When I was a lad in Ireland, we used to have to make our own operating systems out of sods of turf. Then, this Finnish fellow went and spoiled our good clean Gaelic fun by writing his own Unix-like kernel, and before we knew where we were, the world and his dog all seemed to be running Linux. Ye don't know ye're born nowadays! It's all very fine and grand having this marvellous Linux; but what do you do with it? The latest user-friendly distributions notwithstanding, Linux, like any Unix or Unix-like OS, is a damned complicated system. A good book or two is essential in helping the newcomer get to grips with the system, and will remain helpful during the long process of slowly learnign all the ins and outs.
Walk into any big bookshop today, and you'll like as not find a whole Linux section, a shelf or more of big fat books all about Linux. Quite a contrast to when I started out with Linux, when there weren't any books in print about Linux at all! But with choice comes confusion. Even if our newbie can afford to buy every single book, they certainly don't have time to read them all! So what books should the Linux newbie be budgeting for? This article is an attempt to give said newbie a short list of books which will save them a lot of time and energy and money in getting up to speed with Linux. Depending on your budget, you may be wanting to buy all, some or none of the books listed. Therefore, each listing is accompanied by an indication of how vital it is.
And now: read on!
Paul Dunne 2003
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Paul Dunne,
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