[LBo] Linux-Books, new course, The LBook

[Stefan Waidele]

Grasshopper wrote:
> I have also bought Linux for Dummies  :)  Over the years I have 
> bought so many  books, started to read them and after about page 100,
>  just gave up because it was way beyond me.

Edward wrote:
> I'm shopping for a Linux book.  I got Linux for Dummies at the 
> library... but I had to return it.  I also get this feeling that 
> there might be a better Linux book for one to buy to get his bearings
>  but one that will not be limited to only the most elementary stuff. 
> A serious addressing of command line, of course, is fundamental.

Sam wrote:
> [...]
> when our next course starts, there will always the
> option to help assist others with not only the quick email fired off,

RUTE is surely a book that covers the fundamentals. You find it in the 
"course"-section of the LBo-website.
During the last year we (this list) went through the book section by 
section, and I think it was worth reading it. There are the following 
problems that caused us to look for something else to base our "new 
course" on:

RUTE goes very much into technical details, which is not bad, but I had 
the impression that the "wired nerd topics" towards the end of the book 
caused many to drop it. Well, RUTE is free of charge, and I think we did 
enjoy the first half through the book. I would recommend RUTE to anybody 
who wants to learn how Linux works.

Another problem with RUTE is that it has become quite old. While this is 
ok for many chapters, there are some topics that are covered which do 
not play any role in today's world of computing. Just skip these. But 
the real problem we (TheCrew at LBo) have is the license.

We can only annotate RUTE in the weekly e-mails. We cannot rewrite 
chapters or sections on our wiki. This is why we were looking for 
something under a free license for the new course. We can integrate the 
book into our website and make updates as we go through.
This way, we will also "give back" to the original author of the book.

We have chosen Machtelt Garrels' "Introduction to Linux" available under 
the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License at:
http://tldp.org/LDP/intro-linux/html/index.html

Given the nature of free licenses, we can also include other free 
sources (which we also used in the RUTE-course). Who knows, maybe in a 
year or two, we have the foundation for a LBook :)

Well, this mail is far too long by now. I think I will ask for feedback 
in another mail ;)

Yours,

Stefan