[Techtalk] New to the list...new to linux

[Telsa Gwynne]

On Sat, Sep 29, 2001 at 09:29:15PM -0700 or thereabouts, Tianna Thomas wrote:
> Can anyone recommend a good book?  BN.com has about a zillion but I don't
> have that much time...if you can only buy one, which one is it?

I love Jon Lasser's "Think Unix". It explains the mindset. Some of
it is not specific down to the level of "this flag does this thing
to this command" because the commands vary slightly across different
UNIXes. Instead it goes for explaining the concepts. The very first
chapter is about how to get details out of man pages. It's short,
but it covers the basics. I think. Alas, my copy is out on loan
(must get it back) so I can't check that it does in fact cover the
bits you're currently asking for. 

When you know _more_, the single best reference volume for me is
"Linux in a nutshell" but I would not call this a beginners book.
I would say that's for when you know what you're trying to do and
just need help doing it. It divides commands up into logical
groups and chapters. It's just that you have to have a pretty 
good idea of those groupings before you can find stuff :)

Some people learn better from printed matter. If you are not
one of them, there are tons and tons of documents on the web.
http://www.linuxdoc.org will have more than you ever wanted.
And the distribution you are using will probably have manuals
too, both printed and on the web. Red Hat, for example, have
a Getting Started guide and a Reference Guide (and possibly
some others) which you can download from their site. I found
the Mandrake manuals on the Mandrake site, too. 

Telsa