Web review: Free Linux tutorials from developerWorks

– by Tina Gasperson –
IBM is not making a big enough deal out of this big collection of Linux tutorials. There are a lot of how-to’s floating around the web, and many are good — but many are poor. The stuff you get from IBM is of fairly reliable quality.I was going to focus on Mark Chapman’s “Transitioning from Windows to Linux,” which, with its 50 pages of hand-holding reassurance, is a more than worthy candidate for the spotlight. It covers installation, configuration, GUIs, shells, root/user account differences, and other things every newbie wishes he knew.

But then I found out that IBM has put together a whole list of tutorials of this ilk — some of which are from sites other than IBM — and I knew it was a resource to share. There are about 20 tutorials listed here, and new ones are being added continuously.

Some of the more recent ones:

“Backing up your Linux machines” (8/8/01) — this tutorial says it “gives you techniques for covering your back in the worst-case scenario.” It’s a java script tutorial that requires a short registration process.

“Configuring TCP/IP under Linux” (10/29/01) — this is a two-hour tutorial that addresses the origins of TCP/IP and how it works. The description says, “We discuss the various network configuration files required by Linux, how to initialize a network interface, and how to edit the system’s routing table.”

“Creating dynamic web sites with PHP and MySQL” (5/15/01) — the description for this tutorial claims it will teach you to use PHP and MySQL in an hour. “When we are finished, you
will know how dynamic sites work and how they serve the content, and you will be ready to serve your own dynamic content from your site.” That sounds like something worth investigating.

“Beginning Haskell” (9/27/01) — it will take you two hours to complete this tutorial, and when you finish you’ll have had a “gentle introduction to the paradigm of functional programming, with specific illustrations in the Haskell 98 language.”

As mentioned earlier the site also links to select outside tutorials, such as the Brave GNU World tutorials, which cover a whole range of subjects themselves; the BasicLinux courses, which have accompanying mailing lists; and Advanced Linuxconf, winner of a Linux Magazine “editor’s choice award” and brought to us by Solucorp.

IBM’s list of Linux tutorials is an excellent resource and a “must bookmark” URL. I invite you to share your bookmark file’s best-kept secrets – send me a note telling me about your favorite Linux and Open Source-related sites.