Learning more about Linux

[AdamJBaldwin]

I have been a long term linux newbie. I bought a server here about a year ago with no control panel, not knowing why my server only had webmin (I know, that is pretty amateur). I then moved to *********, where I had a server for a long time but destroyed it by sending my kernel into kernel panic while attempting to upgrade. I then promptly moved back here and signed up because of your handy support tickets (I was assured by two Serverbeach employees, including knightfoo, that a support ticket will cover a kernel upgrade -- thanks god!) So now I am getting serious. I want to know what I am doing, and I want to learn more about Debian Linux.

Although I bought a RedHat server (with cPanel for hosting aid) I want to learn more about my linux box. I don't want to destroy anything, so I am going to perform simple procedures. But all in all, I don't know if I should have a cPanel installed for that.

So what it comes to is I am thinkign about buying a starter Debian server for 1 month for testing and learning. If I want it longer, I will pay for it longer, but the plan is 1 month.

In my web travels, I have heard Debian is not much harder to administrate than RedHat, and I like the non-corporate agenda that I have heard about it.

So what it boils down to is I am looking to buy a tinkering server, but I do need to learn a lot before I buy it. So other than good books (O'reilly Debian GNU/Linux) I am looking for some web resources to learn more about Linux, and specifically Debian Linux.

So anyone who knows of any interesting resource sites, or if anybody has any advice for a Linux newbie, I would love to hear it, and I appreciate any input that I may receive.

Thanks everyone!

-Adam J Baldwin

[knightfoo]

Well, the obvious first choices would be the Debian project site (http://debian.org/) and the Linux Documentation Project (http://tldp.org). One nice thing about Debian is they don't make a lot of goofy, custom changes to standard software that breaks the standards. This makes learning a lot easier because you don't need to learn the "Debian way" versus "the way everyone else does it".

The packaging system is incredibly powerful compared to RPMs and you will probably be amazed at the number of packages in the Debian distribution. There are 8,000 - 10,000 packages in the stable and unstable trees, so you will have no trouble finding packaged versions of popular (or even unpopular) software. The two commands you will get to know and love are "apt-get" and "dpkg". :)

O'Reilly is a good place to find useful books on just about anything, including Debian. General Linux knowledge is of course a plus, so the books don't even have to be Debian specific. I don't think I own any technical books that are not from O'Reilly. The Debian community is also very helpful. You can often find Debian package maintainers and developers online at irc.freenode.net .. the #debian and #linux channels on freenode have some of the most tech savvy users I've met on IRC. Last, but not least, Google is one of the best resources for anything Linux-related. Linux users tend to have long drawn out discussions on mailing lists, which always end up being indexed by Google for your searching ease. :)

-knightfoo

[QT]

Well...
I was going to give my nice long speel here....*cough* but uhm...knightfoo beat me to it and pretty much said it all. ;) He's named off some pretty darn good places to start. Good luck in your Debian venture! :)