What Are the Best New-To-UNIX Resources? 18
cam_macleod asks: "I will soon be teaching an Introduction to UNIX course, and I usually provide recommendations on resources that students can use to further their learning. In this case, the course must be OS-, vendor- and distro-independent, and yet accessible to different levels of experience. My question is: what sites and other resources do you find most helpful, both for you and newbies you help?"
Re:O'Reilly Knows UNIX (Score:1)
Re:Unix for Dummies Sux (Score:1)
The Visual Quickstart Guide to UNIX does the same job better. It has good appendices too. Appendix A is called UNIX Reference and has condensed info in tables like listing the standard directories with descriptions or commands for controlling file permissions and ownership.
A another book which really answers the original question is O'Reilly's UNIX in a Nutshell. It's commands section is very readable.
Unix for Dummies (Score:1)
ahh finally I have a good comment (Score:1)
unix rosetta stone ( more for admins)
http://home.earthlink.net/~bhami/rosetta.html
web based `man`
http://linux.wiw.org/doc/man/
finally I would explain how to search for stuff, web, faq, readme's, how-to, rfcs. if you can follow this part then unix will be a breeze.
john
books books books. (Score:1)
Sir Hackalot's Unix tutorial (Score:1)
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If my facts are wrong then tell me. I don't mind.
What are you teaching? (Score:1)
a good book for intro (Score:1)
hope this helps a bit and i hope i am not flamed for it.
Re:books books books. (Score:1)
http://www.linuxnewbie.com/ (Score:1)
Re:O'Reilly Knows UNIX (Score:1)
I know all sorts of Linux resources, but the question was about teaching Unix in general, so I tried to stick to that.
Now for on-topic:
If you don't know what command you're looking for, use the command apropos (which is frequently just an alias to man -k) to search for a term. It will list the manual pages related to the topic and tell you what sections they are in.
For example:
The number in (parenthesis) represents the section in the manual that describes that function. printf(1) is a shell utility for formatting text. printf(3) describes the C library functions in stdio.h.I hope this helps you and any beginners out there to make better use of the manual pages.
Brian
The Internet (Score:2)
Oldie but goodie (Score:2)
It's what was used to teach the intro UNIX/C course that I took, it's an excellent book that I keep close at hand.
It's a bit dated though, you'll probably want to teach an editor other then ed(1).
what I've been looking at... (Score:2)
--Running Linux, Matt Welch, et al., isbn 156592469x
--Think Unix, Jon Lasser, isbn 078972376x
Lasser's is especially fun, he has a unique approach. A simple approach really, but quite different from much of what's out there.
Sorry if I rambled a bit....
I'd recommend Linux CDs and Unix Power Tools (Score:3)
Granted, this isn't platform independent, but I've found that I've learned more about Linux and Unix by playing with the system, rather than reading books. You might want to consider handing out Linux CDs so people who want to can install them and play with them.
Aside from that, a really good book that is largely platform neutral is Unix Power Tools [oreilly.com]. It is a huge collection of tips and tricks that demonstrate the true power of Unix.
Usenet (Score:3)
In my experience usenet is the best place to look for tech help. It's too bad that so many people who are on the internet don't even know what usenet is! (Some would argue that's a good thing though)
Man Pages (Score:4)
After that, there really is no substitute for man pages. Teach how to search man pages for keywords and how to RTFM. If they don't learn how to find the answer themselves, you won't be doing them a favor.
O'Reilly Knows UNIX (Score:5)
For programming, try Advanced Programming in the UNIX Environment by W. Richard Stevens, and for extreme beginners, try The C Programming Language, 2nd Edition by Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie.
For system administration, try the whatever Unleashed books. On Linux, much can be learned by browsing /usr/doc/HOWTO and the man pages.
Good luck!
Brian