[olug] Questions

Michael mjclinux at gmail.com
Fri May 4 18:12:15 UTC 2012


Ah yes this is more what I was looking for thank you for your advice.

Mike C.

On 05/04/2012 11:04 AM, Christopher Cashell wrote:
> On Thu, May 3, 2012 at 3:30 PM, Michael<mjclinux at gmail.com>  wrote:
>> I have installed gentoo before and I have done Linux From Scratch before. I guess I'm not really sure what I'm asking but I have a feeling that I am missing a lot.
> If you've done Linux From Scratch, you should have a pretty good idea
> of the pieces involved with a Unix/Linux system, as far as boot
> process, daemon administration, etc.
>
> Depending on exactly what you're trying to learn, here's some areas
> I'd suggest checking out:
>
> * Build a Linux Kernel yourself, from kernel.org sources.  Go through
> all of the config options yourself to see what's available.
> * Get a copy of "Linux in a Nutshell" and read it.  All of it.  This
> will give you a grounding in the multitude of commands available in a
> Unix/Linux environment, and make you aware of how much functionality
> is available at your fingertips (if you know it exists, and what
> command to run to get it).  Your shell scripting and command line use
> will improve significantly from reading this book.
> * Learn the basics of C Programming[0].  Unix/Linux is heavily built
> on and influenced by C, and learning C will help you understand a lot
> of "under the hood" information about linux systems and applications.
> * Learn to script with shell scripting, sed, and awk.  There are lots
> of tutorials on shell scripting including the Advanced Bash Scripting
> Guide (free, online).  O'Reilly makes a great book ("sed&  awk") that
> covers both well, provides a great start on regular expressions, and
> shows you how much is capable with sed and awk.
> * Learn Perl (or one of the other "P" languages: Python, PHP, Puby,
> and Pickle).  I have a bias towards Perl; especially with Modern Perl,
> I think it's the best language option for scripting.  However, Python
> and Ruby are both reasonable choices, too.  Although, on second
> thought, don't bother with Tcl unless you have to.  And definitely
> skip PHP.  I'm pretty sure excessive use of it causes brain damage in
> a similar way to Visual Basic.
> * Learn Assembly Language.  This one is taking low-level to a certain
> extreme, and I wouldn't suggest it until/unless you already are
> comfortable with C, and you have masochistic tendencies.  It will give
> you a better understanding of the underlying hardware, though
> (especially if you combine learning it with a book on computer
> architecture).
> * Pick up a book on Operating Systems and OS design, or Unix/Linux
> internals.  For the former, Tanenbaum has a good book that uses Minix
> for examples.  For the latter, there's "The Design of the UNIX
> Operating System", which is dated, but good.  For Linux, specifically,
> there's "Understanding the Linux Kernel" and "Linux Kernel
> Development".
>
> I don't know if any of these will interest you, but based on your
> (rather vague ;-) request, it might help get you started.  I'd be
> happy to clarify or expand on any of these if you'd like.
>
>> Mike C.
> [0] If you've never done any programming or scripting before, C isn't
> going to be the easiest place to start.  K&R's "The C Programming
> Language" is the best book written on C programming, but it's not
> really geared towards people with no programming experience.  I'd
> probably start with some other scripting, then move to C.
>
> --
> Christopher
> _______________________________________________
> OLUG mailing list
> OLUG at olug.org
> https://lists.olug.org/mailman/listinfo/olug




More information about the OLUG mailing list