Acknowledgments

The Linux Newbie Administrator Guide (LNAG) is hosted FREE OF CHARGE on the SunSite server at Aalborg University, Denmark ( http://sunsite.dk/linux-newbie ). Thanks to Esben Haabendal Soerensen <bart@sunsite.auc.dk>.

Thanks to "Linux Supplies" (http://www.linsup.com/newbie/) for hosting our free Australian mirror.

Thanks to Andamooka for hosting LNAG among their great free books.

Thanks to the UMBC (University of Maryland Baltimore County) Linux Users Group who hosted our free USA mirror for a while.

Major help and advice was received from (alphabetical order): Alan W. Irwin <irwin@beluga.phys.uvic.ca>, Benjamin Smith <bens@saber.net>, Barbara Klimas <bklimas@magma.ca>, Ben McCosh <ben@albagroup.com>,  Bill Staehle <staehle@netvalue.net>, Bill Unruh <unruh@physics.ubc.ca>, Brian Kelsay <ripcrd6@kcinter.net>, Ding-Hou Lee <dl105@columbia.edu>, Gary <swear@aa.net>, Greg Mizell <GMizell@peek-traffic.com>, Jeff Greenlee <greenj@analogy.com>, jeff covey <jeff.covey@pobox.com>, Juhapekka Tolvanen <juhtolv@st.jyu.fi>, Ken Foskey <waratah@zip.com.au>, and Maria Klimas. Special thanks to the Portland Linux User Group!

Thanks to the several dozen others who sent comments or good word to us.  We always appreciate any feedback. We received no flames so far :-) . Sorry if we could not answer specific questions you sent us on your particularly annoying problem :((

Thanks to the few thousands who developed GNU/Linux. Should I mention Richard Stalman and Linus Torvalds by name?

Other Matters

You can see that this guide was written by newbies for newbies. It should never be considered an authoritative source on any subject--there are much more exhaustive docs, typically more difficult to read too :-),  most of them available right on your Linux system in the directory /usr/doc .  Please e-mail us immediately if you spot a mistake that can confuse or mislead a new Linux user--this work is in progress and the current version may contain such mistakes. Don't use this guide if your life was to depend on it!

If you wanted to contribute a part (on a useful Linux topic of your choice), we would like to hear from you--we will be happy to include a part with your name, etc. The only condition is that your advice be easy to follow by newbies like us.

If you create your own mirror, pls make sure to update it at least from time to time. LNAG is under development and inaccuracies are found and corrected on regular basis.

Hope this helps.  Best regards,  Stan and Peter Klimas.

Our Rewards and Testimonials

The Linux Newbie Administrator Guide (LNAG) has been on-line since February, 1999.  Our web pages were visited by (estimated) 0.5 million readers,  and linked to more than 3000 www sites (most perishable though).  We write the "guide" for a joy of it, while we are learning Linux, which is reflected in the contents of the guide.

We are proud that our Guide was:

o Awarded "Link van de dag" ("Link of the Day") by Dutch NL.linux.org in March 1999:   "Alles wat je als newbie zou moeten weten."   http://www.nl.linux.org/index/link_van_de_dag.html

o Mentioned twice by "Linux Today", the best source of Linux News: Apr 14th 1999:  http://linuxtoday.com/stories/4985.html,  and Oct 25, 1999:   http://linuxtoday.com/stories/11525.html.

o Mentioned twice by the prestigous Linux Weekly News:  http://lwn.net/1999/0422/announce.phtml and http://lwn.net/2000/0803/a/lnag.php3

o Mentioned by LinuxWord Czech digest, May, 1999: http://online.idg.cz:8080/cw_news.nsf/4f682153745289cdc12566b80055b9df/999e7c8725ec0848c1256767004ed0dc
Příručka administrátora pro začínající uživatele.  Pro začínající uživatele Linuxu přibyl velice zajímavý dokument. Jedná se o příručku "Linux Newbie Administrator", která je psána linuxovým začátečníkem. Autor sám píše, že Linux používá pouze devět měsíců, ale to je možná v tomto případě výhoda - je jistě blíže potenciálnímu čtenáři než některý linuxový guru. Příručka se nachází na webové serveru (http://sunsite.auc.dk/linux-newbie/) a obsahuje poměrně jednoduché návody na činnosti, které jako správce vašeho linuxového systému budete nucen dělat. Související URL: sunsite.auc.dk/linux-newbie/

o Awarded "Best of Linux Winner" by the popular portal "Dave Central" (subsidiary of Andover), August 20, 1999:  http://linux.davecentral.com/bol_19990820.html: "Best of Linux Archive Getting Linux. Andover. Best of Linux Winner August 20, 1999. Newbie Administrator Guide Tutorials - Getting Started:

"There are two ways to approach Linux use. One is strictly as a user; you can work away, and leave it to a guru friend to fix problems and add new features to your system.

"The do-it-yourself types in the crowd may be satisfied with this for awhile, but eventually, they'll want to get under the hood themselves. The Newbie Administrator Guide is geared toward such folks, and provides a gentle introduction to the craft of maintaining a Linux system. There are other comprehensive works on the subject, such as The Linux System Administrators' Guide, but they're mostly geared toward professional sysadmins who deal with lots of machines with lots of users.

"The Newbie Admin Guide (NAG hereafter) is of more immediate use to the home user who has decided to take on the task of caring and nurturing for her machine herself. Like a lot of great tutorials, the NAG started with users, the Klimas family in this case, who went through the struggle to set things up and said, "Why should other people go through the same work when we've already done it?" So, they started making notes about what they'd done, and put them on the Web for everyone's benefit.

"The NAG assumes you're starting from ground zero, offering explanations of what Linux is, why you'd want to use it, and where to get it, but moves on to clear and detailed explanations of complex issues you'll face when you try to configure and troubleshoot your system. If you've flipped through book after book but found yourself out of your depth and longing for simple, direct explanations, give the NAG a try. "


o  Recommended by popular http://www.linuxlinks.com/Beginners/:  "Linux Newbie Administrator Guide.  Simple answers to problems that Linux newbies frequently encounter while setting up/using/administrating their computer or home network."

o Linked by German http://www.linuxstart.de/einsteiger/index.htm: "Linux Newbie Administrator Guide: Von der Installation, Wartung, Tastaturbefehle bis zur Kernel-Rekompilierung."

o Recommended by a Danish linuxer: http://www.sslug.dk/emailarkiv/novice/1999_04/msg00013.html  To: sslug-novice@sslug.dk  Subject: Newbie site!   From: "Thomas Mřrch" <thm@eci.dk>  Date: Wed, 14 Apr 1999 10:16:45 +0200  Delivered-To: mailing list sslug-novice@sslug.dk  Mailing-List: contact sslug-novice-help@sslug.dk; run by ezmlm.  Newsgroups: sslug.novice.  Organization: SSLUG.  Reply-to: sslug-novice@sslug.dk. Hejsa  Sĺ lige denne site, der blev annonceret pĺ njlug's liste.. Tćnkte at den mĺske kunne gřre nytte her :)  http://sunsite.auc.dk/linux-newbie/  - Thomas.

o Recommended by Brasilian: http://www.dicas-l.unicamp.br/dicas-l/20000809.shtml
[...]Eu já li e imprimi este manual e realmente é uma excelente fonte de consulta, inclusive já tendo sido divulgado anteriormente nesta lista.  O manual é gratuito e licenciado sob a GPL, ou seja, com total liberdade de uso, modificaçăo e distribuiçăo. Para os interessados, o endereço é http://sunsite.auc.dk/linux-newbie/

o Reviewed by Italian general interest portal "100-Links": http://www.100links.com/archivio/990322.html:
Una guida per chi č proprio agli inizi: la primissima parte č dedicata agli indecisi (per vedere se conviene o meno passare al Linux), dopodiché si arriva alle istruzioni per l'installazione, all'elenco delle principali risorse presenti sulla Rete e ad una pratica lista dei comandi piů diffusi, che almeno all'inizio rischiano di essere difficili da ricordare. http://sunsite.auc.dk/linux-newbie/

o Pointed to by linux.com, the top Linux web portal: http://www.linux.com/firststep/

o Mentioned by Polish newssite "linuxnews.pl": http://linuxnews.pl/news.html?id=12247: [...] jeden z największych darmowych podręczników Linuksa. [Jeden] z najpełniejszych źródeł informacji o Linuksie dla początkujących. Dystrybuowany na zasadach licencji GPL, dwustustronicowy podręcznik dostępny jest w wielu językach, w tym również po polsku [...]

o Pointed to by the "Linux Documentation Project" website, the mother of all Linux documentation: http://www.linuxdoc.org/links/links.html

Please let us know if you write a word on our pages or make a link or whatever--we will be happy to mention you here.
 

Changes

Feb. , 2001. Added: How to disable ping for security.  How to increase the max number of open files. How to use file redirection with the licq fifo file. How to use kernel SysRq key combinations. How can the linux sourcecode be useful for a newbie. How are directory permissions different from those for regular files. The LNAG html files are now optimized using htmlclean.
February 03, 2001 - version 0.105. This is the 105th increamental update. The zero in front means that the guide is still not finished. The Licence was changed from GPL to modified Open Contents Licence (OCL). Minor updates and cosmetics all over the guide. Change history and the description of LNAG sources were included.
February 1999 - version 0.01 released under the terms of the General Public Licence (GPL)
 

LNAG Sources

The Linux Newbie Administrator Guide (LNAG) is written in HTML using many editors. Before posting, the heading are inserted to the source files for consistency of the versioning and release date, and the postscript, pdf, and zip files are updated using a customized bash script with calls to the utilities: sed, htmlclean, html2ps, ps2pdf, and zip. Email us if you needed the original sources or the script.