How to Learn Linux Networking

[skullbringer]

I am 17 and I recently applied for a job as an IT-Systems technician. The company I am going to most likely work for does a lot of the Network Administration for Audi (car manufacteuirer, just to clarify) in Ingolstadt, Germany.

From what they told me, they are working a lot with OSX for production workstations and a lot of Linux for Networking and Servers. 

 

So I guess I should "learn" Linux or at least get to know the basics. So here comes my question: What would you recommend to learn Linux? Should I just download VMware and make myself a little Linux-desktop vm, or are there special applications / structures in Linux networking that I dont have on the standard deskop version (ubuntu)?

 

Thx 

[Tesseract83233]

this guy: http://www.youtube.com/user/shivayveer?feature=watch has a lot of good videos for beginners

especially this series: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-u1jVKTWNso

[mrlibre]

Hello skullbringer. I hope to one day get into the IT/sysadmin field like you, and for the past 8 months I have been using Linux exclusively in an effort to become familiar with it, so hopefully I can offer my input to help you start learning Linux. The following assumes you haven't used Linux before, so apologies if it is too basic.

Now, based on your claim that Linux where you work will be used on servers only, I would suggest that learning Linux for your work would likely involve:

1) Becoming familiar with whatever server/database software your company uses (if possible, find out what they use and read it's documentation on your spare time)

2) If you are going to be interfacing with these servers yourself, it will be necessary to learn the common command-line utilities in BASH, as professional servers will never include a graphical desktop, so you will need to know how to use the shell.

3) Doing Linux related "projects" in your spare time that are related to networking. For example, I made an Apache server on a spare Linux-box a few weeks ago that I plan to use for uploading files to.

Now, to start learning Linux, you...

#1) CHOOSE A DISTRIBUTION (a "Distro")

As you probably know, GNU/Linux is free and open-source software based on UNIX, so naturally anyone can create their own version of this OS as long as they stick to the GPL license. Today there are Hundreds of distributions, the most popular being Ubuntu, a descendant of Debian. In my eyes you have a few options for choosing a distribution to learn Linux on. If you are prepared for a less friendly, more advanced, but awesome distribution for learning, I would recommend jumping into Arch Linux, but more on that in a moment. If you want to take it slow, and start off with an easier distribution and build up from there, I would recommend Linux Mint or Ubuntu. The only real difference between them is the default set of packages/applications/Desktop Environment, but more beginners seem to prefer Mint because one of it's environments, cinnamon,feels similar to windows and is more configurable than Ubuntu's Unity desktop, but it's your choice (pictures of both DE's are near the bottom of that last link). As for Arch Linux, it's a great distro because of it's awesome wiki, great philosophy, and it's perfect for learning because it forces you to use the command-line to set it up (and it really doesn't have any defaults, you make the defaults!), so you will be getting Linux experience automatically by installing it (Here is Arch's current install guide. It's not as hard as it looks.) Other "hard" distributions include Linux from Scratch, and Gentoo, but keep in mind you have to compile the software from these yourself, which takes time on older machines. Also keep in mind that not very much makes a distribution "special" or "unique" besides it's developer's choice of defaults, kernel version, package management, low level utilities, etc. Moving on...

#2) LEARNING THE COMMAND-LINE

If you are just interacting with Linux through these servers, your only option will be to use the command-line. Here is a beginners guide on writing BASH scripts, and here is a more advanced one with plenty of examples. Here is also a good reference for standalone, common bash commands. And some advice, if you are unsure about a command, type: man (command) . Man means manual, always read the manual!

Basic file management in bash includes:

ls - Print files in current or working directory
cd - Change the current directory
pwd - Print the working/current directory
rm - remove a file
mkdir - create a directory

etc... Here is another list of commands according to the unix specification.

#3) TRY STUFF!

If you want to try installing some server software on Linux, it's important to know how the package management provided by your Linux distribution works. In case you are unaware, downloading and installing applications in Linux is usually done through software repositories + command utilities as opposed to downloading and running a graphical installer like on Windows. There are only a handful of main ones, including dpkg/apt-get for ubuntu + debian and their descendants, yum/rpm for Redhat/Fedora Linux, zypper/yast for open-suse, pacman for Arch, etc. Some distributions have a graphical application (or a front-end) for package management (Linux mint uses synaptic, Ubuntu uses the ubuntu software center), but it's good to know these commands for downloading and installing stuff. Anyway, if you are interested in learning how to use Linux, you will likely want to install some software, so don't be afraid to try. Google can answer most of your questions if you are stuck, and there are always online forums where you can ask for help (askubuntu, linuxquestions, etc). Also, don't be afraid to try another distro if you don't like one, because there are plenty of them!


USEFUL LINKS

-Here is a (rather long) rundown on Unix and Linux from a professor's lecture, and it's interesting if you want to learn some of the history.

-Here and Here are 2 websites that write very good Linux news articles.

-Here is a very good "cheat-sheet" for linux BASH commands (note that some of these are distro specific)

-Assuming you don't mind Reddit, some forums for asking linux questions are /r/linux4noobs and /r/linuxquestions. You might also be interested in /r/sysadmin and /r/linuxadmin too.

Good luck, and I will likely be adding to this list in the near future. If you have any questions, I will also be glad to answer them and share some of my experience if needed.