The Ubuntu Beginner's Guide - Thirteenth Edition (Updated for 20.04)

After reading through the book on Kindle and then trying some of the suggestion I found that this book is useful in using the command line. You should be somewhat familiar with it from either older computer when no user graphic interface(GUI) was available or more sophisticated high-end computer where it is used more than the GUI. Care should be taken in using these commands since you are dealing with your machine on a systems level.

no table of contents,no index,no glossery,no way to find what I need without memorizing the whole book, NOT A REFERENCE BOOK,not helpfull when i need help now

It's a pretty good bet that most folks taking the leap into any Linux distribution are not Luddites, and probably already accomplished users of other operating systems (and whether it's an Apple or Microsoft operating system, they probably have some idea of what's going on behind the GUI and how all the parts fit together...physically and logically).In my case, I used Unix machines at work for about about 8 years before a corporate migration to Redmond products a decade ago. With the increasing user friendliness of some Linux distros, a recent download of Ubuntu 12.04.1 (Precise Pangolin) allowed me to finally perform most of the tasks that I can do in Windows (an earlier Linux excursion about five years ago ended when I was unable to get a wireless network adapter or sound to work in three different distributions).Le's start with some praise for the current Ubuntu release. 12.04.1 arrived in a downloaded Windows installer package that automatically set up a dual operating system bootloader menu. It appears after the BIOS splash screen and allows permits running both Windows 7 and Ubuntu on the same machine. I added a [[ASIN:B0036R9XRU Netgear USB wireless adapter that Ubuntu recognized immediately), accepted some updates from Canonical and was up and running in a shiny new Linux distro. Unbuntu immediately recognized my wireless mouse, ran the monitor at the correct resolution, and both sound and Internet connectivity were immediately available.And then it became clear that I needed a little more help than my now faded memories of Unix command line interactions were mostly gone. Jonathan Moeller's "The Ubuntu Beginner's Guide" was exactly what I needed to rediscover the power of the command line terminal, and to help me through things that had always been done for me by sysadmins in the past (like installing software).The book's table of contents includes 22 chapters addressing 15 main activities in three broad categories (command line use/basic administration, server operations and games/miscellaneous). He assumes some comfort with technology, but not intimate knowledge of Linux or Unix.Three minor issues that keep this from being a 5-star reference guide:(1) The author is rather self-referential about his other career as a genre fiction writer. One mention would have been sufficient. Instead, the end of the book "bonus content" is an excerpt of his fictional material.(2) No consolidated list of commands and syntaxes. This would have been far more welcome than the excerpt of his fictional material.(3) No index. While the TOC has a rather narrow taxonomy, an index would have been very welcome.For the very reasonable price of this ebook (which I could view on the Ubuntu machine I was using via Amazon's cloud reader and an adjacent Kindle simultaneously), this is a good tool for the Ubuntu beginner.

Learning Ubuntu can be daunting to those who are new (like the millions now seeking an alternative to Windows XP and wishing to abandon Microsuck for good), and this little book makes it all very clear. Once you get into the groove, you'll begin to love the simplicity and logic behind Ubuntu. I suggest searching Amazon Books for "Ubuntu" and buying all of the wonderful and inexpensive small books for beginners. Reason? Some will speak to you on some of the things that remain unclear in the others. This was a real help to me and took (nearly) all of the frustration out of the learning curve.This book is a particularly good one and is well presented in lay terms. Highly recommended.

Had some good basic information. Is outdated, I was using Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, and almost all the 'programs' used in the book have new names and could not use the book instructions to get them installed. Very frustrating when you don't know what your doing. I do not recommend getting this book. Command lines are now different and spend a lot of time on Google to get current information for how to use commands and what the syntax is.

Yep, this is a great book and an absolute essential for anyone getting to grips with Linux and/or the Bash shell.The author has a gift for explaining things very simply and clearly. Theory is kept to a minimum and there's plenty of practical examples to help the reader understand the basics of the linux OS.Although this book is about Ubuntu, in fact there is much that anyone using any flavor of Unix, Linux or the Bash Shell (such as Mac OS X users) will find invaluable. I've been playing with all of these on and off for some years but the author still managed to make things that I had half understood crystal clear and some things that other books had made sound confusing easy to understand.Given the price point of $2.99, there's really no reason not to buy this book if you're just starting or wanting to start to learn about Ubuntu or Linux.The only reason that I didn't give it 5 stars is that there's about five chapters near the end that seem to be quite obvious padding (such as those on gaming, WINE and eBooks). Perhaps the author had run out of material and the publishers demanded a longer manuscript, I don't know, but those few chapters seemed both out of place and of little value. That still leaves you with 17 out of 22 chapters of excellent learning material from which you'll learn a great deal, so I wouldn't hesitate to buy it if you are approaching Linux as a newbie.

Read the whole thing and I don't feel like I learned anything new or like I understand Ubuntu any better. I did learn a few things but I think this is more for total beginners.It's not bad and there definitely is information. I just didn't get much use out of it.

This ebook does a good job at focusing on the basic command line usage in Ubuntu 12.04.It is definitely geared towards beginners, but that does not mean it does not contain useful information!If you are new to Ubuntu, and you sometimes find yourself lost, this is a good start.The author states that he prefers to repeat instructions as opposed to saying "See chapter 4 for setting up apache", so the last 1/3 of the book is a lot of repeated text.

It is a good guide and reasonably priced. Esp when you want to know what a Sudo su is. Most books have pages of hyperbole to ready before you get to the nitty gritty Jonathan jumps right in and lets you see what does what. He gives you tips on what not to do and that it the thing, he explains as he goes along but still manages to make his text lively.

Having installed Ubuntu on a single machine for my own use, I wanted a book that would guide me through the basics. Essentially a hand holding for the first few weeks. This is not that book. It immediately goes into command line usage, when modern Ubuntu is so much more. It taught me to set up groups of people on the machine as well as how to set it up as a server. I didn't want any of that. I simply wanted a simple intro, that guided me through an unfamiliar territory. If you've already done that, then maybe this might help. Otherwise, find something more suitable, like I will have to.

With this book, you can move from Windows or Mac to the world of Linux. If you see computing as a hobby then Ubuntu is for you. There are only a handful of linux commands that you need to understand to use Ubuntu productively. This book will tell you all that you need to know and then some more.

As a beginner i found this book very informative and helpful. Its also a good reference / reminder for Linus commands that i bought the paperback for home and also a kindle version for my iphone.

No Contents listing or index, without which this is nearly useless - for me - as it takes ages to find what I want.OK for linear readers. Why? It got me at Ubuntu 20.04 in the blurb.