[plug] Unix Beginners Textbook?

[Trevor Phillips]

David Griffiths wrote:
> 
> Guess you've already checked this out - but just in case... the
> online/offline html versions of Larry Greenfield's "The Linux Users' Guide"
> might be of interest.

Uh, no I haven't! ^_^
"I don't need no steenking manuals!" was the motto when I first learned
UNIX/Linux.

Ok, I'd like to stress that the target audience are Users, not Sysadmins. ^_^
The class consists of about half Surveyors, who spend their working hours
standing out in the Sun with GPS doo-dads and other gadgets, and in their spare
time go Surfing, and Cartographers, who have a bit more of an Indoors/Computer
slant. The idea is to get them to survive using "UNIX" (no-name brand) when
they're thrown into it in the workplace. They don't need any sysadmin skills.

For the labs, this year I'm doing a Real Lab of Debian Linux PC's, which means
they'll actually have decent apps on a decent desktop running at a decent
speed.
(Two years ago, it was a lab of HP400's - about 486 speed. One year ago, it was
NFS-Root mounted Linux as X-Terms to 4xHP700's - about Pentium speed. This year
is Local Debian on PIII350's. SPEEEEEED! ^_^;;)

Anyway, yeah, so I'd like to avoid "Linux Guide" and things
distribution-specific (which is what the UNIX For Dummies-style seem to go for;
"How to install RedHat" *shudder*), and also keep it at the user/reference
level, without getting in too deep...

"UNIX For the Impatient" sounds like it may do the trick; I'll have to source a
copy and check it out.

I guess I'll have to wander around some bookshops and see what else is on the
shelves...

Oh, and yes Christian, I do teach them man(1), but that doesn't help when doing
assignments at home under Windows, nor in an Exam, nor does it give a "Complete
Beginner's Guide" to general concepts. Man can be pretty intimidating at times,
even to the more experience Linux user. ^_^

-- 
. Trevor Phillips             -           http://jurai.murdoch.edu.au/ . 
: Web Systems Administrator      -           T.Phillips at murdoch.edu.au : 
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