Who Should Read This Book
This book is for people with some computer experience, though not necessarily Linux experience. I’ve done my best to make it as accessible as possible for Linux beginners. You should understand some basic networking concepts, such as IP addressing, Ethernet, WiFi, client, and server. You should know basic computer hardware and have some understanding of using the command line. If you need some help with these, there are abundant resources for learning them; I did not want to get bogged down in teaching material that is already well documented.
The recipes in this book are hands-on. My goal is for the reader to be successful on the first try, though don’t feel badly if you are not. A general-purpose Linux computer is an extremely complex machine, and there is a lot to learn. Be patient, take your time, and read more than you want to. Chances are the answers you want are just a few sentences away.
Every Linux has built-in documentation for commands called man pages (short for “manual pages”). For example, man 1 ls documents the ls, or list directory contents, command. Type these commands exactly as shown in the book to open the correct man page. You can also find this information online.