Ok, finnally loaded linux on an old tiny hd to learn about it. I loaded it as a server with no graphical interface. After being raised by microsoft's gui I need help learning new commands. Can anyone recommend and books/websites that focus on the command line interface for a server. Specifically i am looking for basic user/group/setup as well as how to see/change my network settings. Also if I decided to run dns which I did not initially install how do I go back and install it. I would install the graphical interface but the Hd is tiny and when all is said and done I want only what is needed to run the server on it. Also I know this is a silly question but what client do users use to attach to the server from a windows machine? Anyway I just loaded it today and this is really my 1st look at it so wish me luck.

Maybe you want to head to your local bookstore(s) and spend a few hours there to scan through those Linux books. Find the one(s) that you feel comfortable reading or easy for you to understand. Personally, I would go with Practical Guide to Linux System by Sobell. You can get a real good deal at amazon.com!

taurus

Another great book for Linux is "Linux in a Nutshell" from O'Reilly.

"Running Linux", also from O'Reilly is also very good, but if you are looking specifically about commands "...in a Nutshell" has pretty much every command there is.

Regards...

"Linux in a Nutshell"

Still can't understand why people keep referring to the WHOLE SYSTEM FULL OF SOFTWARE as "Linux".

"what client do users use to attach to the server from a windows machine?"

It depends upon the server running. Telnet is the most popular interface, just be aware it has no encryption or secure authentication (use OpenSSH for this). Windows comes with a Telnet client already, but you can find a few free ones as well. For Redhat 9, I think sshd is installed by default. Don't forget the RH9 documentation.

"why people keep referring to the WHOLE SYSTEM FULL OF SOFTWARE as 'Linux'"

That is the convention of most OS's. It doesn't make sense to make distinctions for the end user.

Windows is actually the NT kernel on top of HAL, which in turn is interfaced with via major API's. User space is executed by the Session Manager, which spawns the Win32 subsystem, which spawns the core service processes (like winlogin), and finally explorer. Explorer starts all user-initiated processes.

The NT kernel is not reliant on these components, but no one considers Windows apart from them. The same thing applies to Linux. No one uses the Linux kernel apart from its interfaces. Other applications use and extend the functionality of those core components. An OS is a family of components, and generally that family has one name.

The family has one name, like "Fedora Core", "Debian GNU/Linux", or "KNOPPIX" etc etc.

While speaking of all of them in general, I think "Linux System" is good.

You can use apropos to find command related to a specific subject, eg for users and networking:
$ apropos user
$ apropos network
This bings back a list of commands, for each one you can display the manual page, eg:
$ man useradd

As anonproxy says, the client app depends on the service you are running, eg for a mail server the windoze user could use outlook, eudora etc. SSH requires something like PuTTY or SecureCRT, use TridiaVNC or similar for VNC. If you run telnet, ftp, apache (a web server), a mail server or samba (for windoze file and print) the client programs already come with windoze.

For a DNS server, install and have a look into bind (Berkeley Internet Name Domain).

Regarding books, there is nothing quite like a hard copy you can read in bed, in the bath, on the toilet etc....but for electronic documentation check out The Linux Documentation Project which you can find at www.tldp.org You probably already have a load of stuff on your PC (maybe not if you are trying to save space) but have a look under /usr/sahre/doc/

Audiophile: Perhaps if they changed the name of this forum to GNU/Linux or similar it would help.

Maybe they should have a common forum for all *NIX like systems - NetBSD, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Solaris, Linux Systems...
It really doesn't make sense to have a "unix" forum when unix is no more now. Unix was never made for 686 computers. What we have now are Systems which follow some UNIX concepts.

Also, most of the things remain same in FreeBSD, NetBSD and Linux Systems. I don't use FreeBSD but I know how it works, because I use NetBSD. All that changes it the filesystem, the binary format (sometimes), and the OS (kernel).

I know by "unix" they mean unix-like systems, but then Redhat and mandrake are also unix-like systems.

"...when unix is no more now..."

I would tend to disagree with that. Although more people are moving over to linux as an alternative, there are a hell of a lot of unix mainframes still around (think Sun Solaris, SCO, AIX, HP-UX etc.)

Solaris is "Solaris", SCO is "SCO UNIX" , AIX is "AIX", HP-UX is "HP-UX". And I'm not sure who owns the copyright to UNIX.

If Solaris is UNIX then FreeBSD is also UNIX. What part must you have of UNIX so it becomes UNIX?

IMHO, I really think we should have some place common. Most of the basic stuff is shared between all distributions (linux and others). I use BASH in FreeBSD, and also gcc and perl, and so many other things which are available in Mandrake or Redhat too:
XFree86, KDE, Gnome.

"Unix was never made for 686 computers."

Anyone can compile the code with i686 optimizations (with gcc this would be -mcpu=i686, some older builds use the deprecated -mcpu=pentiumpro). C was made for this architecture and many others. (What we know of as) Unix was made to be portable with C - that and high level language advances are why Unix was ported to C about 30 years ago (at the time the idea was fairly experimental and C compilers were not mature).

Which leads into what Unix really is (for starters, just glance at this history). It is not a codebase but rather a series of codebases. That series became very popular around System V. Around System VI, developement branched (not via open source yet) into projects like BSD and what later became AIX. BSD branched into many other things (like HP-UX and Solaris, once called SunOS).

Linux was at first a Minix alternative, which itself was a clone of System V (Minix did not contain AT&T code). The distributions of Linux all use the kernel and GNU components, so they are not real variants (hence the term distribution - packaging and politics). FreeBSD came about from multiple BSD projects, NetBSD from the same branch (parallel developement), and OpenBSD from NetBSD. All the BSD's came from projects which originally began making custom releases of Unix (at Berkeley). Soon most of the AT&T code was replaced (and later open sourced). BSD's are not referred to as clones, because they derive rather directly from the Unix design - in the beginning BSD had to license code from AT&T (most variants are now open source).

SCO Unix comes from Xenix (which has its own interesting history), derived from System VII. It was called SCO Xenix for a while.

MacOSX is actually a Mach kernel (BSD decended) with a FreeBSD and NetBSD userland layer. Darwin is the result.

"who owns the copyright to UNIX."

The Open Group.

"What part must you have of UNIX so it becomes UNIX?"

All of the above systems are Unix-like. When we use this term we most often mean multiuser, POSIX-compliant (other systems like Windows also support POSIX), portable (very important), basic file system hierarchy, and generally bundled with a C-compiler and written mostly in C (more convention). A clone is a system designed to be compatable and very similar to another system, while avoiding licensing fees and perhaps licensed code. Variants (implying parallel branching) or derivatives (implying alternative branching), represent alternative developement branches sharing some code and similar design. To be termed a Unix system is basically inferring that the developement at one point contained AT&T code (I believe HP-UX, Solaris, most BSD's, SCO Unix, and AIX all qualify). It can be very nebulous when you try to be too particular, but these systems do have their own particulars.

". Most of the basic stuff is shared between all distributions "

Yes, the libraries, compilers, shells, and other applications (like window managers) are the same and usually compatible. Among Linux this is true. Binary (syscall and format, not architecture) emulation is a feature across most Unix-like systems. Remember, a lot of the differences between systems are in their design, not necesarily extended components. Case in point, Linux vs. BSD. Technical differences are however aplenty (long enough post as it is though).

Question for MIKELDS? why not install the GUI if you are comfortable with a GUI then install it the rest will come to you
Look Linux is a lot of things but to the novice its a bunch of black screen garbage that doesnt make sense install KDE and have some fun 2 gig max of HDD space will get you going Hell I'll send you a 2gig drive if youll pay the shipping