Learn Linux to develop

Hello All,

I am a total noob in the Linux industry and know nothing much about it. But I want to learn about development. I don't know if learning about the Linux operating system and the development are one and the same, I however want to be an expert in Linux.

Thanks for any help in advance.

Welcome to the world of open source. While your question requires more of an opinionated answer I will say what I think. First off, development and usage of Linux are TOTALLY different. This, I think, everyone can agree on. I also think learning how to use the system is required before you can start development. Do you have any development experience in Windows or OS X ? The principles of both of those systems are very different than what the Linux community requires.

So, whether you are going to write programs for Linux users or your own Linux patchsets, learning how to use the system is most important. And, of course, very different than development.

I'm guilty of writing mini-novels on these forums regarding the importance of Linux in most technical professions:
http://www.linux.org/threads/why-should-i-get-linux-over-windows-8.4268/#post-10901
But in a nutshell Linux knowledge can go a long way in most tech positions. 'Development' is a very broad description as you can code and develop applications without ever using Linux, but the accessibility of the system components in Linux will no doubt give you a better understanding of how a computer works and will allow for exposure to much more code and coding opportunities than any of the proprietary OSes.

There are debates whether fully 'jumping in' to Linux is better than dual booting with Windows or not. It may be a personal preference but I recommend jumping in and most importantly USE THE COMMAND-LINE as much as possible. At first it seems primitive and slow for doing simple things like moving files or opening a program, but the most you get used to it the easier it will be and will eventually be much faster than double-clicking through file directories in your GUI.

If you want to ease into development Shell scripting in Linux is a good way to start as it will provide you with fundamentals like control statements or loops used in most other languages, and they are easy to run and use right way. If you want to go hardcore, start with C and stick with it. Once you master C all other languages will be a cake-walk (except maybe LISP)

Use virtualbox to host linux while you learn it. When you can do day to day work with only linux then pick up Python or C++ and you can start developing. It sounds a lot easier then it is.. It takes at least a month in most cases for people to get fully accustomed to only linux and longer to learn to program.

Well there is all sorts of developments. What sort of development do you wanna learn for starters?

Hello All,

I am a total noob in the Linux industry and know nothing much about it. But I want to learn about development. I don't know if learning about the Linux operating system and the development are one and the same, I however want to be an expert in Linux.


-The path of developing anything goes from knowing about that thing,same goes with linux.Learing and developement is not exactly the same thing but after learing how it works you can

move ahead with developement. one thing that should be noticed in the case of linux no one is expert here everyone is learners.