Key Areas of Study for a Linux Newbie

[linx4life]

OK, these are some key items that I've noticed come up a lot in Linux discussions. So I figure that these are very important areas of study and concepts to grasp. What are some other key areas that a Linux newbie should be focusing on besides these, and am I on the right track with them so far?

Commands

GRUB

Grep

BASH

File System

Software Installation and Removal (Source and Binary)

Editing the XOrg Configuration

IPTables

[oz]

If you should become a fan of the command line, you might want to consider learning a little about vi/vim. It's not as easy to learn as some editors are such as nano, but it's extremely powerful and is included with most distros by default.

You can learn the basics by running the command: vimtutor

[drl]

Hi.

I think that *nix is not a classless society. Among the identifiable classes there are:

1) applications users -- generally do word processing, email, web browsing, usually stay on the GUI side of life;

2) command-line users, same as 1, plus using many of the scores of standard and custom commands in CLI, do a little scripting;

3) developers, as above plus spending a lot of time looping through specialized tasks: design, code-edit, compile, test;

4) system administrators, much of the above (often lighter on development), plus work with specialized commands to configure hardware and system software, install operating systems, etc.

Where you fit in now or aim to be in the future would allow more precise advice to be provided. For example, knowing about grub is important for an install, and possibly for some issues in recovery, but compared to day-to-day use, it's not that important -- a few of my current systems have been up for 30 days (server), and 15 days (desktop) -- so grub (and lilo, etc) don't come into play that often.

Best wishes ... cheers, drl

[linx4life]

OK, Vim will be added to my personal study list, thanks!

I am a very inquisitive, "nerdy" or "geeky", or whatever you want to call it kind of a person. I will dig, and dig, test, break, repair, and do it all over again, however many times it takes to learn all I can and do what I want with technology, so knowing myself this way, I predict that I will begin in class 1 and 2 from the very beginning, and then progress from there to some of both 3 and 4. So basically, I'm not the type to be content simply being a general user so to speak, not that there's anything wrong with that, to each their own, but for me, I love to tinker too much, my soul feeds on learning new things, and I love freedom and independence, so Linux seems like the perfect OS for me. As I've said in other posts, the more I'm learning about Linux in my preliminary research, the more anxious and excited I am to begin learning and using it! I just don't have a computer that is functioning well enough to begin on yet; broken optical drive, failing HD and screen, etc., but hopefully that will be remedied very soon.

I've been a DOS, MAC OS, and Windoze "power user" for many years. The Mac OS is really not my thing, and I just can't stomach M$ anymore at all! So I'm thankful that a real and viable alternative exists for me, and that is of course Linux, and thanks to the wonderful open source community, including the kind people on this forum such as yourselves, who support Linux and it's users, especially n00bz like me, along with all of the documentation that's freely available, and also that which is published for purchase, I can't see any reason why anybody who really wants to learn, or even in a sense wants to master Linux, can't do exactly that with some patience and determination.

I've got what I consider to be a great book in hard copy that is also available freely online called "Introduction to Linux, A Beginner's Guide", by Machtelt Garrels. I've just began looking through it a bit, and I plan on reading and working through it as soon as I can. I think this, along with other research and studies will give me a good start on things.

Technology has always been a personal interests and hobby for me, and not for educational or career goals necessarily, but if that's the way things go, that would be fine by me as well. Techno things are just what interest me as much as almost anything else I can think of, and I just think most tech is really fun, as long as it doesn't hurt anybody, and is not used for malicious purposes in any way. I enjoy figuring tech out, playing with it, and using it responsibly, and to me being responsible means to "cause no harm", but rather to do good. So that's my personal philosophy about tech; thanks for listening!

[Lakshmipathi]

Commands
GRUB
Grep
BASH
File System
Software Installation and Removal (Source and Binary)
Editing the XOrg Configuration
IPTables

Looks like good list...i would suggest sed and awk to that list...i assume BASH refers to shell script programming.
If not,add shell scripting to ur list.All the best

[linx4life]

Wow, sed and awk are powerful!

Yes, shell scripting is what I meant with BASH, which from what I've read is considered among the best to use. Is there any other I should be learning as well, or is BASH pretty much the way to go for shell scripting?

[Lakshmipathi]

yes ...learning bash is the way to go for shell scripting.
Apart from these list,i can think about only about kernels.
Get a Orielly's Understanding linux kernel or michel becks linux kernal internals.
That's pretty long list to become a Linux Guru

[linx4life]

I love books, thanks, I'll check into them and get one!

[Tim_Wright]

OK, Vim will be added to my personal study list, thanks!

I am a very inquisitive, "nerdy" or "geeky", or whatever you want to call it kind of a person. I will dig, and dig, test, break, repair, and do it all over again, however many times it takes to learn all I can and do what I want with technology, so knowing myself this way, I predict that I will begin in class 1 and 2 from the very beginning, and then progress from there to some of both 3 and 4. So basically, I'm not the type to be content simply being a general user so to speak, not that there's anything wrong with that, to each their own, but for me, I love to tinker too much, my soul feeds on learning new things, and I love freedom and independence, so Linux seems like the perfect OS for me. As I've said in other posts, the more I'm learning about Linux in my preliminary research, the more anxious and excited I am to begin learning and using it! I just don't have a computer that is functioning well enough to begin on yet; broken optical drive, failing HD and screen, etc., but hopefully that will be remedied very soon.

I've been a DOS, MAC OS, and Windoze "power user" for many years. The Mac OS is really not my thing, and I just can't stomach M$ anymore at all! So I'm thankful that a real and viable alternative exists for me, and that is of course Linux, and thanks to the wonderful open source community, including the kind people on this forum such as yourselves, who support Linux and it's users, especially n00bz like me, along with all of the documentation that's freely available, and also that which is published for purchase, I can't see any reason why anybody who really wants to learn, or even in a sense wants to master Linux, can't do exactly that with some patience and determination.

I've got what I consider to be a great book in hard copy that is also available freely online called "Introduction to Linux, A Beginner's Guide", by Machtelt Garrels. I've just began looking through it a bit, and I plan on reading and working through it as soon as I can. I think this, along with other research and studies will give me a good start on things.

Technology has always been a personal interests and hobby for me, and not for educational or career goals necessarily, but if that's the way things go, that would be fine by me as well. Techno things are just what interest me as much as almost anything else I can think of, and I just think most tech is really fun, as long as it doesn't hurt anybody, and is not used for malicious purposes in any way. I enjoy figuring tech out, playing with it, and using it responsibly, and to me being responsible means to "cause no harm", but rather to do good. So that's my personal philosophy about tech; thanks for listening!

HEAR, HEAR! I like it =)