Lew Wolfgang wrote:

Hi Folks,

I need to make a book recommendation to a friend to bring him up-to-speed in the "Tao of Linux" as quickly as possible. He has been providing administrative support for about 160 Windows desktops/laptops for about five-years, but now finds himself in the situation where his future employment depends on his getting "certified" in Linux. Certification in this case means passing both CompTIA Linux+ tests. He already has passed CompTIA's Security+.

My friend does all his work from the Windows GUI and has very little knowledge of the command-line environment. He doesn't even know the MS-Dos command-line environment and batch files very well.

So I'm thinking he's going to have a rough time of it. I hate to use the word, but as you all know, Linux/UNIX and Windows have completely different paradigms on many levels. He's going to have to learn a new philosophy as well as new concepts and commands.

Can anyone suggest a path forward for a Windows Weenie?

Thanks, Lew

Running Linux http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596002725 -- Tony Alfrey tonyalfrey@earthlink.net "I'd Rather Be Sailing" -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On 03/02/2011 04:02 PM, Lew Wolfgang wrote:

Hi Folks,

I need to make a book recommendation to a friend to bring him up-to-speed in the "Tao of Linux" as quickly as possible. He has been providing administrative support for about 160 Windows desktops/laptops for about five-years, but now finds himself in the situation where his future employment depends on his getting "certified" in Linux. Certification in this case means passing both CompTIA Linux+ tests. He already has passed CompTIA's Security+.

My friend does all his work from the Windows GUI and has very little knowledge of the command-line environment. He doesn't even know the MS-Dos command-line environment and batch files very well.

So I'm thinking he's going to have a rough time of it. I hate to use the word, but as you all know, Linux/UNIX and Windows have completely different paradigms on many levels. He's going to have to learn a new philosophy as well as new concepts and commands.

Can anyone suggest a path forward for a Windows Weenie?

Thanks, Lew

find a linux user group -- Hans Krueger hanskrueger007@roadrunner.com registered Linux user 289023 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On 03/02/2011 04:02 PM, Lew Wolfgang wrote:

Hi Folks,

I need to make a book recommendation to a friend to bring him up-to-speed in the "Tao of Linux" as quickly as possible. He has been providing administrative support for about 160 Windows desktops/laptops for about five-years, but now finds himself in the situation where his future employment depends on his getting "certified" in Linux. Certification in this case means passing both CompTIA Linux+ tests. He already has passed CompTIA's Security+.

My friend does all his work from the Windows GUI and has very little knowledge of the command-line environment. He doesn't even know the MS-Dos command-line environment and batch files very well.

So I'm thinking he's going to have a rough time of it. I hate to use the word, but as you all know, Linux/UNIX and Windows have completely different paradigms on many levels. He's going to have to learn a new philosophy as well as new concepts and commands.

Can anyone suggest a path forward for a Windows Weenie?

Thanks, Lew

Well, I'm pretty much of a tyro too, but I have a couple of ideas. It may actually be good that he is not all that well versed in DOS/Win CLI--it's that much less to confuse him. I recently took a college-level course in Linux/Unix, which concentrated first on the more common bash commands, and second, on basic bash scripting. Certainly the commands have to come first. The text book I used was fairly thorough, but fast moving, and very poorly indexed. It was. "Linux: The Textbook," by Sarwar, Koretsky, and Sarwar. This edition was ©2002, and I understand that there is a second edition available now. (Which means that the first ed. should be available at used book places like Amazon, etc., for quite reasonable prices. The edition I bought almost a year ago was $40 as a used book at Amazon; the brand-new price was just over $100. It came with Fedora 7.0, which the instructor did not use. He used Ubuntu, when it was found that Debian did not run properly under Windows XP.) I found an O'Reilly book, "Linux in a Nutshell," to be invaluable, mainly because it contains all the man pages you are ever likely to need, nicely alphabetized and fully expanded to original size, not like some that are found on Linux distros. This has the advantage of being easily available at the study desk, without running to the computer and looking for the man page, and then having it scroll off screen, etc. It also contains sections on the usual Unix editors, and on Sed and Gawk (Awk), and a little bit on bash programming. The book sells new for $50, and I think it's well worth it. For bash scripting, there are a number of books available in .pdf on the internet. I have "Bash Guide for Beginners," by Machtelt Garrels; "Linux Shell Scripting Tutorial, v. 2.0," by Vivek Gite; O'Reilly's "Grep Pocket Reference," by Bambeneck and Klus; O'Reilly Short Cuts "bash Quick Reference," by Robbins--I think this is a paid-for download, but not much; and "Advanced Bash Scripting Guide," by Mendel Cooper. This is a moose of a book, and not very easy, alto clearly written. All but the quick reference are free. Plan on using up at least 3 packages of paper and use a laserjet that prints full duplex! I was also given two Unix texts which were new around 1990, and I found them useful. One is "Exploring the Unix System, second edition," by Kochan and Wood, (Hayden Books) and the other is "The Waite Groups's UNIX Primer Plus, second edition," by Waite, Martin, and Prata, (SAMS). Never mind what the GNU acronym is supposed to mean, Linux _is_ a Unix. It is a little more up to date than most other Unixes, that's all. For an introduction to programming, if your friend should need one, a thread on either the Debian or Ubuntu mailing list about 4 months ago came to the conclusion that Python was a good start, and recommended"Snake Wrangling for Kids," by Jason R. Briggs. This is available free for download. It comes in two editions, one for version 2 of Python, one for version 3. The prospective user should _first_ find out what version of Python he has access to. (Most of the Linux distros I have seen have version 2 available on their package manager.) If your friend is already proficient, or reasonably so, in programming, he can ignore the following. (Bash scripting won't completely snow him.) The other conclusion was that for "real" programming, you should learn C++ first, _not_ C, and go _back_ to C if you need to. The idea behind all this is that C or C++ is kind of difficult, and Python is a good introduction to the art if one has no prior background. (I personally lament the demise of the old Borland Turbo Pascal; this would have been my choice for an introductory language if it still existed. The modern "Visual" Pascal--Delphi--would _not_ be my choice. You can actually find and download Turbo Pascal 3.x, and run it on a DosBox, but I don't know where you would find any kind of tutorial nowadays. I learned Pascal in 1983.) Bear in mind that all of the above is written by a rank amateur; if I knew even half of what was in these various texts and help guides, I'd be the college instructor myself! Hope this has been helpful. --doug a bit on bash programming. -- Blessed are the peacemakers...for they shall be shot at from both sides. --A. M. Greeley -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org