On Sun, 12 Oct 2008, Eric F Crist wrote:

> I'm not sure what you're looking to play with/take apart.  What I found 
> useful in learning command line tools it to actually have some specific 
> goal in mind, i.e. host a website, etc.  Give yourself something 
> specific you want to accomplish, and set out to do it.  From there, 
> google, IRC, and mailing lists can be your friend.  I've found I learn 
> more wading through man pages and assistance than I do from books.

I especially agree about google.  It helps a lot to practice using google 
to find things.  The man pages are great for certain purposes but when 
they fail me I go straight to google.  Unfortunately, some things are 
really hard to search for because so many of the pages that google finds 
are irrelevant and it is hard to find a good way to refine the search. 
When that happens, I find TCLUG or similar list can help a lot.


> That being said, I understand some still like that dead-tree reference 
> laying around, so I'd suggest going to your local book store, and 
> browsing through a few of the books on their shelves.  See what you can 
> glean from there, and pick the one that seems most helpful.  If you find 
> a good one, let us know.

I think it is good to have a book to read to give you ideas.  I also find 
that I don't use books for reference as much as I used to.  Google can 
come through for me much quicker most of the time.

For people just starting out, a good book is invaluable.  I remember going 
through a very small book (I think it was called "UNIX in a Nutshell," but 
the newer editions are very big, so maybe that wasn't it) many years ago 
and that got me a good start on the command line (the command line was all 
we had back then and there was no such thing as Linux!).  It looks like 
"Linux in a Nutshell" is 816 pages long.  That's a completely different 
book than the one I read.  I had a really small book.  Maybe "Linux Pocket 
Guide" is closer to what I read so long ago, but I think my book was still 
smaller than that.  Another book I liked was "UNIX Power Tools" (beware 
that "Linux Power Tools" seems to be a comletely unrelated book and I 
don't know if it is good).

Mike