Phil Wayne

Best References To Learn Linux

24 Sep 2020

My Dearest Mad-Readers,

I am well aware that most of my followers are not Linux users, or even enthusiasts. Since most of you (I expect) are beginners or only curious about an Operating System you may have heard of only a few times, I figured it would be interesting to offer you some free advice on how to learn Linux on your own.

Books

There mostly is one book I want to recommend to you, but aside from that single reference I will add this : all books related to programming will help you in your quest. Whether it is about html, css, javascript, C, python, or any other programming or scripting languages, it will serve you on your path to knowledge.

Learn Linux Quickly: A Friendly Guide to Easily Master the World's Most Powerful Operating System*

There are myriads of books about Linux and which supposedly for beginners or rather advanced levels. Often, those either are too incomplete or there merely is too complicated (or unreadable) material within them. When you are a beginner, you need something appealing and reader-friendly. Well, I believe I may have found the proper book for you! I know this one would have helped me a great deal as a beginner.

Unix & Linux System Administration Handbook (2017)*

This is the one book I would recommend the most. It is an encyclopedia and the best reference you could ever put your hands on. If you do not know a command or a concept, it is in this book.

In my opinion, all its editions are worth reading. This one was published in 2017, and it is the 5th.

Links to other editions :

Online Resources

Regarding what you can find online... well, you can get everything you like. From premium courses (which are not worth it, honestly) to free content (which will actually help you).

Here is an incomplete list (for there is no such thing as a complete list) of websites which may help you pave your path :

  • YouTube : obvious indeed, but it should not be neglected. When you are a beginner, DistroTube is your best friend, but you may draw more toward Luke Smith when your level seriously goes up. I'd also recommend Wolfgang's channel, Chris Titus Tech, Mental Outlaw and, finally, The Linux Experiment.
  • Blogs : Blogs such as mine are not rare online and you will find a lot of information on them. Tecmint and howtogeek are both excellent examples.
  • lbry.tv : This is a newer platform which aspires to compete with YouTube. Lots of people within the Open Source community, such as DT or Luke Smith, already publish their content there. Some others exclusively publish on LBRY, so do go there if you don't want to miss out on anything!
  • Github & Gitlab repositories : Both are goldmines. If you want to fuel your imagination or learn new things, they are filled with projects which cannot for you to take a glance at them.
  • WIKIS : I cannot stress this enough. If there are wikis for your Linux distributions, it is because they are meant to be read! All of a sudden, installing Arch Linux and/or Gentoo becomes SO MUCH easier. Both distributions certainly have the best wikis out there, so... You know what you need to do!
  • Forums & social networks : Stackoverflow is among them the most popular, but you will also always find help on Ubuntu's Help Center. Regarding social networks, despite my opinion of them, I know that Discord, Reddit, or even Twitter are overused by developers and other computer professionals. So, do check them out ? There is also unixporn, by the way...
  • MOOCs : They are extremely popular these days. There is one I would recommend for French speakers on openclassrooms.com. It is called Reprenez le contrôle à l'aide de Linux.
  • For more advanced users, there is suckless.org and for vim enthusiasts, there is vim.fandom.com/wiki.
  • All the resources of programming (C, javascript, python, ruby...) and scripting languages (zsh, bash, fish...).
  • Feedly : Not bad to keep up with trends and follow topics you are interested in.

On Your Local Machine

Without necessarily going online, you may find help aplenty on your local machine. The man command will give you access to the manual pages in your terminal. Just type man + $command_you_want_to_know_more_about.

The vimtutor will offer you a brief yet sufficient tutorial on how to use vim rather efficiently. Just type vimtutor in your terminal.

Of course, there also are info and help pages within your terminal. All that, you will discover by practicing over and over and by encountering countless error messages which you will end up becoming familiar with. Indeed, because time is your ally, if so you accept to make it...

Not So Usual A Sign-Off

If you appreciate my work, you know what to do... Do you not ?

Take care,

Phil.

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