[PLUG] A Good Linux Book for Novices

guy1656 guy1656 at ados.com
Mon May 13 17:29:40 UTC 2002


I'd like to recommend the following book for newbies & novices (like me.)
(I have no business interest in the sale of this book, btw.)

Title "Linux! I didn't know you could do that..."
Author: Nicholas D. Wells
Publ: Sybex
ISBN 0-7821-2935-8
Price: $21.95 (Fry's)

The organization of this book overcomes a great gulf many if us novices have 
in learning to use Linux 'around the house:'

1) We can formulate an intent in English, like: "How do I play mp3's in 
Linux?" 
2) The answer is out there in the form of 3 to 5 commands or a simple slick 
install.

The problem is that it might take you 5 days or internet searching and FAQ 
reading, tweaking, etc, to find what WOULD have and SHOULD have been a couple 
of minutes' job.

Pounding through O'Reilly books is like using a dictionary to learn how to 
spell a word - you'll discover some neat words along the way that weren't 
part of your search, and a lot of useful and accurate information, but you 
still have to know how to spell the word in order to find out how to spell it.

OTOH, this book organizes its chapters around 38 basic intents, and provides 
steps proceeding from "OK is your system ready for this?" to basic tools, 
saving the most complex applications for last. (For the above, the steps 
proceed from setting up a soundcard using sndconfig, then using kscd, gtcd, 
and xmms, and a few suggestions like OpenSoundSystem. Then it's on to 
accessing CDDB, and more advanced programs like xrdb and Xwave) So, you get 
in at whereever your level of understanding is, and you can get out at the 
level where -you- decide you've learned enough for now.

Lastly, the book attempts to make each chapter as stand-alone as possible, 
for example by -NOT- assuming you already know how 'tar' works, and NOT 
sticking it in only ONE chapter (this would force a nested search: How do I 
install this? You have to unpack it. How do I unpack it? Go figure where THAT 
chapter is, then come back here and continue solving THIS problem.) 

Instead the book presents (for example)

# tar xvzf [program].tgz
# cd [directory made by program]
# make install
# [program name]

in MANY places, so you can stay focused on your current intent.
The book comes with a CD including rpm's of just about everything it talks 
about, so if you're stuck and the book says you need a diagnostic tool, you 
won't lose an hour or more looking all over for it.

For those of us who come from Windows expect to run something by clicking on 
it and watching it 'go,' this is a BIG help.

GLL




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