Which book is best? - Linux in a Nutshell, How Linux Works, ...

papertape

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$51 944 pages, Linux in a Nutshell - published 13 years ago
$31 464 pages, How Linux Works - Published last year
$53 830 pages, Linux: The Complete Reference - Published 2007

My first step is setting GRUB multi-boot, with Ubuntu on one SSD and Windows on another SSD. Which book covers that?
 


You can search for those directions pretty easily. You'll find multiple articles, surely. There will also be ample videos showing how to do that, if you prefer video content. You really don't need to buy a book for that and none of them are likely to cover that specifically, and certainly not specifically for Ubuntu.

There are some Ubuntu-specific books, but I'd skip those. If I were to recommend a book, I'd say get the newest edition of The Linux Bible. It'll be about $50 or $60, but you might find it on sale. Get the newest version, which I believe is 10. That'll have been updated within the past year or three.

I wouldn't bother with an older book, especially as a new user. There have been DRASTIC changes between now and then, so some of the information will be invalid and a new user wouldn't know what to rely on. So, The Linux Bible is a much newer book and is a very good book - I believe. I have 8 and 10 but haven't finished reading 10. I've only skimmed through it.

So, if nothing else, that eliminates two of your options while suggesting another.

There might be a recent update to the For Dummies type of books and those are actually usually pretty good.
 
Thanks! My next life-affirming project is a netsearch for GRUB stuff.
So far I have
https://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/grub/grub.html
https://linuxhint.com/grub_boot_loader_full_tutorial/
I borrowed Linux in a Nutshell from a library.
Chapter 3 Linux Commands, 471 pages, half the book! - Appears to be a gathering of man pages, but with some details. Nice to have in one place.
Chapter 4 Boot Methods, 38 pages - LILO and GRUB. It shows the book's age (c 2009): there are paragraphs for creating a boot CD and a boot floppy. And there is a section "Dual-Booting Linux and Windows 2000/XP/Vista". Ah, nostalgia...
(Rant: paper books and html docs are nice, but they lack the searchability of PDF files. Kudo's to the GNU people: that single-window html file is searchable and prints to a 163-page searchable PDF! Yay.)
 
I wouldn't make it tougher on yourself than it needs to be. These days, you mostly just disable quick boot in Windows and then install. GRUB should recognize Windows exists and give you the opportunity to boot to it during the boot phase.

Of course, it's sometimes a bit more complicated, but folks can usually get you squared away if things go pear shaped.
 
Yep, books are great but with Linux they become outdated very quickly. Dual boot with windows is not that difficult and there is plenty of info from a web search which can help with that.

But if you insist on a book Running Linux has always been a favorite of mine.
Good luck. Enjoy the journey!
Welcome to Linux.org forum.
 
I borrowed Linux In A Nutshell from my local library.
It's full of thousands of Linux commands and that's about it.

The Debian Administrators Hand Book is useful.
You can read it online.


Once you install Linux make sure you update Grub so the next time your pc boots you will have the option to go to Linux or Windows.

Code:
sudo update-grub
 
Ubuntu Linux Bible ha a version that came out last yr.
You can download a copy of the Debian Handbook for free. If you are running Debian you can also install it.
Debian Handbook

Code:
sudo apt install debian-handbook debian-reference-en

The distro with the best documentation is Arch, their wiki covers anything and everything.
 

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