On Wednesday 17 January 2007 15:24, Varadarajan V wrote:
Hi everyone,
First of all I thank you all for all your suggestions. Frankly, dint expect so many of you would reply so quickly. :-). This community is amazing.
I am sorry for not mentioning that I already use linux though havent learnt enough for system administration. I use FC 6 and a couple of live cds inclu. Ubuntu. Now I want to change it in my profession too. But I do not know what is required to be a linux professional.
I learnt everything myself, so maybe I can help you point to the proper resources..
1. Get acquainted with the CLI. I suggest, even if you're a newbie, that you get a spare hard disk, with around 10GB space and try installing Gentoo[1]. Just install, get it to boot and try to configure Xorg and ALSA. That should be good enough. Don't dig too deep into Gentoo though. Gentoo does quite a few things differently. The Gentoo documentation[2] should help you a lot. Do not forget the wiki[3] either.
2. Get your hands on O'Reilly's Learning the bash Shell, 3rd Edition[4]. It's a great book that should get you going with bash.
3. While you're at it, refer to the man pages of any commands that come up. Don't worry about the obscure options too much. You'll get used to them.
4. Start with O'Reilly's UNIX Power Tools, 3rd Edition[5]. It'll help bigtime.
5. Now that you're fairly comfortable with the CLI, take a look at Running Linux, 5th Edition, O'Reilly[6].
6. Keep using Linux for a while. Try to do stuff from the CLI most times. Start visiting TLDP[7] and read through the various HOWTOs and Guides.
After all this, you should be a pretty good Linux user. You can then start with administration.
Oh and start hanging out in various channels on Freenode[8]. Drop in at #linux-india.
[1]: http://www.gentoo.org [2]: http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/list.xml [3]: http://gentoo-wiki.com [4]: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/bash3/index.html [5]: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/upt3/index.html [6]: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/runlinux5/index.html [7]: http://www.tldp.org [8]: irc://irc.freenode.net