(Part 3) Top products from r/linux

First one thing, Linux and Unix is not only a family of computing platforms but also a security culture. It all boils down to keeping control of your computer. To make best use of Linux' security advantage, you have to learn and follow certain rules - the most important one being: Never run any untrusted program. Also, never ever use untrusted data from the Internet with formats which mix data and executable code such as macros".

Regarding your question, it would be really helpful if you could be more specific what your level of experience is and what you want to do! Some thoughts and additional suggestions to those already given:

• Use a distro which has a strong system for signing and verifying software packages. This is important to keep control what runs.
  
  
• Mint does not has the best security record, its download page was compromised and it turned out to be hard to check their download installation image for the PGP signature.
  
  
• Ubuntu has already been mentioned and I think it is a good fit to what many people need. An interesting alternative might be Debian - it requires that you read through some stuff to get a bootable medium. However after installing, IMO it is equally easy to use as Ubuntu. Another nice alternative is SolydXK which is also a derivate of Debian but more geared towards small enterprises and home office.
  
  
• If looks matter a lot, I'd suggest to try Elementary OS - for my own taste, it is a bit too limited. But what I think is very valuable is the goal to create a more consistent GUI!
  
  
• Have a look at Arch Linux, too - it is "user friendly" in a different way.
  
  
• Distributions have usually some default desktop but essentially, the choice of desktop is more or less orthogonal to the distribution, you can largely install and change them independently. From the GUI systems, I personally like the GNOME shell. Before deciding, I'd definitely give also KDE a try - for example, I think KDEs Krusader is one of the best file managers for more experienced users around.
  
  Regarding specific applications:
  
  
• Apart from raster graphics programs, there is inkscape, which is a vector graphics program similar to CorelDraw. Also, there is Krita.
  
  
• For writing text, I'd suggest to have a look at AbiWord, which is a fast, slimmed down variant of a word processor that can export all the common formats. However if you intend to write anything larger than say, ten pages, or something which needs footnotes or an index, then I'd really suggest to learn a little bit if LaTeX, which gives far more satisfying results. I think the best book on LaTeX ever is Leslie Lamports LaTeX: A Document Preparation System". It would be foolish not to spend a few bucks on really good docs!
  
  What more do you want to do?
  

While being a self taught sys admin is great, learning the internals of how things work can really extend your knowledge beyond what you may have considered possible. This starts to get more into the CS portion of things, but who cares. It's still great stuff to know, and if you know this you will really be set apart. Im not sure if it will help you directly as a sys admin, but may quench your thirst. Im both a programmer and unix admin, so I tend to like both. I own or have owned most of these and enjoy them greatly. You may also consider renting them or just downloading them. I can say that knowing how thing operate internally is great, it fills in a lot of holes.

OS Internals

While you obviously are successful at the running and maintaining of unix like systems. How much do you know about their internal functions? While reading source code is the best method, some great books will save you many hours of time and will be a bit more enjoyable. These books are Amazing
The Design and Implementation of the FreeBSD Operating System

Linux Kernel Development
Advanced Programming in the UNIX Environment

Networking

Learning the actual function of networking at the code level is really interesting. Theres a whole other world below implementation. You likely know a lot of this.
Computer Networks

TCP/IP Illustrated, Vol. 1: The Protocols

Unix Network Programming, Volume 1: The Sockets Networking API

Compilers/Low Level computer Function

Knowing how a computer actually works, from electricity, to EE principles , through assembly to compilers may also interest you.
Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software

Computer Systems: A Programmer's Perspective

Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools

I've been using GNU/Linux off and on for about 8 years now (I'm 18, give me a break!). It seemed like, in the early days, I couldn't get the things I did most often to work, and I only ever used my Linux partition for programming. I was very windows-centric, and I tried to do things that I did in windows in linux the "windows way".

After some time, as both Linux and myself matured, I decided to eliminate windows from my system and to do everything using Linux. It was frustrating until I let go of my prior Windows expertise and decided to learn things the "Linux way". Instead of wondering how to do something that I did in windows, I chose instead to think of how to accomplish a task instead. I read books and online tutorials, and discovering the power of the terminal was exhilarating. Now, I don't ever use Windows. I feel over 9000 times more efficient in Linux, because I spent a substantial amount of time learning how to do things properly and not relying on the accumulated expertise I had gained in Windows.

Linux is NOT Windows. The two are very different players, and that's a good thing. If the developers of Linux focused solely on creating a Windows clone, the OS would be very different.

I've done some distro hopping lately, just to play around with different distros. I'm currently using Fedora, but I have a server running Debian and I'd love to try out Linux Mint 12 once that comes out.

The best advice I can give is to let go of the old way of thinking. Be open minded, and never dismiss something different as inferior. Stick with Linux, even when it requires forcing yourself to learn something new. You'll appreciate it in the long run.

P.S. Learn the terminal! This book was extremely helpful for me

P.P.S. Man pages are your friend.

I disagree.. you should definitely learn red hat/fedora/centos in terms of network configuration files, other config files etc etc if you want to have a good knowledge of server level/enterprise level linux. Red-hat based distros are MUCH more widely used for server implementations than debian or slackware.. But that said definitely learn the debian way too. Linux in a Nutshell is a good back, or this book is also quite good: http://www.amazon.com/Practical-Guide-Commands-Editors-Programming/dp/0131478230/ref=sr_1_16?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1250956616&sr=8-16 -- Another good one is the Linux Quick-Fix Notebook- excellent excellent book

I much appreciate your answer. I will take into account ir. I started using Linux about a year and a half ago, coming from windows. I just thinked that I could find a good alternative for Windows, and I moved to Ubuntu MATE. I was fascinated by its velocity, security and how it's packages worked. At the first time, I was dual-booting, but then I removed windows and started to just use Linux. I've been using Linux casually for a lot of time, and now I'm going serious. I want to learn bash scripting and python. I have got a fantastic Spanish Python book, (I'm learning a lot because of it), and now I'm looking for some bash and Linux books by O'Reilly and I've found this book https://www.amazon.es/gp/aw/d/0596009658/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?__mk_es_ES=%C3%85M%C3%85Z%C3%95%C3%91&qid=1520884449&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=O%27Reilly+bash&dpPl=1&dpID=513EprgSOcL&ref=plSrch and this other one https://www.amazon.es/gp/aw/d/1491927577/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?__mk_es_ES=%C3%85M%C3%85Z%C3%95%C3%91&qid=1520884734&sr=8-3&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=O%27Reilly+Linux&dpPl=1&dpID=51AbKrNDvaL&ref=plSrch
Would you recommend me this books to learn?
I'm Spanish, so the prizes should be different

I started with no linux knowledge on this book the unix bible. It's got enough information to help you understand how your linux system actually works. From there it's easy to find information on your own by knowing better what to look for and having a better understanding of the information you find. The Orelly bash book is the only other one I've picked up, and it helped me a lot with scripting and has come in handy several times for reference. After that, you'll pretty much know enough to google and find the information you need pretty quickly.

Glances is a very nice example of a good python code base and project structure. An excellent demonstration of the a "proper" way to package a standalone python application. https://github.com/nicolargo/glances

It does, as the name suggest, only provide a "glance" into how the system is doing. For a deeper dive in monitoring check out Brendan Gregg's posts and guides,
http://www.brendangregg.com/index.html .

He also has a book which I consider one of the most up to date and best on the topic of monitoring: https://www.amazon.com/Systems-Performance-Enterprise-Brendan-Gregg/dp/0133390098

Here's the popular /r/linux answer; Lenovo X220

They do sell on Amazon, but not shipped and sold by Amazon. If you're okay with purchasing from a 3rd party via Amazon then it might be a good option.

Amazon.com link

Glad you asked!

I asked the same question on my blog a few months ago.

Then that blog entry hit slashdot. There was a big discussion.

I think it all boils down to the size of your network. Smallish, and cute names are fine. Biggish and you've got to use functional names.

Also, you should find The Practice of System and Network Administration somewhere and buy it (or check it out of a library until you convince yourself that you have to buy it).

Also, feel free to submit things like this to the sysadmin subreddit

Well this reddit is mostly about Linux news not help. The forums and irc are where that belongs.

As for books I would suggest getting one that deals heavily in the command line. Much quicker and easier than a gui and it changes slower.

This http://www.amazon.com/Practical-Guide-Commands-Editors-Programming/dp/0131367366/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1311976268&sr=8-1 got good reviews on amazon but really for bash any book on Linux or unix shell scripting will do fine. (I for example used a unix book from the late 80's to learn how to use bash)

As for one on the guy I would just take whatever one They have at your local barnes and noble, just make sure it's recent

I can't recommend this enough. It's about as comprehensive a guide to Linux as you could hope for, and accessible for beginners.

As far as distros go, I'd go with Mint. It's a great community-driven distro that's very user friendly.

These are also great, and work with any OS, light source, or smart phone! ;-)

https://www.amazon.com/Uvex-Blocking-Computer-Glasses-SCT-Orange/dp/B000USRG90/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1497712622&sr=8-4&keywords=blue+light+glasses

Read a lot. Man pages, guides, examples, source code. Experiment. True, with only one machine you probably won't get to get exposed to, say, networking stuff (you can emulate complex networks using VMs, but you still need to know a lot to set up such an environment). Still, there's a lot of things to learn about the system just by mucking with it. Having a machine you can reinstall whenever you want helps a lot, get an old PC or laptop and use it as a test bed if you don't have a spare server, making it a webserver today, a mailserver tomorrow, a firewall the next day and so on.

Take any problem as a challenge to dig deeper and understand why. Granted, in the Google age, the solution to most problems are just a search and a copy-paste away, but getting to understand what happens with the machine and what's the most elegant way to control it takes a lot of research and practice and failures. Learning "why" is way more important than learning "how", since tools evolve and change and the manuals are always close, but knowing what to look for is a skill that takes time to develop.

Speaking of failures, try to come up with as many ways as you can to make things fail and try to find solutions to most of them. Good sysadmins understand failure and actively explore ways to prevent or handle it.

If you don't mind reading thick books, I heartily recommend Evi Nemeth's Linux Administration Handbook (pretty hands-on) and Tom Limoncelli's Practice of System and Network Administration (about the mentality and processes and non-technical stuff). You might find the latter a bit boring, since it has zero scripts and commands in it, but sooner or later in your career you'll love it.

I'll stop because I ranted too much already, but as a final word, keep in mind that SA is primarily about maintaining infrastructure that helps people, so don't get too caught up by the tech to forget that service availability comes first, shiny toys second ;)

• CODE: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software by Charles Petzold
  
  A ground up approach to understanding digital processing and transmission in a broad sense. I only recommend this book if you are looking for an intrinsic understanding of computing rather than merely a handle on using a particular programming language or operating system. By the end of the book you should have a handle on actually building your own computer, however it's actually an excellent "first book" for anyone interested in computing.

Actually, from what I know regarding UI design, it's the best UI design I've ever seen (and by far the most daring, hence the controversies I guess).

You might want to have a look at this book : https://www.amazon.fr/User-Interface-Design-Programmers-Spolsky/dp/1893115941/ref=sr_1_1 . It might give you a lot of insights regarding their design choices.

You definitely want this book for debian
The Debian Administrator's Handbook

You might also look for a book to teach you the basics of command line tools and system configuration files. I used to have a book I really liked but its too old to be found these days.

edit:
This is the one we used at university
UNIX System Administration Handbook
I'm not sure I would recommend it though as I'm not sure its the best. There is plenty others out there.


You should also try to compile your own kernel at some point just so you know how it is done and how you can tune a kernel if you need to.

If you're looking for a good book to get you started, I can't recommend this one enough: A Practical Guide to Linux: Commands, Editors, and Shell Programming. Here's my description of it from another l4n post:

It's a great book for a beginner who doesn't want to get a Dummies book that is mostly concerned with the GUI and doing all the same things that you would on Windows or Mac OS, but instead wants to learn about what you can do without a GUI. It's a great reference book as well, containing the man pages for many commonly used and built-in commands, as well as teaching BASH shell scripting, how to completely use vim and emacs, and more about the inner workings of the OS.

Also, I (shamefully) have not done this completely, but if you want to learn about how the core of most any Linux system works, install Arch using their fabulously laid out Beginners Guide

I realize Spolsky is not considered relevant any more but his UI book is a pretty decent intro: http://www.amazon.com/User-Interface-Design-Programmers-Spolsky/dp/1893115941

A lot of Kernighan’s (co‐authored) books age surprisingly well. It’s a real testament to his writing style that they are still relevant today despite examples tending to be in PL/I or Fortran.

• The Elements of Programming Style
  
• Software Tools
  
• The Practice of Programming
  
• The Unix Programming Environment
  
  And, of course…
  
  
• The C Programming Language

This book is full of unix and linux tips. I suggest this book over all others I've read. It is an immense help for daily tasks as well as stuff you don't see too often.

http://www.amazon.com/UNIX-System-Administration-Handbook-3rd/dp/0130206016

The Thinkpad X220 would be a good choice. It's tough and just simply a work horse of a laptop. Here's one on Amazon for $280 and has an SSD. https://www.amazon.com/Thinkpad-X220-12-5-128GB-4G/dp/B005SSQ1UC/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1466974414&sr=8-4&keywords=lenovo+X220

http://www.amazon.com/TP-LINK-TL-WR1043ND-Ultimate-Wireless-Detachable/dp/B002YLAUU8

Runs fine under current stable build.

Check out Rebel Code for all of your answers and some good history. Just for Fun is decent too.

you may like this one

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ubuntu-Linux-Toolbox-Commands-Debian/dp/0470082933

I don't recommend either of those books, try these instead:

High Performance MySQL: Optimization, Backups, and Replication by Baron Schwartz, http://amzn.com/1449314287

A Practical Guide to Linux Commands, Editors, and Shell Programming (3rd Edition) by Mark G. Sobell, http://amzn.com/013308504X

> Is there some sort of golden rule book whose laws must not be violated?

Yes. The Design of the UNIX operating system and there's The UNIX Programming Environment :\^)

You can use a dreamplug, but its a bit expensive. It looks you can install a ftp server on a pogoplug. There are probably a lot more ways you can do what you want, but those are just a few.

> Make a document on how to properly document code.

They've existed for a long time. Rob Pike's Notes on Programming in C is an excellent quick start. His book (with Brian Kernighan) The Practice of Programming gives a lot more detail. (And goes beyond just commenting/style.)

So basically read the O'Reilly books: Learning the Unix... and Unix Power Tools.

http://www.amazon.com/Learning-UNIX-Operating-System-Fifth/dp/0596002610/ref=pd_sim_b_2

I never got it working on my three-month setup at work. I just use these glasses.

The Design of the UNIX Operating System https://www.amazon.com/dp/0132017997

Sata and gigabit has been around for years for a mere $40. Note that you can get them for $20 if you shop around.

The TeXbook isn't really appropriate for LaTeX. You want LaTeX: A Document Preparation System.

Unfortunately it's rather dated at this point, so it'll need to be supplemented with info from the web about fonts, colors, PDF, XeTeX vs LuaTeX, and so on.

A quick skim seems to show that at least some of said systems provide GPIO pins. I can buy a single one of those for $52 and zero shipping with power supply and case. These tend to have four or more Ethernet ports; this one has four gigabit ports and wireless for the hell of it