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#1 2013-05-07 11:17:49

SquidGuy
Member
From: the depths of the sea
Registered: 2013-05-07
Posts: 47

Resources for general GNU/Linux Knowledge

Hello All,
This may be the totally wrong place for this, but I've been successfully managing to not fail miserably at using Arch for the past year or so.  In this time, I've spent tons of time going through the Wiki, the Arch Forums, and Google to find the answers to each little problem that has arisen.  The journey so far has taught me a lot (like, "read the man pages"), but every time I look around, I'm finding out a new command for getting output from error logs, ways to manipulate kernel parameters, etc.

My question is:  Is there a good resource for where all of these little tips for troubleshooting failures are put in a lovely little archive?  I'd like to expand my understanding of the system as a whole, but haven't been able to locate anything that's decently new.  Anything that I can read and learn from would be great.

Thanks,

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#2 2013-05-07 14:50:33

hadrons123
Member
From: chennai
Registered: 2011-10-07
Posts: 1,249

Re: Resources for general GNU/Linux Knowledge

http://www.tldp.org/
I assume you might possibly gone through this....


LENOVO Y 580 IVYBRIDGE 660M NVIDIA
Unix is user-friendly. It just isn't promiscuous about which users it's friendly with. - Steven King

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#3 2013-05-07 15:20:47

jakobcreutzfeldt
Member
Registered: 2011-05-12
Posts: 1,041

Re: Resources for general GNU/Linux Knowledge

Also, run the "info" command. You'll find a bunch of full-length manuals in there. I've learned a lot by reading them.

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#4 2013-05-07 16:54:16

drcouzelis
Member
From: Connecticut, USA
Registered: 2009-11-09
Posts: 4,092
Website

Re: Resources for general GNU/Linux Knowledge

SquidGuy wrote:

Is there a good resource for where all of these little tips for troubleshooting failures are put in a lovely little archive?

That would be the Arch Linux wiki and the forums. What information are you looking for that isn't already in there?

jakobcreutzfeldt wrote:

Also, run the "info" command.

I have very special feelings for the "info" command. Very STRONG special feelings. mad

Last edited by drcouzelis (2013-05-07 16:55:02)

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#5 2013-05-07 19:16:43

jakobcreutzfeldt
Member
Registered: 2011-05-12
Posts: 1,041

Re: Resources for general GNU/Linux Knowledge

drcouzelis wrote:

I have very special feelings for the "info" command. Very STRONG special feelings. mad

Would it help to know that it has vi-like bindings available?

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#6 2013-05-07 20:13:12

drcouzelis
Member
From: Connecticut, USA
Registered: 2009-11-09
Posts: 4,092
Website

Re: Resources for general GNU/Linux Knowledge

jakobcreutzfeldt wrote:
drcouzelis wrote:

I have very special feelings for the "info" command. Very STRONG special feelings. mad

Would it help to know that it has vi-like bindings available?

...

...maybe...

...but on a serious note, have you personally ever found something in an info page that made you glad you read it? I guess I don't really know what state the info pages are in (current, complete...) since I never really looked at them. tongue

I do have a fondness for man pages, once I got the hang of learning how to read / understand them.

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#7 2013-05-07 20:25:01

ewaller
Administrator
From: Pasadena, CA
Registered: 2009-07-13
Posts: 19,740

Re: Resources for general GNU/Linux Knowledge

Meanwhile, back in the original thread....


Nothing is too wonderful to be true, if it be consistent with the laws of nature -- Michael Faraday
Sometimes it is the people no one can imagine anything of who do the things no one can imagine. -- Alan Turing
---
How to Ask Questions the Smart Way

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#8 2013-05-07 21:33:00

SquidGuy
Member
From: the depths of the sea
Registered: 2013-05-07
Posts: 47

Re: Resources for general GNU/Linux Knowledge

Specifically, I recently ran across a case where using symlinks provided an answer to an installation error (not enough diskspace) for a user who had their partitioning scheme resembling a loaf of bread, as it was sliced into multiple sections.  In this case, their home partition was undersized for unpacking.

I was familiar with symbolic linking, but had never really thought of how this could be used for problem solving.  I guess this brought me around to realizing that there was still a great deal that I just haven't "absorbed" fully enough to apply.

I'm certainly not knocking the Wiki, the Forums, and man pages.  It's been more than enough for me so far (sometimes through w3m once I've broken something), but I keep looking around for more knowledge.  Perhaps it does just take solving individual problems one at a time, but I can't help but feel like there is some great understanding that I'm simply missing.

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#9 2013-05-07 21:43:15

opt1mus
Member
From: UK
Registered: 2011-12-31
Posts: 212
Website

Re: Resources for general GNU/Linux Knowledge

I think a big chunk of it is in the actual doing, running multiple installations - for example - can teach you a lot, perhaps moreso than reading a manual front to back.

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#10 2013-05-08 04:01:24

vyu223
Member
Registered: 2013-02-18
Posts: 24

Re: Resources for general GNU/Linux Knowledge

Hmm. Well, the wikis only provide enough information to complete a certain task. Even after installing and maintaining my system, I find that I still need more work on regular expressions, and still have yet to learn sed and awk. I still need to learn shell programming, as well. And this is not an exhaustive list. A pretty well-regarded book I recommend is A Practical Guide to Linux Commands, Editors, and Shell Programming by Mark Sobell. It aims to be distribution-agnostic, so that's a real plus. I'm working through it right now myself. Of course you don't have to buy a book to learn this stuff; you can find resources online for particular subjects. But the book is well-written.

Oh, and I also found this, but haven't really delved into it yet. Seems like an interesting read.

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#11 2013-05-08 04:32:07

SquidGuy
Member
From: the depths of the sea
Registered: 2013-05-07
Posts: 47

Re: Resources for general GNU/Linux Knowledge

@vyu223,
Well written is a huge plus, as that's what prevents me from simply being able to just read man pages forever.  I simply don't comprehend most of it throughly until I apply it.  I appreciate the links.  I'll at least give them a good once-over.

@opt1mus: I agree that most of the things that I really understand well enough to explain to someone else in detail are issues that I have personally had to deal with.  Learning things the hard way does seem to make them stick much better in memory.

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