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So, you have decided to give Linux a try, and now you need to know where to go to learn how to use it. One real good place to start is right there on your own hard drive. Most Linux distributions install document files on your system, either when you install a new program, or when you install a package which contains document files.
For the most part, these document files will be in folders under the /usr/share/doc/ folder, or in some distributions in the /usr/doc/ folder. You will also find useful references in the following locations. Manual pages located at - /usr/man/ or /usr/share/man/ and info pages located at - /usr/info/ or /usr/share/info/ The man and info pages can be loaded in your Terminal application by invoking the commands man command or info command where you replace the word command with the Linux command you want to learn about.
I use Ubuntu Linux, and have discovered many useful documents which you can install with Synaptic Pachage Manager that are very usefull for extending one's knowledge of Linux. The following are the package names of some of these documentation packages which I feel are very useful.
| doc-linux-html |
Linux HOWTOs and FAQs in HTML format. These how tos cover a wide variety of things you might want to do, such as getting your web cam to work, or using a modem, etc. Here is a link to the how to index you can access after installing it. file:///usr/share/doc/doc-linux-html/HOWTO/HOWTO-INDEX/index.html |
| doc-linux-nonfree-html |
Linux HOWTOs in HTML format (non-free) Even more how tos. Here is the index link for this package. file:///usr/share/doc/doc-linux-nonfree-html/HOWTO/HOWTO-INDEX/index.html |
| hal-doc |
Hardware Abstraction Layer documentation. This document concerns the specification of HAL which is a piece of software that provides a view of the various hardware attached to a system. In addition to this, HAL keeps detailed metadata for each piece of hardware and provide hooks such that system- and desktop-level software can react to changes in the hardware configuration in order to maintain system policy. |
| harden-doc |
Hardening your network to intrusion. This document describes security in the Debian project and in the Debian operating system. Starting with the process of securing and hardening the default Debian GNU/Linux distribution installation, it also covers some of the common tasks to set up a secure network environment using Debian GNU/Linux, gives additional information on the security tools available and talks about how security is enforced in Debian by the security and audit team. |
| linux-doc |
Linux kernel documentation. You will actually need to install the doc package for specific kernel before you will have any useful documentation. For instance, install linux-doc-2.6.24 to learn all about that particular kernel version. You should then have a link at - file:///usr/share/doc/linux-doc-2.6.24/html/index.html to access the main index file for this kernel version. |
| newbiedoc |
Documentation by and for newbies. When the newbiedoc package is installed, you can just type "newbiedoc" at the prompt. This will start your favorite browser and display the index page. A 'Newbiedoc' entry will also be added to the Debian/Help menu. |
| partimage-doc |
Partition Image User Documentation. Partition Image is a Linux/UNIX partition imaging utility: it saves partitions formatted using the Ext2FS (the linux standard), ReiserFS (a new journaled and powerful file system), JFS IBM journaled file systems from AIX, NTFS (Windows NT File System), FAT16/32 (DOS & Windows file systems), or HPFS (OS/2 file system) file system formats to an image file. |
| policykit-doc |
PolicyKit is an application-level toolkit for defining and handling the policy that allows unprivileged processes to speak to privileged processes: It is a framework for centralizing the decision making process with respect to granting access to privileged operations for unprivileged applications. |
| user-mode-linux-doc |
Run Linux inside itself. User-Mode Linux is a safe, secure way of running Linux versions and Linux processes. Run buggy software, experiment with new Linux kernels or distributions, and poke around in the internals of Linux, all without risking your main Linux setup. |
| bash-doc |
Documentation and examples for the The GNU Bourne Again SHell. This will help to learn the command line in Terminal. This package provides a .pdf document, and a number of subfolders with example bash scripts for a variety of purposes. |
| manpages |
Manual pages about using a GNU/Linux system. This package contain the Linux man pages for all chapters except 1, 6 and 8. |
| sysadmin-guide |
The Linux System Administrators' Guide. An introduction to system administration of a Linux system for novices. Here is a link to the index file as installed on Ubuntu. file:///usr/share/doc/sysadmin-guide/html/index.html |
| maint-guide |
Debian New Maintainers' Guide. This document tries to describe building of a Debian package to the common Debian user, and prospectus developer. |
| rutebook |
Linux: Rute User's Tutorial and Exposition is a book written by Paul Sheer and published by Prentice Hall. It covers the use of GNU/Linux for a novice to intermediate user. |
| ubuntu-docs |
This package holds the official Ubuntu-specific documentation, maintained by the Ubuntu Documentation Team. The documentation can be viewed using Yelp, the GNOME help browser. |
| kernel-internals-guide |
An introduction to the Linux 2.4 kernel. The Guide currently covers the following major topics: - Booting - Process and Interrupt Management - Virtual Filesystem (VFS) - Linux Page Cache - IPC mechanisms |
| iproute-doc |
This package contains the documentation for the iproute package. iproute is the professional set of tools to control the networking behavior in kernels 2.2.x and later. This package requires the installation of a .tex file handling package to read the docs included. |
| installation-guide-i386 |
There are an entire series of installation guides for differing types of computer systems. Just search in Synaptic Package Manager on the phrase installation-guide, and you will get the whole list of them. |
| clamav-docs |
anti-virus utility for Unix - documentation |
| grub-doc |
Documentation for GRand Unified Bootloader. GRUB is a GPLed bootloader intended to unify bootloading across x86
operating systems. In addition to loading the Linux kernel, it implements the Multiboot standard, which allows for flexible loading of multiple boot images |
| samba-doc |
Samba documentation. The Samba software suite is a collection of programs that implements the SMB/CIFS protocol for unix systems, allowing you to serve files and printers to Windows, NT, OS/2 and DOS clients. |
| selinux-doc |
Documentation for Security-Enhanced Linux. Security-enhanced Linux is a patch of the Linux® kernel and a number
of utilities with enhanced security functionality designed to add mandatory access controls to Linux. This package contains build instructions, porting information, and a CREDITS file for SELinux. |
| ubuntu-serverguide |
The Ubuntu Server Guide. This package holds the official Ubuntu Server Guide. The guide can be viewed using an html browser. |
Most of the above documentation packages are in html format, so reading them is as simple as opening your web browser, and using File, Open File from it's menu to search the /usr/share/doc/ folder for the one you want to read. Keep in mind that nearly all programs you install to your Linux system will also install, or have available for installation seperately, a documentation package that goes into this folder structure. Some packages only put a readme and changelog file here, but may have man pages or info pages available from the command line.
Additionally, there are a couple of packages with commands that you can use to discover more about how your system works. These packages are - procinfo and procps. Procinfo is a small program that gathers some system information from
diverse files under /proc and prints it to the screen. Procps is a collection of utilities to browse the /proc filesystem, which is not a real file system, but a way for the kernel to provide information about the status of
entries in its process table. This package includes the following utilities: top, uptime, tload, free, vmstat, watch, skill, pmap, pgrep, slabtop and pwdx. For an overview of and more information about the /proc filesystem hierarchy see the following link after installing the sysadmin-guide package. file:///usr/share/doc/sysadmin-guide/html/proc-fs.html - The /proc filesystem.
These documentation packages should provide you with a very good base of information from which to learn Linux.
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