Good basic books on Linux for a beginner?

[MurphCID]

I am asking the members, what are some good basic resource books on Linux that would work for someone attempting to build his Linux knowledge. I specifically am not interested in servers, only desktop Linux. Thanks. I have this one in my messenger bag: https://www.amazon.com/Linux-Pocket-Gui ... 95&sr=8-19

[rambo919]

There should be a reading list sticky somewhere as this topic keeps coming up.

Personally I would vouch for the Linux Bible.

[rene]

If "desktop Linux" includes the command-line this is pretty good: https://linuxcommand.org/tlcl.php. Downloadable and buy-able...

[Hoser Rob]

The best Linux book I know of with the basics is The Debian Administrator's Handbook. It's not a CLI guide, it's better to actually understand how the guts actually work first.

[MurphCID]

The best Linux book I know of with the basics is The Debian Administrator's Handbook. It's not a CLI guide, it's better to actually understand how the guts actually work first.

Ok, that is something to look at. I ordered The Linux Command Line, 2nd Edition by WIlliam Schott, it had good reviews, and appears targeted to new users.

[MurphCID]

If "desktop Linux" includes the command-line this is pretty good: https://linuxcommand.org/tlcl.php. Downloadable and buy-able...

I ordered it, I like hard copy books since I highlight and mark up my reference books.

[rene]

I'm generally too uptight to write in books but I'll take reading from paper over reading from a (not e-paper) screen any day. Doubly non-fiction -- admittedly partly due to an environment/device without an internet connection providing for much better possibility to concentrate.

[MurphCID]

I generally do not damage my books either, but reference works are for working, sort of like text books, so they get tabbed and highlighted. I really prefer hard copies for that, it is just not the same on the Kindle.

[MurphCID]

I looked at the Linux Bible at Barnes and Noble today, and it was ok, but too much of the book was on servers, and it was Red Hat centric. The Ubuntu Bible intrigued me, but at $50 I was not sure if that was something I wanted, and it also had a lot of information on servers. Beyond my needs or desires. Found this one: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/05961 ... 0DER&psc=1 Linux in a nutshell by O'Reilly press. Any comments on this book? It is $46 on Amazon.

[rene]

I wouldn't do that; that's 13 years old and that is basically forever in Linux terms. I wouldn't have a specific recommendation but if you look at anything at the system administration level preferably get something relatively specific to Ubuntu or at least Debian and from 2020 or later; specifically, with a chapter on systemd visible in its table of contents. No; no idea if any such exists -- but I'm sure it does.

[MurphCID]

I wouldn't do that; that's 13 years old and that is basically forever in Linux terms. I wouldn't have a specific recommendation but if you look at anything at the system administration level preferably get something relatively specific to Ubuntu or at least Debian and from 2020 or later; specifically, with a chapter on systemd visible in its table of contents. No; no idea if any such exists -- but I'm sure it does.

Great information, thank you. That is the problem with so many of these books is that they are old and so many of them are Red Hat specific. I will keep looking.

[rene]

I yesterday decided to not mention it, since I do not in fact recommend it for your current use-case, but when I plugged in search-terms to Google I quickly hit upon

https://www.amazon.com/UNIX-Linux-Syste ... 0134277554

Not Ubuntu or Debian specific and in fact, what with e.g. FreeBSD content very specifically not so. Also from 2017 so still slightly old in 2022 but with some actual systemd content -- and at 1200 pages it does most certainly seem like a fairly nice-value resource, perhaps for someone else hitting upon this thread. Previewable at for as long as it lasts after this post https://mog.dog/files/SP2019/2017%20Nem ... D_Rell.pdf

I'd not recommend that to you: the generic nature means you basically already need to know a few things to know what is / is not (directly) applicable to a Linux system you're sitting behind at any given moment. But, well, have not myself read it, but the table of contents looks pretty impressive. FWIW.

[MurphCID]

It looks interesting, I will think about this one. I have been on Amazon, and there is nothing recent out there. 2022 has a complete desert of Linux books, I looked for Debian books as well, and nothing new.

[t42]

I have been on Amazon, and there is nothing recent out there. 2022 has a complete desert of Linux books

There are Linux books, this is a list of more generic ones released in 2022:

Code: Select all

Daniel J. Barrett  Efficient Linux at the Command Line 9781098113339, 9781098113407  O'Reilly
Donald A. Tevault  Linux Service Management Made Easy with systemd 1801811644, 9781801811644  Packt  
Kenneth Hitchcock  Linux System Administration for the 2020s 9781484279830, 9781484279847  Apress
Michael Hausenblas  Learning Modern Linux [1 ed.] 9781098108946  O'Reilly
Scott Alan Miller  Linux Administration Best Practices 9781800568792  Packt  
Vedran Dakic  Linux Command Line and Shell Scripting Techniques 9781800205192  Packt

[rene]

Based again only on the table of contents, the Hausenblass one seems potentially relevant. The Hess book seems to not yet be out. Hitchcock I wouldn't for your use-case.

Barret and Dakic are probably already handled by "Shotts - The Linux Command Line" from above. Tevault and Miller are probably too specific.

[MurphCID]

Thank you all very much.

[t42]

The Hess book seems to not yet be out.

Indeed. I edited it out as the author or the publisher assigned the same ISBN-13 to his two different unreleased titles.

[Valsodar]

I'm using Linux since 2015 and frankly never read anything like "books" about it. I've only read specific things, whenever I neded it. For instance, when I started making my own theme, I had to read a lot about CSS until I understand how it works. But the most of the things I know I found them the "hard" way - by trial and error. The best way to remember things is to experience a problem yourself and find a solution by yourself. Like that problem in 2015 when I first installed Mint, it used to show one of my hard drives as a "Picture CD", thus making it read-only. Go explain to the distro that a 500GB CD doesn't exist. Eventually I found out that the cause for that was a defective Pix's plugin and the solution was to uninstall Pix. I haven't read anything about that either. I did ask about the problem in a few places online but nobody was able to give me a solution, so I started looking for one myself. It took me a week but I found it. And I gotta say that the feeling when you fix a problem by yourself that nobody was able to fix - that feeling is indescribable and no book can replace it!

[BenjaminMarshalll]

The best Linux book I know of with the basics is The Debian Administrator's Handbook. It's not a CLI guide, it's better to actually understand how the guts actually work first.
I had never heard of the Linux operating system before. But when I started to learn programming, I started to get a lot of information about it. I used to read books like "medea" and use https://studymoose.com/literature/medea-book for that. Now I read everything about programming, about operating systems and many other things. My life has really changed.

I've heard of it, I'll probably read it after all.