[SWLUG] Re: General Unix introduction

[Telsa Gwynne]

Ar Thu, Feb 23, 2006 at 09:36:34AM +0000, ysgrifennodd Gerald Davies:
> On 2/23/06, Telsa Gwynne <hobbit at aloss.ukuu.org.uk> wrote:
> >
> > For a nice introduction to some basic Unix commands with a lot
> > more detail on this philosophy, its consequences, and what this
> > means when you're staring blankly at the screen thinking "Now
> > what?", there's a lovely book called "Think Unix" by Jon
> > Lasser. It's quite short compared with the giant "hire thirty
> > people to write one chapter each" efforts from some publishers,
> > but it's a lot better for that.
> >
> 
> OTOH, I always suggest heading over to the TLDP (The Linux
> Documentation Project) at http://www.tldp.org

Yeah, but you can drown in lists and lists of HOWTOs and Mini-HOWTOs
and FAQs and goodness knows what there. (It took me a couple of years
to realise that Mini-HOWTOs weren't called that because they were 
short HOWTOs. They were called that because HOWTOs were marked up
in a particular format. Mini-HOWTOs were not marked up that way and
were in plain-text only. They could be much longer in length than 
HOWTOs. Argh. I hope that this difference has either gone away or 
it is explained properly these days.) 

There's a reason I said that the book is "quite short [...] but much 
better for that": I hate wading through thirty chapters of brain-
dump looking for the reason for something. And it does not go "and 
if you're on Debian, it's in this directory, and if you're on Fedora, 
it's in this one, and if you're on FreeBSD it's this one". It just 
explains what the thinking is that leads to this sort of situation, 
which means you are much better equipped when you face something 
that is similar but not exactly the example in the book.

I haven't come across much at the LDP which actually covers this
"the Unix approach historically is... which means... which is why..."
sort of stuff, and it's the sort of stuff that helps me retain info.
Well, as much as I ever do, at least :)

Telsa