the *most* impressive thing about Linux is *philosophy.* Not in the philosphical sense itself, but what that philosophy *means* to the average user. No one really explains that well.
vim doesn't break. vim doesn't change to an incompatible file format to force you to download the latest version. All files written in vim are readable by all versions of vim and *all other text/word processors.* No lock in, no lock out. Ever. If the current maintainers lose interest, because it is open source, *any* programer with the interest can just pick it up and start maintaining it-without even having to ask permission (although this is good form), let alone spend years with a room full of lawyers to make the arrangements. If you don't like something about vim and are willing to put in the work you can bloody well change it yourself, at will, again without even asking permission. YOUR vim is yours to do with as you please.
And because all of this is possible with a Linux system running GPLed software tens of thousands of programers are working at it around the clock, so even if *you* never touch a line of code you directly benifit from its openness.
This is the true power of Linux, this is the part that's truely impressive. You can't show it. You have to explain it. Explain what being ope *means,* and means to *them.*
And what it means is freedom.
What feature is more important than that? Can MS or Apple match Linux, *feature for feature?*
KFG
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.
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.
Read reviews of shopping cart software
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
Oh yes, and find a Linux user you can ask for help when you get stuck!
Linux reads books on how to use YOU!!
You like your new Mac more than you like me, don't you, Dave? Dave? I asked...She said Yes.
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.
... The people who contacted you want to know how to get started using GNU/Linux, not Linux.
;)] ) 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):
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
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.
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.
Get off my launchpad!
My article Why We Should All Test the New Linux Kernel gives some tips on how to get started building new kernels (although it emphasizes testing the development patches).
The #kernelnewbies IRC channel has a website at www.kernelnewbies.org that you will find helpful.
And finally there is of course The Linux Kernel HOWTO.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
My first Linux book was Linux Unleashed, 1st edition, published by Sams Publishing. This book included Slackware with it. I'm afraid to think what verion, as this book is (c) 1995. It was good for a start. It's been read, borrowed, and stolen over the years. Hopefully it has a good home now.
:) Borders and Barnes & Noble frequently have sales on previous edition books. If you flip through both, sometimes you'll see there were only very subtle changes, or chapters which aren't important to you. For a $40 price difference, it's worth getting the older one. :)
:)
I still highly recommend Slackware for a distribution. It's what we use on all our servers, and my workstations (Home, Work, and Laptop)
I bought a co-worker Linux System Administration: A User's Guide by Marcel Gagne. Published by Addison Wesley. Flipping through it, this seems like a very good book. It seems to be working out. He's coming to me with very intelligent questions after reading chapters, rather than "What do I do at the prompt".
After the Unleashed book, I personally got into the O'Reilly books. If you do this, go to the store with the company credit card, it'll be expensive. Oddly enough, most bosses are ok with paying for books, even when they're being tight with equipment. You can't get a new $5 CPU fan, but you can spend $500 on books. Hmmmm.. Well, buy more books.
O'Reilly Essential Systems Administration
Learning
the Unix Operating System (got it for my girlfriend, so she'd understand what I was doing all night)
vi Pocket Reference. It seems none of my coworkers could use vi before I got to this office. Now they're all using it. [esc][esc]:wq!
Programming Perl. If you're going to play with Unix, you should learn Perl.
Then you should read up on what you're working with. If you're networking or on the Internet, TCP/IP is good to know.
TCP/IP Network Administration
DNS and BIND very definately, unless you want to be clueless about what happens between typing in "yahoo.com" and it coming up in your browser. Having a good understanding there definately helps you debug problems.
Sendmail This is the perfect book to spin your head, and leave you with a headache for months. But it's the topic, not the book, that's so complicated. If it didn't do absolutely everything, I'm sure it would be simpler to use.
O'Reilly has a lot of great books.
"Learning" books are for beginners.
"Nutshell" books are usually to help you figure out something if you don't really know it.
The rest of the books have various degrees of learning to them. On my desk at work, for O'Reilly books, I have 3 different PERL books, the JavaScript book, and a few others that I reference on a regular basis.
I recommend going to book stores, and flipping through everything they have (restock it to the proper places). See what your comprehension level is. If you have no clue what they're talking about, you need an easier book. If you almost understand, buy it, read it, and then share it with a friend (especially on the company expense account! hehe).
When you're ready to get out of the books, and into the real world, the most valuable reference you'll ever have is dejanews.com. If you don't know an answer, search it there. Probably someone in the last 20 years has already asked it. It's the quickest way to look smart and impress your friends, even if you're stupid.
Having the stack of O'Reilly books is always good though. I recently changed offices (same company), and while riding in the elevator, I was offered a job because I looked educated and had a big stack of O'Reilly books in my arms.. Little did she know that was only 1/3 of them. The rest were still in my car..
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
You can't really give somebody new to unix or linux any idea of what it's all about without giving them a real hands-on experience. The best safe way to do that is with a Live CD. Knoppix is one which actually works. Demonstrate it on your show.
Redhat 8.0 retail box set comes with Excellent Documentation, and is quite specific without being overly technical. As an added bonus, it also comes with a CD full of documentation.
Chris, I watch the ScreenSavers on TechTV quite often, and saw the Quake server demo. Qudos to TechTV to give it a try. For a good topic for a show, most folks want to see what Linux can DO! Show them Ximian Evolution and Mozilla, OpenOffice, and TuxRacer. If you have time, do a demo of the Redhat setup agent, and show off Redhat Network (sorta like Windows Update). The new GUI RPM Package Manager and other GUI config tools are nice looking and will display well.
A dual boot setup would be nice to show off also.{I set up a dual boot Win98/RH8 for a newbie laptop user and they have been very happy to boot into Linux, and don't really bother with Windows anymore.}
Anyhow, love the TechTV, please say Happy Holidays to Patrick and Leo and Megan and Morgan and Yoshi and Martin and Sumi and Adam and Jennifer and Michaela and Chris and Erica and Alex and Becky and . .did I forget anyone?
I may be bad with names, but I'll never forget your IP address
I've been unimpressed with all the Linux books for newbies. The expert books are great but if your new to Linux they are also useless.
I've not looked at Linux for Dumbies and I have over all been impressed with the dumbies books.
The best by far was a booklet made by SCO for Xenix. This is obveously out of print but it was a mini refence.
Probably the best thing is time in the trenches. For exsisting Mac Os X and Linux users thats call up the shell and experement.
For Windows users however that's not so easy. But it can be done...
Msys is a Unix environment targeted at Windows software develupment.
Software dev is easyer from the Unix shell what can I say?
It's very Unix but still running under Windows. Just an app. Not a scary install like Linux as it dosen't threaton to destroy everything in favor of the new os...
(Think of an Os install as the Genisis torpedo from Star Trek II.)
Spock "It would destroy such life in favor of it's new matrix"
In otherwords Installing Linux means never being able to go back to Windows (the old matrix).
All your data is gone.. everything...
Your not just trying Linux your commiting to it.
New users need some asurence that Linux is the way to go.
If they can learn Linux from the safe confines of having never installed it so much the better.
Cygwin is annother Unix environment again for software develupment.
Add a good Linux or Unix newbie book and the trasnsition should be smoth.
I used Danix to move from Dos to Unix.
Unlike the rest Danix is a dos port of Unix commands so as to give Dos that "Unix" feal.
The other files in the linked archive are also good for the job.
Also I was going to frivlously suggest using a "hot geek chick" the way beer ads use super modles to sell beer.
"Drink beer and date a super modle"
"Use Linux and date a hot geek chick"
But being realistic people aren't going to switch to Linux in order to date hot chicks. I honnestly could not think of a dumber reason.
Still ammusing to think of Cat teaching Linux... Yummm.
I don't actually exist.