Baslinux mailing list

[Lee Forrest <lforrestster AT gmail.com>]

On Fri, Feb 16, 2007 at 01:25:42PM +1030, Greg Mayman wrote:
> I found a copy of "Linux! I Didn't Know You Could Do That" at the
> library, with accompanying CD-ROM.
> 
> Does anyone know this book?
> 
> So far I've read part way through the first chapter, and it seems
> pretty good so far.

So? You aren't experienced enough to judge the quality of a linux
book.

I don't mean that as an insult. It's just a fact. You are a
newbie.

We all were at one time.

For what it's worth (I've never heard of the book):

9. Linux - I didn't know you could do that...                                 
                        
ISBN: 0-7821-2612-X                                                           
                     
[62]http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/078212612X                       
                     
Worst book ever. Very little technical substance.                             
                     
10. For dummies - Linux Programming                                           
                         
ISBN: 0-7645-0691-9                                                           
                     
[63]http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0764506919                       
                     
Second worst book ever. Very basic shell scripting guide.                     
                     

/quote

http://www.s5h.net/2005-12   

On the Amazon page, someone calling theirself "Mike Smith" gives
the book a glowing review. Someone who appears to be a different
person slaughters it.

Whether any of the above reviewers know anything about linux or
even looked at the book, I couldn't tell you.

"Talk is cheap" is an expression I never really understood until
I discovered the internet.

There is no single book or collection of books that will make
someone a successful linux runner. It takes study and practice
and experience.

About the equivalent of a two-year technical college degree to
become competent. There aren't any shortcuts.

You have Rute, and, IIRC, Running Linux.

Everything foundational you need to know, and much more, can
be found in those books, even as dated as Rute and the earlier
(editions 1-3) of Running Linux _seem_ to be.

If you study them and work with what you find there.

The fundamentals don't change, and everything else is based on them.

Even more importantly, you have the internet. But it won't help
you much if you just chat on it. If you spend 10% of your linux
time talking with people, 40% searching and reading, and 50%
experimenting with what you discover on your computer, you'll get
somewhere.

Learning bash, the shell and the language (hard to really
seperate them) is probably the most important area of study after
the fundamentals, which all involve using the shell. Even an
'integrated graphical desktop environment' uses the shell.

There's no real difference between clicking on an icon to bring
up your internet connection and (using a dialup PPP connection as
an example) entering:

$ pppd 

on the commandline. That's all the clicking on the icon does. Run that 
command.

The essential difference between the two approaches is this: By entering it 
from
the commandline you can use any of the numerous options to pppd. Or cancel 
options
being fed to pppd by the /etc/ppp/options file.

Secondarily, the commandline requires far less system resources.

I bring up my internet connection by entering "p" on the
commandline, which is aliased to 'pppd' (man sh/man ash/man
bash). If I need to add/subtract any options on the commandline,
I can do it to "p" as if it were "pppd".

For an example, if something strange was going on with the
connection, I could enter:

$ p debug   # or 'p -d'

And (hopefully) learn what exactly was happenning.

Lee

-- 
BasicLinux: Small is Beautiful
http://www.basiclinux.com.ru