Fedora indepth

[Prometheus]

Sup guys,

Basically, i want to know as much about fedora backwards and forewards as i possibly can. I know ill never know it all, but i wanna know as much as i can. I know theres no easy to do this, but u got any suggestions? i love fedora (and as soon as i get a second bigger hdd i can start using it again, but that might be a coupla weeks, sigh) and i really want to be able to tweak it and play with it and work it backwards and forewards. Does anyone know a book or a resource or ANYTHING thatll help me. I mean, forums are great and i loveem, but im kinda alone with the linux thing where i live. Most of the computer geeks here dont even know what it is (tells u about the quality of geeks we got here). I just want to learn. THanks guys

Prometheus

[mhelios]

Well, I like your attitude for learning. :) Basically, what works for me is to just "play". Learn how to use the programs available, make them do things you would like them to. Reading books is also a great way to learn more. There's alreadya few great books on Fedora. I own Red Hat Linux Bible: Fedora and Enterprise Linux. It's covers all aspects of the distro that you can want to do. It's easy to follow and has tutorials you can follow to set up things in FC.
Another good one is Fedora Unleashed by Bill Ball and Hoyt Duff.

As for being a minority where you live, well I believe it's the same here. I'm probably one of a handful who even know what Linux is here! :( When people think of computers they think of Windows...

[Jman]

The best way really is to just use it. If you get stuck, there is quite a bit of documentation out there. Look at readme files, find out where an open source project's web site is and read it, read man pages, use Google's Linux search (http://www.google.com/linux), and learn from other's experiences from forum posts and articles (http://fedoranews.org/).

What's important to remember that many open source packages are not exclusive to Fedora, so help for other distros is not necessarily useless.

If you want some hardcopy to read, check out the book thread (http://www.fedoraforum.org/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=228).

[crackers]

I also endorse just poking around. Also, watch http://freshmeat.net - you find all sorts of interesting stuff to look at and that sometimes causes you to dig into what you have installed that you may not know about. A good basic Unix reference is handy, or, even better, a "general" Linux book or one of the RedHat books. Hang out here and read postings that sound kind of interesting. Just by participating, even just reading, teaches you a lot.

Think of it as the ultimate self-directed study program... :D

[Ug]

Originally posted by mhelios
Another good one is Fedora Unleashed by Bill Ball and Hoyt Duff. I have that one, its good but focuses mainly on networking and gives an overview of things rather than in depth.

[mhelios]

Originally posted by Ug
I have that one, its good but focuses mainly on networking and gives an overview of things rather than in depth.
Yea, that's why I like the Bible book better. It's still not an indepth guide (nor is it supposed to be), but it contains enough useful information to get you up and running with things. From which you can then use other more technical guides and howto to go further with the software.

Prometheus: Another good batch of docs you should consult is the RH9 manuals. They are succinct and very clear and well presented. I use them a lot and they're still quite relevant for FC.
http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/linux/RHL-9-Manual/

[Ug]

It does provide some good technical bits though. ;)

[mitzelone73]

I use three basic books for everything:
"Linux in a Nutshell" (Siever)
"Running Linux" (Welsh, Dahlheimer, et al. )
"The C Programming Language" ( Kernhigan and Ritchie)

Those books have really helped me. Also I used the system non-stop for a year and that was a great teacher, too. :)

[Prometheus]

thanks guys. Basically i learned windows by poking round adn shutting off system process to learn what they did (you know how much of a pain in the ass it is to turn some of that stuff back on?) Anyway, ill jsut do the same way, poke round and play. Ill look for the bible and maybe for a programming guide too. Thanks again.

Prometheus

[Lindy]

It's a bit dated, and it's not specific to Fedora, but take a look at: http://www.comptechdoc.org/os/linux/commands/index.html
You can download a command reference in PDF from there and have it handy while "poking around" your system.