(Part 2) Best products from r/linuxquestions

If he's been talking about getting one, then you can't go wrong with a really basic kit. There are some kits with the micro-sd flash card but IMHO they charge too high of a premium for those. Here's a 32GB micro sd card I've used with no problems and very cost effective. From there, you will have to figure out what he wants to do with it. If he wants to run a media server for instance, you'll want to get a bigger micro sd card or get an external usb hdd. There are literally over 100 different sensors that can be used in Rpi projects so having some idea of what he wants to try would really help. Popular projects are things like pet feeders or light controllers or "magic mirrors". You can google and find detailed instructions and shopping lists for these types of projects. You can get him a starter set of common sensors like this or this for home automation. These kits are good if he doesn't know what he wants to do and just wants to tinker around but if he knows what project he wants to do, then it's better to get the basic kit and an amazon gift card so he can buy exactly what he needs.

A kit I always thought would be a cool gift for someone interested in Raspberry Pi is a retro gaming kit which will run old arcade games. The kit I linked has a usb drive with the game ROMs included but at a $10 premium. You can opt for the cheaper kit and download the ROMs from various sources online. This give him a something fun to start with and he can always pull the Rpi out and buy another flash and use it with sensors or other projects in the future.

> Thanks for the advice.

No worries, always good to have a working backup prior to messing with anything; make sure to test the restore though before you tinker. You never know when that backup is a dud until its too late.

> This is for a friend of a friend and a good opportunity.

Understandable, usually the golden mark is two years of experience with some reputable certifications under your belt. I wouldn't put much weight on the A+ line of certs, if your looking for Linux Administration focus on RHCSA its a practical exam and will carry more weight than A+ and CCNA for Infrastructure. Those two are well considered and some companies will hire you just for your CCNA Cisco partner discount.

Document everything that you can for yourself (6 months down the line). First year I carried a composition book around where I wrote down most of my solutions; saved so much time later on when I couldn't remember what I'd done to fix something. Also pickup a copy of the bible if your serious about this as a career.

Understanding the Linux Kernel is great and, obviously, very specific to Linux.

​

Linus has cited that he read Bach's book about the design and implementation of UNIX as inspiration for the development of Linux.

​

Read both and really enjoyed them! I hope you like!

You can't have it both ways. if you want to know exactly then you have to drill down to the fundamentals which are handled at a low level (C & assembly). If you want to understand the general concepts you'll need to make lateral moves and study CS along with having enough of the tiny details to fill in the gaps with your intuition.

I think what you may like is a book on the linux API. This is between kernelland and userland.

Try this one:

https://www.amazon.com/Linux-Programming-Interface-System-Handbook/dp/1593272200

Before you do that ensure you know enough basic C. Linux kernel uses K&R style. So this might be good enough and your best bet to fasttrack.

https://www.amazon.com/Programming-Language-2nd-Brian-Kernighan/dp/0131103628

Do keep in mind this is 2K pages worth of reading. This should help to fill in enough of what you don't know you don't know so that you can better use google-fu to get you further.

> Fedora live

I don't boot ISO's, I boot full installs. This means exactly the same functionality you get with installs to internal drives, including ability to read/write files as normal.

My installs function both as systems I can boot on any laptop, or use to rescue a system.

Here is the best value/performance drive I have encountered and the one I use https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00KT7DXIU/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

This book is pretty much a RHEL bible:

http://www.amazon.com/RHCSA-Linux-Certification-Study-Seventh/dp/0071841962

Great resource.

The exams give you some of the foundation blocks for a lot of the more advanced stuff. I think they are worth it.

>Realtek

Realtek is a mixed bag on linux and honestly, I can't suggest an atheros card more to anyone planning on doing any work on Linux. Dump Realtek whenever you can.

Research any product made by tp-link. They TEND to use atheros wifi drivers for their products but always be sure before you purchase one. I've had a 5ghz model of one of their wifi cards in my desktop for ages that's been working like a fucking champ. They also won't break the bank, most of them cost around $30 at most on amazon.

As long as you stay away from no-name Chinese stuff it should be fine. I recently bought this TP-Link for $10.

It worked with my settings as soon as I plugged it in, the speed is great, and though my WAP is sitting on my desk, I can connect and get good speed from the WAP in my wife's office completely on the other side of the house.

Definitely!
I got this. I made absolutely sure it'd just work right out of the box, and apparently this one does the job nicely.

>I can troubleshoot problems with my computer by myself.

A helpful resource is the book 'Self Service Linux'. It goes into detail about using the available tools to troubleshoot problems.

>I have a NVIDIA GPU. I don't know if Nouveau is worth using.

If you're not gaming nouveau should be good enough.

Edit: I just did a google search for Self Service Linux expecting to get an Amazon link and instead the first result is a pdf for the complete book. I'm assuming it's OK to put it here.

https://ptgmedia.pearsoncmg.com/images/013147751X/downloads/013147751X_book.pdf

xargs
sed
grep
awk
tail -f
find
less
vi
ls
wc
pwd
cat
blkid
lsblk
df -h
if/for/while/case
piping with |

There are really too many to list; I'd highly recommend checking out A Practical Guide to Linux Commands, Editors, and Shell Programming (3rd Edition) by Mark Sobell. It got me started on working from the command line and helped me move from a Help Desk position to a Sysadmin job a few years ago.

If you'll be working with AWS definitely check out their CLI documentation

Thanks. been using Krita for a while for animation. It works great. I was looking at this one,pretty sure it is the newer version of the draw, not sure. https://www.amazon.com/Wacom-Drawing-Software-Included-CTL4100/dp/B079HL9YSF/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=wacom&qid=1551322782&s=gateway&sr=8-3

I'll give you a summary of all the best advice ITT plus some from me:

• Hardware options
  
  • Get 2GB RAM on Amazon for $6.
    
  • Get an SSD on Amazon for $20.
    
  • Look into zswap or zram depending on what hardware you buy or don't buy.
    
  • Decrease swappiness to 1, if you get an SSD but not RAM
    
• Install Void distro plus i3wm.
  
• Browser options:
  
  • Use surf web browser (GUI)
    
  • elinks (terminal) for extremely light experience
    
  • Compile a 2nd instance of surf with javascript disabled, for lighter browsing.
    
  • If you decide to go without a desktop, look into NetSurf framebuffer support.
    
• Use st terminal. Requires tmux for scrolling.

Lol what? motherboards have a "core" rating? since when?
as mentioned in OP I have a :

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 1700X Eight-Core @ 16x 3.4GHz [29.0°C]`

and Then my motherboard is:
https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/ROG-STRIX-X370-F-GAMING/


Something like this? https://www.amazon.com/Insten-24-pin-Power-Supply-Tester/dp/B005CTCD6S
what will that do since my computer can run benchmarked at 100% for weeks without issue? (genuinely curious)

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01HF0K5WA/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03__o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

​

Here's dmesg output:

​

fw id: 1114850

[ 4.145918] psmouse serio1: synaptics: serio: Synaptics pass-through port at isa0060/serio1/input0

[ 4.203774] input: SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad as /devices/platform/i8042/serio1/input/input9

[ 4.309468] wl 0000:03:00.0 wlp3s0: renamed from wlan0

[ 4.352608] mousedev: PS/2 mouse device common for all mice

[ 4.377486] nouveau 0000:01:00.0: bios: version 70.08.aa.00.0b

[ 4.391491] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlp3s0: link is not ready

[ 4.589275] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlp3s0: link is not ready

[ 4.621071] nouveau 0000:01:00.0: fb: 2048 MiB DDR3

[ 4.676809] vga_switcheroo: enabled

[ 4.676972] [TTM] Zone kernel: Available graphics memory: 3880096 kiB

[ 4.676973] [TTM] Zone dma32: Available graphics memory: 2097152 kiB

[ 4.676973] [TTM] Initializing pool allocator

[ 4.676977] [TTM] Initializing DMA pool allocator

[ 4.676994] nouveau 0000:01:00.0: DRM: VRAM: 2048 MiB

[ 4.676995] nouveau 0000:01:00.0: DRM: GART: 1048576 MiB

[ 4.676999] nouveau 0000:01:00.0: DRM: TMDS table version 2.0

[ 4.677001] nouveau 0000:01:00.0: DRM: DCB version 4.0

[ 4.677003] nouveau 0000:01:00.0: DRM: DCB outp 00: 02001300 00000000

[ 4.677005] nouveau 0000:01:00.0: DRM: DCB conn 01: 00000100

[ 4.691300] [drm] Supports vblank timestamp caching Rev 2 (21.10.2013).

[ 4.691301] [drm] Driver supports precise vblank timestamp query.

[ 4.768611] nouveau 0000:01:00.0: DRM: MM: using COPY0 for buffer copies

[ 4.849632] nouveau 0000:01:00.0: DRM: allocated 1024x768 fb: 0x60000, bo ffff8b84beb4d000

[ 4.849765] nouveau 0000:01:00.0: fb1: nouveaufb frame buffer device

[ 4.849800] [drm] Initialized nouveau 1.3.1 20120801 for 0000:01:00.0 on minor 1

[ 4.985023] psmouse serio2: trackpoint: IBM TrackPoint firmware: 0x0e, buttons: 3/3

[ 5.270441] input: TPPS/2 IBM TrackPoint as /devices/platform/i8042/serio1/serio2/input/input15

[ 6.268728] fuse init (API version 7.26)

[ 12.340396] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_CHANGE): wlp3s0: link becomes ready

[ 12.945887] Bluetooth: RFCOMM TTY layer initialized

[ 12.945892] Bluetooth: RFCOMM socket layer initialized

[ 12.945898] Bluetooth: RFCOMM ver 1.11

[ 2151.168678] usb 1-1.2: USB disconnect, device number 3

[ 2157.006217] usb 1-1.2: new full-speed USB device number 5 using ehci-pci

[ 2157.105028] cdc_acm 1-1.2:1.0: ttyACM0: USB ACM device

​

This is definitely right between what you want/need. Check out the Asus C302cA Flip. It's a chromebook, with a fast processor and also, you're able to throw Linux on it as well if you want. You can also find them cheaper on eBay. Here's a link to Amazon, so you can see what i'm talking about. https://www.amazon.com/C302CA-DHM4-Chromebook-12-5-inch-Touchscreen-Convertible/dp/B01N5G5PG2

The issue with that is Linux networking is a specialized topic under networking. You will need to understand Networking FIRST, then delve into how it works in Linux AFTER. TCP/IP and OSI are the same no matter what OS you are running, it's just the tools used to accomplish certain things may be different.

For Networking, try studying materials for the Network+ (I'm not saying take the cert, just use the materials to study for it.). It is the fundamental cert for Networking and starts at hubs and covers everything from DNS to AS to copper to fiber to WiFi.

Professor Messer's videos are great for networking basics. Here.

Mike Meyers makes very thorough books on basic networking (if not a tad bit [ok, sometimes VERY] dry and boring) Here.

You can choose either one of those resources and have a very solid base once you are done. Once you get a solid grasp on networking THEN try to figure out how to get it to work as you want on Linux.

> what is the best distro for this

You will get a lot of answers based upon a lot of opinions with that question. But if you want to be practical, go for CentOS (which is just a Redhat clone) as Redhat is one of the most widely used distros in the corporate IT world.

If you can do everything in the first 9 chapters in this book without much thought, you will be ready for your first full Linux Admin role. It's designed to help you get RHCSA but everything in it is hands on and very practical.

If you're into paper:

• Linux in a Nutshell is a handy quick reference
  
• A Practical Guide to Linux Commands, Editors, and Shell Programming by Sobell is a great guide for getting to know and use the command line.

I enjoyed Linux kernel development by Robert Love.
He starts with a high level view, just to understand the concept, and then points you to the relevant code in the kernel.
But as with all books about the kernel, references become outdated but not too hard to find it in recent kernels.

I have a mix of transceivers, but here is one of the brands: https://www.amazon.com/10Gtek-SFP-10G-SR-Transceiver-10GBASE-SR-300-meter/dp/B00U8Q7946/ref=sr_1_3?crid=Y3NWC9IXKQ26&keywords=sfp%2B+transceiver&qid=1555660991&s=gateway&sprefix=sfp%2B+tr%2Caps%2C221&sr=8-3

Here is the NIC (this listing is for a lot of 2): https://www.amazon.com/10Gtek-SFP-10G-SR-Transceiver-10GBASE-SR-300-meter/dp/B00U8Q7946/ref=sr_1_3?crid=Y3NWC9IXKQ26&keywords=sfp%2B+transceiver&qid=1555660991&s=gateway&sprefix=sfp%2B+tr%2Caps%2C221&sr=8-3

These are not the same listings I bought from (bought my stuff 2 years ago), but they should be the same hardware. As for the X520, it's common for OEMs to take hardware like NICs and put their stamp on it.

It seems that you have no wireless card so you need to buy one. Here's a cheap one from ebay (don't know about the quality though) and here's an even cheaper one but it's most likely crap. You can also buy a better one like this one.

If your willing to buy a book, this is really good: http://www.amazon.com/Linux-Kernel-Development-Robert-Love/dp/0672329468/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1417367345&sr=8-1&keywords=linux+kernel+development

Michael Jang's book is a good start.

Or just go look up the Exam requirements at Red Hat's website and self-study.

I got a bookmark folder filled with resources just for the day I choose not being a lazy slob. Here's some:

https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/ - Official docs

http://www.dit.upm.es/~jmseyas/linux/kernel/hackers-docs.html - Resource list including books and webpages

Some books i got from libgen:

Professional Kernel Architecture

Understanding the Linux Kernel, Third Edition

Linux Kernel Development (3rd Edition)

If you don't need much space, you can get some really cheap SSDs, here is a $20 120 GB SSD on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/Kingston-120GB-Solid-SA400S37-120G/dp/B01N6JQS8C

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/review/B00KT7DXIU/R1XF03NUBYEB5S

In my experience, TP-Link TL-WN725N 150Mbps Wireless N Nano USB Adapter works out of the box for Linux. I have the same specs:

broadcom bcm43142 chipset and Ubuntu 16.04
Here is the link

http://www.amazon.com/Design-Implementation-FreeBSD-Operating-System/dp/0321968972/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1418830375&sr=8-1&keywords=BSD

http://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Linux-Kernel-Third-Daniel/dp/0596005652/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1418830402&sr=8-1&keywords=kernel

http://www.amazon.com/Linux-Kernel-Development-Robert-Love/dp/0672329468/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1418830420&sr=8-2&keywords=kernel

http://www.amazon.com/Art-Linux-Kernel-Design-Implementation-ebook/dp/B00L2EBELM/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1418830446&sr=8-3&keywords=kernel

http://www.amazon.com/Professional-Kernel-Architecture-Wolfgang-Mauerer/dp/0470343435/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1418830461&sr=8-5&keywords=kernel

Weary Traveler, you seek guidance into the world of C Programming. Know that it is a difficult journey and peril is around every corner. A good start would be tomes from Kernighan and Ritchie (http://www.amazon.com/The-Programming-Language-2nd-Edition/dp/0131103628) or a more modern scroll from Zed (http://c.learncodethehardway.org/) .

Do not give up and soon you will be programming in C as a budding apprentice mage yourself.