First of all, I want to say that I am not new to computers, so I am not looking for something that will assume you barely know how to turn a system on or use a mouse, or are unfamiliar with standard concepts such as copy and paste and so forth.
I’ve been using Windows and DOS for over a decade now, so mostly my experiences are limited to the Windows GUI and the DOS CLI, as well as performed dozens of hardware upgrades and system builds.
I have installed small Xubuntu partitions on several of my systems, as an emergency/backup os, my laptop is the main system I am trying to learn Linux on, I triple boot windows and two distros of Linux on it.
My main laptop has Ubuntu using GNOME and OpenSUSE using KDE installed on it. So far I have mostly been using GUI tools, not a great way to start off since Linux is so heavily cli based, and found this to be the hardest os to attempt to self-learn from all the ones I have tried, including other cli based operating systems ( ok ok, on second thought, AS/400 systems were worse…). On top of this I only have academic programming knowledge, I can’t actually program anything beyond Hello World, not good since Linux is heavily based on open source as well, haven’t had much luck attempting to compile the odd program every now and then that isn’t in the repositories either.
Clearly, I am not going to be able to learn how to use this operating system from just attempting to use it, which is why I am asking what sites, or preferably, books you would personally recommend to learn how to use Linux, and eventually even how to troubleshoot and administer it.
you could look for a copy of QUE book ISBN 0-7897-1746-8
title = The one source for comprehensive solutions: Special Edition Using Linux 4th Edition
gives concise CLI info that is still true today. Dated publication so it should be cheap. Or visit QUE.COM for
an updated version. Once you have the system configured and running correctly, there is seldom need to spend alot of time doing Cli stuff.
some you might like, some you might not…
linux is moving real fast…whatever was printed on paper last year is
gonna have a lot good stuff, and some too old stuff…
that is the nature of the beast when you don’t have one corporate
headquarters locking down all the code, preventing anyone else from
improving the system…
with Linux today you have a LOT of various folks and companies moving
ahead with what they think is the right way to go…and, they are not
all the same directions…if you are on and like openSUSE then you
need to pay first attention to its documentation: http://www.novell.com/documentation/opensuse.html
paper products: i have within reach a SAMS Linux Unleashed, The
Comprehensive Solution, Third Edition…it is four inches thick and
weighs about three pounds, and was printed in 2000 and contains lots
and lots and lots of great stuff…on the other hand, i’ve looked at
it probably a couple of times in the last year…as it is so much
easier to just type “man [whatever]” or google up an answer…(you can
download and print the PDF found at the first URL above and have a
darn good book)