How To Learn GNU/Linux by Joost van Baal, january 2004 (revised 2005, 2006) * Introduction This document tries to show how to learn using a GNU/Linux system. It was written for Sundaram Chatty and his colleagues at TUT, Pretoria-North, South Africa. The section on books has some skewness: it focuses mainly on books about the Debian distribution. If you feel like "Hey, I installed Linux. Now what? What can I do with this thing?" and think even this document is too big for your needs, check out the quick howto's on http://www.tuxfiles.org/linuxhelp/ . * Learn by using GNU/Linux Install GNU/Linux on your PC at work. You could first make your system into a Dual Boot system, so that you're sure you have your MS Windows system in case something goes wrong. The easiest way is to stick an extra disk in your system, reserved for GNU/Linux. Otherwise, you'll likely have to repartition your Windows-disk. You'll have to decide on choosing a distribution. It's wise to check which help is available for you easily. If you're starting from zero, it's very helpful to have someone around with more experience. It is likely handy to install the same distribution this other person is using. If you ask me ( joostvb@debian.org ) which distribution to use, of course I say Debian. (BTW: a comparison between Red Hat Linux and Debian GNU/Linux is available, ask me if you're interested.) * Learn from other GNU/Linux users Join a Linux Users Group in your region. Lots of them are listed on http://www.linux.org/users/index.html . For Pretoria, South Africa, this would mean joining the Gauteng Linux Users Group ( http://www.glug.org.za/ ). Subscribe to their mailing list(s). ( See http://www.linux.org.za/Lists-Archives/ for what's been going on on their lists.) Attend a meeting or install party from them: GLUG meetings are held on the first friday of every month at the obsidian systems training center in Randburg. Apart from attending LUG meetings, you could also ask questions and join discussions on GNU/Linux mailing lists. If you're interested in the Debian distribution, you could make use of the debian-user@lists.debian.org mailing list. If you feel more comfortable speaking an language other than english, use debian-user-@lists.debian.org. On these lists, lots of questions are asked (and answered!). See http://www.debian.org/MailingLists/ for more information. * Books and Courses You can study a book, or follow a course. Lots of stuff is there. ** Study a Book Some books are about GNU/Linux in general, some are specifically for Debian GNU/Linux (or another distribution). Some are available on paper, some are online. Buy e.g. "Running Linux, Fourth Edition" ( http://www.linux.org/books/ISBN_0596002726.html ), by Matt Welsh, Lar Kaufman, Matthias Kalle Dalheimer, Terry Dawson. Published by O'Reilly & Associates on December 15, 2002. List Price: $44.95. Not available online. Read e.g. "Linux Phrasebook", by Scott Granneman, 2006, Sams Publishing, ISBN 0-672-3238-0. A concise get-started-quick guide for beginners, with lots of practical examples. There's a very nice book in Dutch, focussing on command-line usage (i.e. not graphical mouse-driven interfaces like GNOME or KDE): de Gebruikershandleiding voor Linux ( http://ontwerpen1.khlim.be/~lrutten/cursussen/inf5/linux.html ) door Leo Rutten ( http://ontwerpen1.khlim.be/~lrutten/ ) die gebruikt wordt bij het onderwijs op de Katholieke Hogeschool Limburg ( http://www.khlim.be/ ) in Diepenbeek, België. Vrij beschikbaar in zowel HTML als PDF. A course in Dutch on Linux, with a focus on Unix system administration, shell commands and Unix networking, by Leo van Moergestel and Jan Mooij. This course is written for the Hogeschool Utrecht Linux Kennisgroep / FNT-ICT opleidingen van de HU. Available online at http://www.xs4all.nl/~jemmooij/cursussen/D5UNIX1/linux/ . "The Official Ubuntu Book" by Benjamin Mako Hill e.a. (also available in German and lots of other languages, 3rd edition 2008) covers installation and use of the Ubuntu GNU/Linux desktop, applications, system administration and includes a discussion of the community and philosopy woven into Ubuntu and open source as well as a lot of trouble shooting recipes. It is very useful for beginners. See also https://help.ubuntu.com/6.06/book/book-toc.html, http://mako.cc/copyrighteous/20080618-01 and http://www.pearsonhighered.com/educator/academic/product/0,3110,0137136684,00.html . Licenced under Creative Commons by-sa/3.0. A book for professional administrators: "The Debian System - Concepts and Techniques" by Martin "madduck" F. Krafft (2005 No Starch Press, ISBN 10: 1-59327-069-0, ISBN 13: 978-1-593270-69-8; 2005 Open Source Press, ISBN 978-3-937514-07-9; translated to 4 languages (de, fr, jp, cn)). Instead of the regular user's handbook, "The Debian System" deals exclusively with Debian GNU/Linux and does not cover general topics, such as Linux basics, servers, or desktop environments. Rather, it details the internals of the Debian operating system and provides the reader with all the information needed to successfully administer Debian multi-user systems for years on end. The book is a must-read for the professional user of the Debian system, and an indispensable resource to the migrating Linux/Unix administrator and existing Debian user alike. A book for programmers: The book "The Art of Unix programming" by Eric S. Raymond is for experienced Unix programmers who are educating novice programmers, and for Unix users with novice-level skills in the operating system, but little development experience, who want to learn how to design software effectively under Unix. More info at http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/taoup/. The book is published by Addison-Wesley, 2003, ISBN 0-13-142901-9, and licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 1.0 license, with an additional proviso. It is available online at http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/taoup/html/ and at http://www.faqs.org/docs/artu/. A book for open source managers: "Producing Open Source Software - How to Run a Successful Free Software Project" by Karl Fogel is a book about the human side of open source development. It describes how successful projects operate, the expectations of users and developers, and the culture of free software. Its primary audience is software developers and managers. The reader need not be a programmer, but should know basic software engineering concepts such as source code, compilers, and patches. The book is released under the Creative Commons by-sa/3.0 license, in 2005 by O'Reilly Media: ISBN 10: 0-596-00759-0, ISBN 13: 9780596007591. It is available online at http://producingoss.com/en/. More info at http://producingoss.com/. Consider studying the Debian Users Guide ( http://www.debian.org/doc/user-manuals#users-guide ). Both installing Debian GNU/Linux and general Unix introduction. Very nice for beginners. Not published on paper, freely electronically available. ("Debian Linux User's Guide" by Dale Scheetz is obsolete, don't use it.) "Securing Debian Manual" ( http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/securing-debian-howto/index.en.html ). Very nice for serious system administrating. Not published on paper, freely electronically available. "Debian Reference" ( http://www.debian.org/doc/user-manuals#quick-reference ). Available in lots of formats and lots of languages. Also available as a Debian package "debian-reference". Covers many aspects of system administration through shell-command examples. Basic tutorials, tips, and other information are provided for topics including system installation, Debian package management, the Linux kernel under Debian, system tuning, building a gateway, text editors, CVS, programming, and GnuPG. Not published on paper, freely electronically available. This is the ultimate extensive guide. "Linux Cookbook" both published on paper ( http://www.nostarch.com/lcbk_stutz.htm ) and freely electronically available. ( http://dsl.org/cookbook/ ) Most of it is not specific to Debian. Very up-to-date. More lists of Debian-specific books are on http://www.linux.org/books/dist/debian.html and http://www.debian.org/doc/ . Beware! Check if the book handles the latest stable Debian release, ``etch''. Etch (4.0) was released april 2007, so the book should be written or last updated after this date. Lists of other GNU/Linux and Unix books are at http://www.linux.org/ . If you have access to a Debian system, which is running a webserver and has packages like doc-central and dwww installed, pointing you webbrowser to http://localhost/ gives access to lots of information. Of course, you do not suffer from network latency in such a setup. ("The Linux FAQ" ( http://www.tldp.org/FAQ/Linux-FAQ/ ) is very out of date; at least, at 2005-04 it was. Don't try to use it.) ** Follow a course Lots of institutions offer courses in working with GNU/Linux. Two of the more wll-known ones are LPI and Sair. They are both in vendor-neutral certification. The Linux Professional Institute (LPI, http://www.lpi.org/). See http://www.lpi.org/en/certification.html Sair Linux and GNU Certification. See http://www.linuxcertification.org/ . An online course by Hans Paijmans: introduction to the Unix commandline interface, at http://paai.uvt.nl/Paai/Onderw/Compg/ . Use username/password guest/guest. Since this user interface has been pretty stable for the last 40 years, the course will likely remain relevant for the coming 40 years :) This course is in Dutch. * Version, availability This is version $Id: how-to-learn-linux.txt 26467 2008-12-13 16:41:32Z joostvb $ of $URL: https://infix.uvt.nl/its-id/trunk/sources/uvt-unix-doc/how-to-learn-linux.txt $. This document is published on http://www.non-gnu.uvt.nl/pub/uvt-unix-doc/ . * Copyright Copyright (C) 2004 Joost van Baal, Copyright (C) 2004, 2005, 2006 Tilburg University http://www.uvt.nl/ . This document is free; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU GPL, see http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html . There is NO WARRANTY.