UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

I am new here, and just wanted to know (this may seem stupid), I work with windows primarily at my job, and want to keep my UNIX skills good, what suggetions would anyone in the forum have. (e.g. practice everyday, hints, etc.). I just want to get good at unix, and want to increase my skill level. Any sugestions would be helpful, just looking for a new way to learn this OS. Thank you!!!!

You've come to the right place to learn UNIX - what I've not been able to find in books I've managed to find here.

I would say that if your into programming then learn sed and awk as they will make your life a lot easier!

Cheers, pondlife.

I'd recommend reading some books published by O'Reilly. Learning the Unix Operating System is good if you are a beginner. If you're comfortable navigating around Unix at the command line (creating directories, copying files, etc.) but want to really leverage its power, read Learning the Korn Shell. You'll probably also want to learn as much as you can about using vi, sed, and awk.

Reading about it only takes you so far, however. The best way to learn, in my opinion, is to immerse yourself. Get an account on a Unix box at work, install Unix/Linux on a cheapie personal computer, find a free account online, etc. Force yourself to use Unix for something that you normally would use Windows to do, and don't give up until you get it to work. You'll learn a lot that way. And try to avoid using the graphical user interfaces (if available) in Unix as much as you can. Learning to work from the command line is good.

THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!! I appreciate it gentlemen!!!!!