Books For Newbies, What are your MUST READ books for linux? Options

[Corey]

I would like anyone who has read/heard/own any linux books to make some suggestions as to what are the MUST HAVE books for newcomers to linux. I'm sure this could be very helpful to people just coming into the Linux world. Here are my personal suggestions:

LPI Linux Certification in a Nutshell (O'Reilly Press)

- Granted, this book is for study in the LPI Certification exams, however, it is much more useful then that. This books takes you chapter by chapter through each part of the linux operating systems, including practice tests, great summaries, and the quality we all expect from an O'Reilly book. I'm still in the process of reading this book, however, I have learned a lot of things that I never heard of before from anywhere else. There is not bias in this book for any particular distribution, it treats them all equally.

Learning Linux, 3rd Edition (O'Reilly Press)

- An excellent book for the linux newcomer. This books very basic stuff with Linux systems, as well as a few things things that even the expert can learn from. An all round perfect book, any my suggestion for the MUST HAVE linux book.

Anyone else?

[Hemant]

Redhat-linux in 24 hours.
this is also a very good for newbies

[beni]

I am learning RHL 8 with the help of this book : 'Red Hat Linux 8 Unleashed' Author: Bill Ball & partner Publishers: Sams publications. Seems to be quite easy on the jargon and explanation. Oh I think it'd be good idea to learn Unix simultaneously. I am referring to this book called 'Learning the Unix operating system' by Jerry Lang(O'Reilly). Small but informative book!

[Mystilleef]

Hello,

I don't know if this is appropriate, but I'm going to mention some of the online books and guides. For now, I read this and it's been very helpful. I will update as I find more free online books.

A Linux Hands on Guide from tldp

[Zaphrod]

Hello,

I don't know if this is appropriate, but I'm going to mention some of the online books and guides. For now, I read this and it's been very helpful. I will update as I find more free online books.

A Linux Hands on Guide from tldp

I dont know if I should be commenting here but I have to say this guide listed by Mystilleef is great.

[Corey]

Comment all you want, it's even better when someone follows up someone elses post with "yeah i read that and it's great", it gives other users more of a reason to check it out

[beni]

I looked around for 'Linux in a nutshell'(downloadable version). O'reilly doesnt have one, but an online one instead, which wont be very convenient for me. Can someone tell me from where I can d/l it?

[melgwee]

I am a newbie too and I recommend any of these two books, namely the 'Red Hat Linux 8 Bible' by Christopher Negus or 'Red Hat Linux 8 Unleashed' by Bill Ball for all newbies.

[conqueror]

I would just like to start out by saying THANKS for this posting. I just installed RH 9.0 yesterday (5/3/03)for the first time ever! I am a newbie through and through, but hope to learn and keep on learning about Linux. Any of this material is going to be extremely helpful and I will digest as much as my finite mind can handle.

Thanks again!

[twisted1]

Heres a book I am currently in the process of reading. It is very helpful.

"Running Linux" By Matt Welsh & Lar Kaufman(O'Reilly of course)
I also have a pretty extensive library at home of compputer books, mostly Linux, that I will post when I get off work. I also wanted to say that I also think that this is a great thread for not only newbies but for all in the community since one of the best teachers is books.
Mike(Twisted1)

[chrisw]

i usually read the man pages for information..since
its already installed on your computer....
unless your like me and dont install the man pages like i do now...
but if i need more in depth information
i find books specific to my needs ...like..i need
to set up and configure sendmail and a imap
server...so i get books on those areas...instead
of a general running redhat book...

[jetblackz]

Linux in a Nutshell doesn't help newbies much because it's a book of man pages mostly. You can man command to view all of them.

Running Linux, OTOH, is a great book newbies should pick up. It guides you through the process of installing and running Linux.

If you're not newbies, Nutshell can be a handy reference.

This is a good one:

http://rute.sourceforge.net/

[chrisw]

I have a book just about configuring the apache 1.3.X series which is really good...

ive learned a good deal of things regarding the webserver.

from basic installs to configuring ssl

[Hemant]

for indian users there is a very good book by..
Sumitabha Das(unix ....)

books assumes the user a newbie but advanced topics are also well covered.

[toosleep]

I know that there are many flavours of LINUX out there. I myself just starting out, am using REDHAT 8. With that I picked up the RedHat8 Bible. SO far it has been the greatest thing since sliced bread.

Another thing that has helped me is picking up an old 386 at a rummage sale with monitor and heyboard for $20. Its setup as an experimental terminal-only system to mess around with if I need to figure something out before trying anything on my main system. Sounds corny, but its saved me alot of fatal mistakes.

Another suggestion would be the linux documenttation project. I know, we all hate the man pages at first, but the HOW-TO's are a great starting point usually full of links to other helpfull sites.

Linux usage to date: 2mo. 17days. 14hours. 7min.

Cheers,
toosleep

[zeoplanet]

I know that there are many flavours of LINUX out there. I myself just starting out, am using REDHAT 9.

any of you guys and gals know of any good reading material on redhat

[Hemant]

sure...
redhat bible and redhat linux in 24 hours are very good to start with.
but i will tell u distros doesn't matter much..forget different distros of gnu/linux but a unix book will also help u.

[andrewjenkins]

If you're interested in the spirit of the GNU Project and Linux, I recommend these two "bibles":

Free as in Freedom: Richard Stallman's Crusade for Freedom
Sam Williams
This is a biography of Richard Stallman, known on the net as RMS. He wrote, or assisted in writing many of the tools on any linux system, most notably GCC (the compiler that turns the linux kernel from source to something runnable), and GNU Emacs, the text editor. A good read for the philosophical justifications of free software.
This book is released in accordance with the GNU Free Documentation License, so it should be available on the internet somewhere, although I coughed up dinero for the hard-cover.

Just For Fun: The Story of An Accidental Revolutionary
Linus Torvalds and David Diamond
This is a (auto-)biography of Linus Torvalds, the guy behind the Linux kernel, and the front-page man for Linux. About every other chapter is written by Linus himself. This is a very lighthearted read. It's not GFDLed though - you have to buy it or find it in a library.

[Jay-Jay]

Can't say i've read it but i got the address here of;

Free as in Freedom: Richard Stallman's Crusade for Freedom.

http://www.oreilly.com/openbook/freedom/

i'm sure it'll be an interesting read . . . when i'm not essay writing or trying to fix X! (-:

Jay-Jay

[Medic6666]

I use Redhat 8 Bible (which works with 9) and Linux in a nutshell.

Linux in a nutshell lists all the commands with their options and a brief description.

Redhat Bible this pretty much walks you through the principles of doing things. Things may vary depending on your hardware but the principle is always the same.


Other wise do as I did. Using the books I installed, broke it, fixed it, removed it, installed it, broke it, .........you get the idea..

you can learn a lot by breaking it

Just my little bit.

Medic6666