Arch Linux

the6step

Member

Registered: 2008-09-21

Posts: 2

Starting point; besides Wiki and Forum.

Ok so I'm ready to jump head first into linux, ArchLinux will be my first distrubution. I consider myself knowledgeable when it comes to computers, but Linux will be somewhat challenging I admit. My main motivation for learning Linux, is I want to be able to buy a VPN and run my site off it, which means I have to be able to manage every aspect of my VPN from shell (I think that is the term).

So I was wondering if you guys could help me resource wise as to how I would learn Linux. First of all, is Linux also Unix?

If so, does this book look like a good resource? http://www.amazon.com/Sams-Teach-Yourse … 672328143/

I'm looking for a good solid resource on Linux in general. Usually when I learn anything, I grab a strong resource to start with (a book or a video), and then pick up the rest of my knowledge from forums/wiki's/internet/etc. So if you guys could help me with a strong reference, that would be great.

I already know a good chunk of Vim, if that helps (but not nearly enough, but I can pick that up just looking at documentation). I also use Mac OS X so I do use a good chunk of commands found in Linux (cd, ls, that's it)

Last edited by the6step (2008-11-09 04:19:39)

mcmillan

Member

Registered: 2006-04-06

Posts: 737

Re: Starting point; besides Wiki and Forum.

It's not quite accurate to say linux is the same as unix, but knowledge of one tends to transfer pretty closely to another. If you're comfortable using a terminal running your mac you should have a decent start. I haven't seen that book you posted, but as an alternative O'Reilly books tend to be pretty good. I have Linux in a Nutshell which I flipped through quite a bit when I started out.

Another good resource is  the linux documentation project

If a main motivation is to be able to run things remotely over the network I'd say priorities would be to become comfortable with bash (the default shell for most linux distros) and editing files from a cli text editor. Knowing terminal commands for your mac and vim are good starts for that.

Mr.Elendig

#archlinux@freenode channel op

From: The intertubes

Registered: 2004-11-07

Posts: 4,092

Re: Starting point; besides Wiki and Forum.

tldp.org is a good resource, but notalways up todate. I specialy recomend this article: http://tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/

On the "is linux also unix?" the answer is no.
When you say 'linux', you probably mean the combination of the Linux kernel and the GNU tools (GNU/Linux), and GNU stands for: Gnu is Not Unix
But GNU/Linux and unix is fairly similar from the users standpoint, specialy since both of them are more or less posix compliant, and that they are built on similar principles. Also linux and some unix'es(specialy bsd) shares some userspace tools.

Edit: just a sidenote, irc can also be a good place to pick up some good info.

Last edited by Mr.Elendig (2008-11-10 03:51:11)

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the6step

Member

Registered: 2008-09-21

Posts: 2

Re: Starting point; besides Wiki and Forum.

Thanks for the info

Basically I need to be able to get around via text only, so any resource that helps on that end, without diving into the real technical stuff I will never use, helps a ton. I have gotten on Ubuntu a couple of times, and a lot of the commands I used on Mac OS X more or less worked exactly as you would expect in the terminal on a Linux Kernel, so I guess that is what you mean when you say posix compliant.