[CALUG] Best book to learn Linux with.

[Jim Sansing]

The first step is to ask the right question.  What are your friend's
requirements:

1) Training on basic desktop usage and a few applications
2) Basic training and in depth training on 1 or more apps
3) Training and sys admin responsibilities
4) Installation, training, and sys admining

For the basic stuff, I've always been happy with O'Reilly books.  They are
well designed for getting started and then using them as references later.
However, in your friend's case, it might be better to get a book for the
specific distro he is using.

If he needs more detail, I really like Richard Stevens.  He wrote for UNIX
but I have not had any problem using the information under Linux.  His
books are at the high end (ie. expensive), so another strategy might be to
go to Amazon, find his books and then see what other books were bought
by people who bought his.

Also, bookmark the following sites (there are obviously others, but this is
a pretty good start):

  http://www.linux.org/
  http://www.linuxquestions.org/
  http://www.howtoforge.com/
  http://www.linux.com/

But I have to agree with William Kelly that the best way is to learn by
doing.  If there is already a system that your friend can use, he should
try both KDE and Gnome, and if he's got time another window manager.
If he doesn't have a system, get him Knoppix or another bootable distro.
Under each, go thru all of the application menu selections and run most
of them to learn how the menus are laid out and what the applications
look like.  Browse /usr/bin and /usr/X11/bin and run man on anything
that looks interesting or <app> --help if there isn't a man page for it.

And finally, tell him to join the CALUG mailing list, and encourage him
to attend some meetings.

Later . . .   Jim


Kelly Price wrote:
>Once again.... yadda yadda yadda.  Got a friend who's staring out,
>because his father wants him to train everyone else for a convention.
>What book do you recommend for the newbies?
>
>