[Gllug] Newbie asks: how to learn?

[james at soon.co.uk]

[snip]
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>This is a bit vague - hope you know what I mean.
>
[snip]

Sorry don't know any decent courses/night classes but as a novice/home-user that spends far to much time lurking & not enough contributing to this list here are some items/strategies that have helped me.

Strategies:
*Experiment & tinker, experiment & tinker, experiment & tinker.

*Learn to love the shell (see book recommendation below).

*Always have an escape route.
Sooner or later you will pole-axe your system. I know it sounds boring but try and always have available, a bootable CD/floppy, a working Internet connection and a backed-up of valuable data.

*Learn vi.
Yes, I know it not very user friendly. But it will get you out of a tight corner , it is indestructible, on every *nix box in the world, fits on to a floppy and is very powerful.

*Learn Midnight Commander.
For the more or less the same reasons as vi.

*Learn to roll your own kernel.
Compiling is generally good skill to learn.

*Magazines are good.
I agree there is tons of information out there and it is hard to make sense of it. So I tend to use magazines to do the sorting and filtering for me currently I  regularly read Linux Format <www.linuxformat.co.uk>.

*Use mailing lists.
Since I am reply to your posting I will assume you have got this one sorted. IMHO this list is both high powered, politically aware & fairly novice/newbie friendly. Which, in my admittedly limited experience, is a bit unusual and very good for getting answers to problems. Don't forget mail list achieves I've found them good source of info.

*Learn to scavenge/salvage.
I am alway surprised by what you can find gathering dust in IT department cupboards, bins, and skips. To date I have salvaged a jaz drive, slide scanner, tape drive and a 3comm switch just by asking "do you still want this?".

*Give something back.
Most of the stuff you will be using is more or less free. So just to keep the whole process going why not contribute. Even if your not a coder there is always a project some were that needs a web page, man page, advocacy or something doing.


Books:
These are the well thumbed volumes you will generally find stacked up on my Debian box

Running Linux
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/runux4/

Learning the bash Shell
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/bash2/
Maybe a bit to in-depth for general home use (this depends on your Linux ambitions) but an excellent book none the less.

PC Hardware in a Nutshell
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/pchardnut2/
I know hardware changes so fast that any book is going to become obsolete quickly. Having said that I have found this book good at giving me a good fundamental understanding of a given technology and how you can make use of it

vi Editor Pocket Reference
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/vipr/
Get started by using the on-line documentation and then have this by your side.

Hope this helps, have fun

James


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