Book Shelf

[jml]

Two of my favorite books for dealing with Linux in general and Debian in particular are, Running Linux 4th Edition, written by Matt Welsh, et al, published by O'Reilly; and Debian GNU/Linux 3.1 by Benjamin Mako Hill, et al, published by Wiley. Both are well written and well organized.

For people just starting out in Linux I recommend either Point & Click Linux, written by Robin Miller, published by Prentice Hall/PTR; or Moving to Linux 2nd Edition, written by Marcel Gagne, published by Addison Wesley. I found these authors very helpful as I struggled to understand Linux. Both books also include a live CD. Point & Click includes Simply Mepis, and Moving to Linux includes a customized version of Knoppix, so the new user does not even have to download their first distro.

Joe

[kmoffat]

Another recommendation is "The Linux Cookbook" by Carla Schroder. Very complete and informative cookbook.

[viator]

I have never had reason to buy a book because everything i needed to learn i found online. But now that i think of it i may purchase a book because in a way it promotes linux :)

[fos]

I agree with Viator. There is a wealth of information available for download on the internet.

A good historical site for early computing articles is:

http://www.atarimagazines.com/creative/index/

Another good site for free books and articles is:

http://www.freetechbooks.com/index.php

In addition, whenever I do find a book that I would like to have on my shelf, I check Amazon's used books. When you look at the description for the "new" version, there will be a link for "used and new". You can frequently purchase a "new" book for pennies on the dollar. I was only burned once and Amazon refunded the entire amount.

Jeff

[RedAlpha3]

Whilst I agree with Viator that all you ever need can be found on the net, there is something satisfying about having a hard copy in your hands. I'm reading, "How Linux Works" by Brian Ward at the moment. I quite like some of the American 'No Starch Press' books. There are times when only a book will do as I often find it more difficult to assimilate information via a monitor screen. I was wondering if this is a generation thing :?

[fos]

I can go both ways. As an old curmudgeon, I still like books. I can book mark, take notes, and keep several places open at once. There is just something about a hard oopy.

I'm always on the lookout for bargain books at librarys, yard sales, ebay, Amazon, .....

If you wait awhile, you never have to pay but a fraction of the cover price.

Jeff

[bhobjj]

Wicked Cool Shell Scripts (http://www.intuitive.com/wicked/) By Dave Taylor
In spite of it's dumb name,
Is the one of the most useful and entertaining books that I have read in a long time. Each script is introduced and explained and then a few suggestions are added for hacking the scripts.
See some examples here:
http://www.intuitive.com/wicked/read-sample-shell-scripts.shtml

[fos]

Thanks for the link. No Starch Press texts are some of my favorites. I see that Amazon has copies available for $17.

Back when I started with Unix, just about everything was done with shell scripts. I even had an accounting program for my business was written entirely in a shell script.

fos...