Author:                             Antonomasia
Email Address:                      ant@notatla.demon.co.uk
Web Page (if applicable):           http://www.notatla.demon.co.uk
One-line summary of topic\question: learning Linux/UNIX
Original date of FAQ topic:         28 June 1997
Date FAQ topic was last modified:   10 July 1997

What are good resources for learning Linux/UNIX?

Printed Books (+ means read by Antonomasia)

+    The Red Hat User Guide (comes in the boxed set from Red Hat)
     This covers installation, configuration, documentation and
     some aspects of operation peculiar to Red Hat's distribution.
     Appendices cover FAQs among other things.

+    Running Linux (by Matt Welsh and Lar Kaufman)
     ISBN 1-56592-151-8 
     Published by O'Reilly (generally speaking, their books are good)
     (mail catalog@ora.com, order@ora.com, web http://www.ora.com)
     
-    Linux Network Administrator's Guide (by Olaf Kirch)
     Another O'Reilly Nutshell book.

+    Beginning Linux Programming (by Neil Matthew and Richard Stones)
     ISBN 1-874416-68-0
     This is for C programmers extending their scope in interacting
     with the Linux system.   If 'man 2 pipe' is too brief and leaves
     you frustrated; help is at hand.

+    Special Edition Using Linux (Tackett and Gunter)
     This large book starts at a basic level and might suit beginners.
     As with all printed books, the lists of compatible hardware will
     not be right up to date.
      



On Your Computer (If these seem absent it could be that
                  they have not been installed on your system.)
     /usr/doc has a wealth of information in it.  So much it
     will sometimes take you a while to find the part you want.
     Some of these docs are the infamous HOWTOs.  Asking questions
     answered adequately here does not look impressive.
     
     The commands 'man' and 'info' usually give a lot of help.
     (Start with 'man man' and 'info info'.)
     It's only fair to say that most man pages are written as
     memory aids for people already familiar with the subject
     and who skim them rather than read them.  Nevertheless,
     there are some gems for people patient enough to read through.
     You will want to be familiar with your shell and the other tools
     you are always using. 



     When learning system administration these are the crucial subjects:

        backups -     If your backups are OK, in the worst case you can
                      get somebody else to mend it.  Otherwise; curtains.

        booting -     Nobody likes a machine that won't boot.  Know what
                      your box does, and in what order.  Remember those
                      HOWTOs and the net are out of sight when your only
                      computer is down.

        diagnosis -   Perhaps the main skill to develop. When you know
                      what's up you can fix it.   Example: today I found
                      a script failing on a Solaris box.  It said /dev/null
                      was unwriteable.  That was hard to believe, but sure
                      enough it was true.  How come ?  Earlier on I had
                      symlinked a log file to /dev/null to prevent waste
                      of disk space.  The daemon in question (cron) had
                      since changed the mode.  Having found the problem,
                      the fix was trivial.

                      Multiple hardware makes diagnosis easier as you can
                      swap out parts to identify faults and peculiarities.
                      You must also be familiar with how your system has
                      been changed.  A logbook helps a lot, even if you're
                      singlehanded and most of the entries are backups.

                     The magic words are: simple, reversible, planned.

Over the Net
     the Red Hat site (http://www.redhat.com)
     the Red Hat mailing lists
     Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.* comp.lang.shell


A web search at http://www.cs.byu.edu turned up the following:
   
1)  What are some useful Unix or C books
          Next: What happened to Up: General Questions Previous: How does
          the. What are some useful Unix or C books. Mitch Wright
          (mitch@cirrus.com) maintains a...
          http://www.ee.byu.edu/unix-faq/subsection3_3_5.html - size 2K -
          14.Aug.94 - English
          
2)   The UNIX FAQ List
          Next: Contents. The UNIX FAQ List. System Operators. Contents.
          Introduction. General Questions. Relatively basic questions,
          likely to be asked by...
          http://www.ee.byu.edu/unix-faq/faq.html - size 2K - 15.Aug.94 -
          English
          
3)   Main Unix flavors
          Next: System V from Up: An overview of Previous: A very brief.
          Main Unix flavors. Until recently, there were basically two
          main flavors of Unix: System V..
          http://www.ee.byu.edu/unix-faq/subsection3_8_3.html - size 2K -
          14.Aug.94 - English
          
4)   An overview of Unix variants
          Next: Disclaimerintroduction and Up: The UNIX FAQ List
          Previous: I would like. An overview of Unix variants.
          Disclaimer, introduction and acknowledgements.
          http://www.ee.byu.edu/unix-faq/section3_8.html - size 2K -
          14.Aug.94 - English

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# Antonomasia   ant@notatla.demon.co.uk                       #
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