When I got serious about Linux in 1997, the best one-stop source for information was the Linux Documentation Project (I can't say that's true anymore, many of those HOWTO's and mini-HOWTO's that are still being distributed are or more interest to historians and archaeologists than newbies these days.) '--help', man pages and other online docs filled in the gaps.

As for books, I've always had a few around, but I stick to books on very broad, general topics like UNIX itself or language references. Any overpriced book/CD bundle dealing with KDE/Gnome or any other specific product will be obsolete before the bindling glue is dry. To learn about specific things I go to a product's URL and to solve specific problems I go to general forums like this one.

For this purpose I do recommend "Bootdisk-HOWTO", found on tldp.org , or somewhere in "/usr/doc/Linux-HOWTOs". This document will help you to "construct" your own Linux distro It describes HOW Linux works.

Wow!! (Im definitely saving these forum pages ) thanks everyone I really appreciate all of the well explained answers the advice and direction, you guys make slackware worth the go just cause your all so nice. It feels secure to be in the company of people who know what they are doing.

I started when I was in college and was taking a C++ class. We were using Borland software in a DOS environment to code. I wanted to be able to test what I did in class at home and tweak things in my off time, but didn't want to buy Borland software, so I ordered some Linux CDs from Walnut Creek and bought a Linux book. It happened that the Linux book harped on Slackware quite a bit so installed v3.3 that I got from the CD order.

While I ended up buying Borland C++ software to compile in a Windows environment, I never let go of Linux. To this day, I still use Slackware. I've removed the distro for short periods of time to try other distros but always ended up reinstalling Slackware. Now, I've multiple machines and always have at LEAST one Slackware install on hand.

So, while I still can't code all that well, I can admin the hell out of a *nix machine!

I've learned that the main source of documentation is always on the install itself:

manual pages
/usr/doc
/usr/src/linux/Documentation
command --help

From there, there are the applications' home pages, which usually have much documentation (and some like MySQL's home pages have actual knowledgebases).

Also, just flatout use Google. I don't even go to www.google.com/linux. I just go to www.google.com and enter any error messages or whatnot. Not finding what you want? Fine-tune the keywords, look in cached pages, click on the "repeat the search with the omitted results included" link and try the "similar pages" links. Try EVERYTHING. Don't give up!

There are TONS of resources on the internet. Use them...that's why they are there.

My next step usually involves going to local and online bookstores. I've a huge library of many computer-based books. Not everyone can afford to buy a few $40-50 books a month, though.

Next, try forums and newsgroups. Also, try IRC. Try these resources last though. Many forums, newsgroups and IRC channels will filter out requests for information if its obvious that a person hasn't done his own research to help himself before asking for help online. I'm a firm believer in having new people RTFM...after all, someone went through the effort of creating manual pages for the purpose of helping administrators. R'ingTFM also helps the newbie (and the guru) in the end by educating them outright, and in the process of R'ingTFM, you may absorb other information that may help you in the future. Only when you feel you've tapped out all available resources should you go online and ask for help...but that's just my opinion.

I am still just playing, but getting more serious. i started with Mandrake 7.x, dual boot. Got frustrated with that, took an old P1, 120 laptop and just went for it with Slack until I got it to work. I used man pages, linuxquestions, yahoo linux, solaris, bsd chat, and a few books. Mostly I just played and broke things until I figured it out. Now I only use Win at work (law firm) and to play games or deal with web sites that insist on using active x. I use Minislack on my laptop (PIII 650 celeron) and slack-current on my desktop(A64 3200).

I owe my entire (small yet present) knowledge of linux to slackware.

I was using FC2 and at some other message board someone said it is the "Windows XP of linux" so I promptly started looking for a new distro. I don't know how or why I decided on slackware, but my first two hours with slackware taught me more than I had "learned" with a week on FC2.

qoute:
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I was using FC2 and at some other message board someone said it is the "Windows XP of linux" so I promptly started looking for a new distro.
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That's hilarious ...... Ive been looking over the installation process of slack and I think Im ready to burn the iso's and go for my first installation, Im going to be checking out every advised resource that I can to acquire a very solid knowledge of the linux file system......Now that I think of it one of the pages I studied was made by some dude named "Grogan" and he mentioned expanding the size's of ( /home/, /usr/, /bin/...........(just as an example) during installation, although i have read it through I think it is still a little unclear to me why one would have to do this????

I started using GNU/Linux just over a year ago. I was hearing random stuff about it on the internet, didn't have a clue what it was or anything. Then one day I was at Easons (bookstore), browsing through the computer books and I ended up buying a "Linux Complete" book, mainly because there was no other decent books in, and I wanted to know what this "Linux" was.

So I started reading through it, learning the commands and all. I couldn't get my hands on a GNU/Linux distribution because I was on ISDN (64k dialup) and broadband wasn't available in my area.

Anyhow, not so long later, I got a MandrakeMove livecd free with a PC live magazine. My computer at the time was a PIII 500mhz with 128mb ram and a 20gb harddrive running Windows 98. MandrakeMove, surprisingly, ran very well on it. I got used to using GNU/Linux with the help of my book, some random stuff on the internet, and MandrakeMove.

I got my older brother to download Mandrake 10.0 Community in college for me, and I replaced Windows 98 with it.

So that's how I got into it

I now use Slackware, and I learned most of what I know about GNU/Linux from it.


Whenever I want to learn something, I usually search for a HOWTO and check the manpages sometimes. But for stuff I can't find or for simpler stuff, I just ask in IRC (##slackware and ##linux (et al) of freenode).

First experience was with a book called "The Linux Bible".
Bought it sometime around mid 90's. I was running Dos5 at the time.
It was called Yggdrasil linux & it was very cool. Used it for word processing & such.
Had to actully write my own driver for the #9gxe video card in my pc to get it all to work right.
That was a learning curve, but it was alot of fun.
Then came NT3.5 & win95, so off I went & didn't use linux again.
Used RMX, AIX & macos at work (printer), NT at home.
In my minds eye linux was still that same old software, since I never kept up with how far it had come. Untill a friend of mine was telling me a few years back just how good it had become.

So I installed Suse 8 and was very impressed. Learned to really like linux, but didn't like yast or rpms. So I switched to Slackware 9.0. Now I'm hooked. What a great OS.

My "linux bible" was about RH7... very good That's my first and the only book about Linux I have so far.
Now when I know that HOWTOs contain a lot more info, I don't think I'll buy another one.
But it helped me much to start with Slackware10.0.

Books are under-rated. Having information you can read anywhere is a great benefit.

The two I started out with were very helpful. The first is Running Linux (O'Reilly with a cowboy on a horse), and the second is Linux System Administration by Marcel Cagne. Neither is Slackware specific and the information can get dated, but they both provide a good overview of what you can do with Linux and what problems you are likely to encounter.

Your responses were really helpful. Thanks.

Wow, holy thread resurrection Batman...

I started learning Linux after I downloaded and installed Slackware for the first time about 9 years ago. I had dabbled in SuSE, Mandrake, and Red Hat but were very unimpressed at what they offered. Red Hat required registration to get updates and they used a very Microsoft-like registration system where you couldn't reinstall if you wanted to without re-signing up for a fee. Mandrake never worked right and SuSE was just too complex. I tried Slackware and loved it and have ever since.

linuxquestions.org
google.com
Slackware