Learning REAL Linux

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catfood
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Learning REAL Linux

Unread post by catfood » Tue Nov 08, 2016 11:38 pm

One minute I feel like I'm doing good, the next minute, everything is way over my head again...

I've used Windows my whole life. Know just enough to fix whatever my family and friends break. Used Linux approx 9 months. Went from LinuxMint Cinnamon -> BBQ tiling WM in that time, so I do think I'm absorbing info well, just I seem to have skipped alot of the basics I need along the way. "New" hardware forced me into oldschool Linux; I'm happy, but often overwhelmed. I look forward to the day where I can pull scripts out of my ____ in 30 seconds like dkeg does; how to just know dependecies off the top of my hand like pidsley; to pump out my own linux spins like machinebacon. How to get from here to there...?

Wanted to know, in your opinions, top 3 Linux books I should read, in order of importance? Preferably things I can find/read online vs buying expensive hardcopys.
I love Debian, and want to learn command line tools. So don't need like BSD only info or other things outside this realm(yet)...
Thank You!
(I remember when debian "non-gui" installer scared me. #never-forget)

pidsley
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Re: Learning REAL Linux

Unread post by pidsley » Wed Nov 09, 2016 12:01 am

Not exactly what you asked, but: http://linuxbbq.org/bbs/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=2290

I gave you some links for bash scripting in your other topic.

The best resource for cli tools is the man page.

You might also find the Arch forum interesting. You don't have to post, but a lot of technical questions get asked and answered there, and you can learn a lot from just reading. I read there but almost never post. Just don't ask a question on their forum if you are not using Arch. The Arch wiki is also a great resource.

I can't help with books; I learn by reading man pages, forums, wikis, and by trial and error.

machinebacon
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Re: Learning REAL Linux

Unread post by machinebacon » Wed Nov 09, 2016 5:11 am

Browse through this: http://linuxbbq.org/grillers/PDF/ and get this: http://linuxbbq.org/grillers/PDF/Bash-B ... -Guide.pdf

We can't do more than giving you the tools and the hints, it depends only on your own motivation to start somewhere. Books are not needed, really. Just like pidsley, I never learned by reading books, I only learned by trying to break real iron.
..gnutella..

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ivanovnegro
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Re: Learning REAL Linux

Unread post by ivanovnegro » Wed Nov 09, 2016 4:31 pm

Exactly. Never read a single book about Linux. Everything I know and do is based on the great web by searching, breaking and trying.
Though if you accomplish to stay here and follow a little bit the BBQ philosophy, with patience you will learn a lot.
Everything you need to know is out there.

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Re: Learning REAL Linux

Unread post by machinebacon » Wed Nov 09, 2016 5:08 pm

One book, though, should be in every Debian user's PDF shelf: https://debian-handbook.info/browse/stable/
It's quite Debian-specific (so, it's also BBQ-specific with the exception of systemd that we don't use) and it covers really the administration part of a system.

Answering you rhetorical questions:
- scripts are mostly Bash scripts, so ... the best way is to read und understand the scripts of other people. See our "SCRIPTS & PACKAGES > SCRIPTS" section: http://www.linuxbbq.org/bbs/viewforum.php?f=15 There you can ask specific questions about the scripts in the respective thread. Of course frequently visit github and steal shit there ;)
- dependencies you can easily check with "apt-cache depends <package_name>
- well, Roast Your Own is covered in a few topics here, the easiest would be to remaster an existing noX edition first with the addition of a few packages, and then sleep yourself up the career ladder

Anyway the question is: what is your #1 aim? what is the question that you definitely want to have answered? I remember questions like "how can I learn Linux" or "Which distro should I use?" and seeing hundreds of advises given, although the real question was actually something remotely related to Linux, for example writing a shell script, or customizing a desktop, rather than system or network administration.
..gnutella..

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rust collector
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Re: Learning REAL Linux

Unread post by rust collector » Wed Nov 09, 2016 5:32 pm

I think you just need to find something you want to do, and then figure out how to do that thing.

For just using linux in general, I guess you keep using it, and see what happens, you will learn sooner or later.
In special cases like me, sure it takes a lot of time, but it will come some day.

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vic
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Re: Learning REAL Linux

Unread post by vic » Wed Nov 09, 2016 6:00 pm

The important thing here catfood is that you feel happy about it. Just keep using it, fix problems when they come, and enjoy your Linux life.

Set up some projects to do, nothing too complicated in the beginning, eventually you will learn and master it. There is no quick fix, no shortcut to knowledge, take your time, work, learn, fail, bork and backup important data.

I do know the feeling of being overwhelmed very well. You learn some stuff and feel great, the next day it falls apart like a house of cards in a second. I just want you too know that I am impressed of what you have learned in nine months. Evidently you are a very fast learner (at the least compared to me) so just keep it up and you will accomplish what you are searching for.

Good luck further and may the kernel be with you! :)
Sorry guys, no signature for a while, too busy with life. :|

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franksinistra
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Re: Learning REAL Linux

Unread post by franksinistra » Wed Nov 09, 2016 7:12 pm

Like what others have already said, learning is a gradual process. No shortcuts or whatever.

Take this painful experience for example:

Circa 2013 or something i started to use Zsh (Z-shell) over bash. One thing that makes me want to jump ship is because all the "cool kids" are using it, and it looks great and packed with features. I picked oh-my-zsh around that time because it's the easiest way to get everything, all pre-configured etc etc... About half a year later i realized i still didn't know jack shit about the shell (Zsh) itself. So i started my learning process by removing everything, and learn from scratch. Turns out, i don't need most of the bells and whistle and i learn a lot more in a month than half a year using it blindly.

A man's best practice might not be your best practice :)


Anyway, i think you're doing good. Shouldn't take long for you to learn these things.
rice no more.

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wuxmedia
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Re: Learning REAL Linux

Unread post by wuxmedia » Wed Nov 09, 2016 8:56 pm

catfood wrote:One minute I feel like I'm doing good, the next minute, everything is way over my head again...
don't feel bad, I get paid to do linux everyday and I feel like that, a lot less nowadays but still.
Bacon is of course correct when it comes to types; syadmining is different to config'ing a WM, to reinforce what others have said - I don't do what dkeg does, I don't have the interest, which is great he does, so we can steal it. I do what I do, see my scripts in the scripts section, mostly bollocks or specific things.

When it comes to understanding X, for example, I am fucked, apart from following what bacon and other have done. - cronjobs, scripting, logrotate, moving files around, lvextending, installing and config'ing apache and mysql and stuff is my daily job, so never comes up here :)

one thing though - really get used to the shell- just a shell and coreutils (whatever debian basic has installed) - mc is fun but won't teach you about scp soundfile.{wav,mpg} user@host:/somewhere/there/ (get two linux boxen hooked up and it's more fun!)

again depends on what you want to have fun doing, I've always liked the fact of playing on another machine.
My work machine is terribly bloated (gnome3) and full of crap.

if you like I can give you a login to my server, you can set up a webpage for fun? IDK, resources are here, use them if you like.
"Seek, and Ye shall find"
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wuxmedia
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Re: Learning REAL Linux

Unread post by wuxmedia » Wed Nov 09, 2016 9:17 pm

having blurted all that out, forgot to answer tha actually question:
read a system admin book, debian one should be great (although to my shame I haven't read it)
I'll upload the LPIC guide into PDF's - which is terribly outdated now, but still useful, like "what lives in /proc", "how does dbus work" and a bit less usefully "what argument does 'split' take.
Again, I haven't actually taken the LPIC. need newer guides apparently. But it is a good guide to linux, fairly distro independent.
"Seek, and Ye shall find"
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noo_b_nomnoms
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Re: Learning REAL Linux

Unread post by noo_b_nomnoms » Wed Nov 09, 2016 11:11 pm

Great question, catfood!
I'm glad you asked, because I've been struggling with the same question for years- I just never knew how to put it.
And all of these guys are right on!
The only thing that I would add is to take notes (pen/paper,phone,etc), because in learning one thing then the next, the avalanche of information sometimes tends to cover earlier information.
I know you know to backup scripts and configs and such, so that's about all I have.
Have fun!
Sir! Put down the hammer and slowly step away from the computer.

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dkeg
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Re: Learning REAL Linux

Unread post by dkeg » Sat Nov 12, 2016 1:10 am

I just write scripts to make shit look good. I rely on Pidsley and MB to keep me in check.

The point is, need is a great motivator. For me, I need for things to be visually appealing, and write scripts to do it for me [mostly]. Look for little things you want automated, and write a script for it. Soon, those useless little scripts will turn into a larger array of useless scripts, but very useful for you. Learn by doing. Have fun, and share you results. We like useless little scripts.

Work hard; Complain less

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wuxmedia
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Re: Learning REAL Linux

Unread post by wuxmedia » Tue Nov 29, 2016 9:26 pm

^ yeah, It is hard to just knock out a script. you need to have something which pisses you off, or that you think, there must be better than this, or that you do too many times.
there are so many things to help.
https://www.shellcheck.net/
is good once you actually have something.
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bizcuit
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Re: Learning REAL Linux

Unread post by bizcuit » Wed Nov 30, 2016 1:48 am

Not really what you specifically requested, more like another opinion in general. Hiya, I'm bizcuit, bbq's resident babbler. :)

In no particular order.

Really no substitute for earning your chops imo, when it comes to gnu/nix. Just the way it is, more time, effort, experimentation = you learn stuff. Have seen people new to Linux rocket past much more experienced long time users, in a relatively short time span.

Though my working theory on this is a) They already were predisposed to tech. Intelligent, logical ... well reasoned people, who take to even complex subjects like fish 2 water. Just for me, that's one of the appeals of gnu/Linux + open source. The folks who design this stuff are very intelligent, logical and well reasoned people. Results and the scientific methodology oriented. Either hard, reproducible data + results ... or it didn't happen kinda thinkers. So the resulting products of their efforts are the same. I personally really like that.

b) Plus with the above, once they got a taste of gnu/Linux, got obsessed with it and therefor read/tried every fricken thing associated with it they could get their mitts on. In the process devoting A LOT of time to it.
Pretty straight forward equation ...

If someone not really passionate about something, spends 3hrs a week for 10yrs learning/using summin vs someone who is stoked about that subject spending 16hrs a dy for 3-4mnths. Not really surprising they blow right past the former in skill and knowledge related to it.
Another excellent way, that really helped me in learning things ( not that I'm any kind of nix ninja). Was actually helping other folks solve their problems. Over at Linux Mint forums, used LM10 for probably 1 1/2mnths but stayed a member of the community for quite some time afterwards. At that time, was a noob myself but was better than avg in terms of google-fu and wasn't afraid to dig around in LM10 or other OS.

Ended up helping many a Mintite and in the process learned a crapton myself.

Don't be afraid to dig in and break-stuff. Also when 1st coming over to da power of da source, was already a uncontrollable tweaker and software optimizer and much of the things learned on Window$ to a great extent directly translate(d) to gnu/Linux.

That being optimizing settings to reduce overhead, substituting lighter utils/apps to replace bloated ones, disabling unwanted background services or ( daemons) that I didn't use or want running or autostarting. But with LM10, everything is highly config'ed for you and customizing it w/o knowing what someone is doing, could have disastrous performance effects or unexpected quirks, that at the time I had no idea how to undo or what files to change to fix what I'd done.

And so I did the noob fix-4-everything. Reinstalled, lol ... time and again and started keeping a list of all the things I changed, uninstalled etc etc. So being too stubborn ( read kinda dumb) to find one of the gazillion ways someone can easily backup and restore a full Nix OS. Eventually learned which files to edit or things to dork with to control and fix stuff.

According to one cool #! user, I haven't seen or heard from in awhile. "No matter what you want or are trying to do, it's all in a file somewhere." 2manydogs.

I'd be stuck spending hours, repeating the tweakage process, over n over, n fricken over. Until I'd pick up where I left off, screw something new up and then yep, start over yet again.

c) It's not whatcha know, it's who you cyber stalk. :P Some nixers you come across, you can just tell know their fricken stuff. One such obvious case is Machine ( and others here, some you mentioned.) Nothing wrong with back tracking through their forum post/history. Someone could potentially learn a lot by reading those posts and googling related stuff that seems useful/interesting.

Just like anything, find resources online. No shortage of sites/forums etc related to cli gnu/Linux, scripts ... whatever. Often found when it comes to Nix, someone somewhere had long since discussed it or done. Longggggg before I'd even known there was such a thing as open source. Join some of those forums, browse all the info they've provided and get your hands dirty 1st hand trying stuff out.

Love Debian, you're not alone in that. Do some googling about stuff like "minimal Debian netinstall" and variations of same. Plenty of how to's on the topic. This brings me to yet another babble pt, think it really helps to use/choose the right distro. With most the mainstream biggie distro's. So much is preconfig'ed for users and layers after layer added in the way the distro maintainers want things to be. Whereas others, (ie: Some of the bbq's) strip that stuff away and let you get to the underlining stuff or "under the hood". Still really like and support LM but if you really wanna buddy up with Nix, not the best choice imo.

Finally (gawd da babble is giving me a headache too !) Wouldn't be surprised if someone here has already told you "live in the command-line". Wouldn't say do that, without 1st spending some time learning about the subject, though if that's someone's end goal, would say make more effort to spend more time there.

Sighs, ok done ... listens for da sighs of relief. :P When I grow up I still wanna be like the Baconator. Vll!

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wuxmedia
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Re: Learning REAL Linux

Unread post by wuxmedia » Wed Nov 30, 2016 10:00 am

http://linuxbbq.org/bbs/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=695
that might be interesting to go through.
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machinebacon
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Re: Learning REAL Linux

Unread post by machinebacon » Wed Nov 30, 2016 5:56 pm

^^ another cohesive babble :D
..gnutella..

bizcuit
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Re: Learning REAL Linux

Unread post by bizcuit » Thu Dec 01, 2016 4:18 am

^ I know ... right ? I've been working on it. :)

OP don't be fooled, plenty of the folks here have spent a lot of time learning to get to the point they're at. As for Machine, someone doesn't start a notable gnu/Nix distro or community and forum without them having put in their time and paying the dues. Same for many of the folks here who make up the core of the community too.

Jmo ... but really isn't going to be a substitute for devoting your time/effort. Likely the more you put in the faster you'll become a proficient gnu/Linux'er. Yeppers, someday you'll notice that somewhere along the way your neck has sprouted a respectable beard. :P


Vll!

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wuxmedia
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Re: Learning REAL Linux

Unread post by wuxmedia » Thu Dec 01, 2016 8:03 am

understanding the concepts of it all is quite important, as the man said:
Dennis Ritchie wrote:UNIX is basically a simple operating system, but you have to be a genius to understand the simplicity.
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doubledutch
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Re: Learning REAL Linux

Unread post by doubledutch » Wed Dec 07, 2016 8:29 pm

I purchase between 0 and 2 IT-related books a year. In 2016 I only purchased https://www.amazon.com/Blue-Team-Handbo ... 1500734756 and it was worth every cent.

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Re: Learning REAL Linux

Unread post by zakfrom303 » Thu Dec 08, 2016 12:20 am

For what its worth, going through this book really helped me learn Linux basics. The authors blog has some cool stuff to try out as well. Book is free to download: http://www.linuxcommand.org/tlcl.php

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