Help learning Linux

[gerald.feldman at hp.com (Jerry Feldman)]

On Thursday 17 February 2005 4:47 pm, Todd Posey wrote:
> I know very little about Linux, so I'm not sure what all?I want to be
> able to do.? At this point I want to learn how to crawl, then walk, and
> then I might know enough to ask good questions about where to go from
> there. 
> I can say that a long term goal of mine is to learn how to administer a
> file server.? Before I can do that, I need to learn the basics.? Security
> will definity be an issue to consider with a file server. 
> I do know that if you arn't learning the command line, you arn't really
> learning Linux.? So that is a good place to start.
There are over 1500 commands on Linux. You might start with some of the 
basics, such as ps (process status), ls (similar to the DOS dir command), 
and man. Most Linux commands are documented by the man command and are 
referred as man pages. 
To start off with:
ps simply gives you a list of programs running from your login shell. 
ps ax gives you a list of everything running on your system.

ls simply lists the files in short form. ls -l produces a long listing. In 
both cases, files beginning with the dot (.) are not listed. ls -a is the 
same as ls, but dotfiles are listed. ls -al is a long list of all files. 

man ps - this gives you the man page for the ps command. 
man ls - gives you the manpage for ls. 

Server administration is more complex because you must know the 
configuration files and what things mean. This is where a good book comes 
in. Maybe the 2005 edition of the Linux Bible we looked at last night. 

The bottom line is that start with a live CD with a GUI front end. Start 
from there and play around. You really can't screw things up too much.  
-- 
Jerry Feldman <gerald.feldman at hp.com>
Partner Technology Access Center (contractor) (PTAC-MA)
Hewlett-Packard Co.
550 King Street LKG2a-X2
Littleton, Ma. 01460
 (978)506-5243