[Gllug] Flavours end - Linux begins?

[Dermot Moynihan]

At 15:18 17/11/02, Jason Clifford wrote:
>On Sun, 17 Nov 2002, Dermot Moynihan wrote:
>
> > I'm trying to get together some books to assist me in learning LINUX. The
> > version I have is SUSE 8.1. However, I can find no books specific to
> > that.  I find the SUSE manuals of some use but they don't go into stuff in
> > enough detail for me.
> > What I need to know is, if, for instance, I get a QUE book, "Using Linux,
> > Special Edition, 6th ed."  which has blurb on the cover referring to
> > "Configure Red Hat Linux, Caldera Open Linux and Debian GNU/Linux" will I
> > learn anything about Linux per se? I don't want to waste £33 on a book 
> that
> > I will learn little from. As a beginner it's difficult to know just from
> > browsing in the shop whether it will be of any use to me or not. Maybe
> > somebody could even recommend a book?
>
>OK the first thing you need to remember is that the only real difference
>between most distributions is their own config tools.
>
>All the distributions share the same basic system and all install pretty
>much the same software. Most configuration etc is of that software - the
>distro tools just present a unified interface for that (and SuSE's YaST
>does seem to be one of the better ones).
>
>Any good Linux book should teach you much of what you need to know and so
>long as it is not based upon using a specific distro's management tools
>will help you with any Linux distribution.
>
>You might even find it better value to buy a books or two second hand.
>
>It's a long time since I bought a Linux book for myself so I am not well
>qualified to recommend one of the current batch. That said O'Reilly
>publish a book called "Running Linux" that offers a very good distro
>agnostic introduction to Linux.

I've got an old copy of that from the library. By coincidence, I went off 
to buy my own copy a couple of weeks ago ( I like to be able to scribble 
notes in them - mainly question marks, probably) and they told me there's a 
new edition out next month so I'm waiting on that. Also, I took a chance 
this afternoon and bought the QUE one. Seems okay, at first glance.
Thanks Jason, for the explanation and the advice.
Dermot

>Jason Clifford
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