This Books Learn-Through-Tasks Approach

This Book’s Learn-Through-Tasks Approach

The best way to learn a computer system is to get your hands on it. To help you learn Linux, this book takes a task-oriented approach. Where possible, I step you through the process of working with a feature, such as setting up a network or configuring your desktop.

When you are done with a task, you should have a good, basic setup of the feature that it covers. After that, I often provide pointers to further information on tweaking and tuning the feature.

Instead of assuming that you already know about cryptic topics such as troff, NFS, and TCP/IP, I ease you into those features with headings such as “Publishing with Fedora,” “Setting up a File Server,” and “Connecting to the Internet.” Heck, if you already knew what all those things were and how to get them working, you wouldn’t need me, would you?

When many tools can be used to achieve the same results, I usually present one or two examples. In other words, I don’t describe six different Web browsers, twelve different text editors, and three different news servers. I tell you how to get one or two similar tools really working and then note the others that are available.