1. Learn by doing, not by reading/memorizing. Nothing you can buy will make up for experience not had, unless it's classes that incorporate experience into the curriculum.
2. Get at least one book. More than 3 is overkill, due to cross-coverage of material.
3. Avoid study material that emphasizes memorization through fill-in-the-blank, multiple-choice, true/false questions. These are not skills, unless you want to improve your memorization skills.
4. Look for books that teach by having you perform tasks. Completing tasks correctly roughly translates to putting new (or old) skills to use, confirming you learned those skills to a working understanding of them.
5. Become familiar with acronyms like GIYF and RTFM. Being able to find help when nobody is around has much more practical value to you than having someone help you every time, even if that was an option.
6. If you're learning RHEL-based linux, try get familiar with Debian. The converse is equally useful. Know the differences, just so you don't feel like a fish out of water when you encounter something Linux that feels like nothing you've ever seen before in your Linux experience.
7. practice, practice, practice...
Alot things Linux are related to automation. A good start towards that and also your first steps on the commandline is to learn more about the bash shell. I found the following online book to be a good resource for getting into bash shell scripting and shell commands/functionality:
HTML: https://www.tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/
PDF: https://www.tldp.org/LDP/abs/abs-guide.pdf
Another hint is, to use Linux as much as you can. Setup a machine that you are working with daily, to get practical experience and most importantly: Have Fun!
- Rudolf Kastl
If you're looking for a general introduction to using Linux, you should take a look at RH124 (Red Hat System Administration I). It's obviously geared toward administering a Linux system, but luckily in order to admin one, you also must be able to use one, so this covers a lot of the basic commands and applications that you'll want to learn in order to be able to comfortably say you're familiar with Linux.
My standard boilerplate to this question, though, is that the best way to get familiar with Linux is to use it! Take a look at RH124, but also make an effort to run Linux on something. Whether you pick up a Raspberry Pi and run Fedberry on it, or whether you download a RHEL trial or CentOS image or Fedora Linux ISO, it's really easy to get started, and a heck of a lot of fun.
Why not start with the fundamentals video located here?
The next step would be getting your hands dirty and use one of the live distributions (you don't have to install it) to look around.
The best book to start off would be `How Linux Works` version 2, from Starch Press before anything else.
1. Learn by doing, not by reading/memorizing. Nothing you can buy will make up for experience not had, unless it's classes that incorporate experience into the curriculum.
2. Get at least one book. More than 3 is overkill, due to cross-coverage of material.
3. Avoid study material that emphasizes memorization through fill-in-the-blank, multiple-choice, true/false questions. These are not skills, unless you want to improve your memorization skills.
4. Look for books that teach by having you perform tasks. Completing tasks correctly roughly translates to putting new (or old) skills to use, confirming you learned those skills to a working understanding of them.
5. Become familiar with acronyms like GIYF and RTFM. Being able to find help when nobody is around has much more practical value to you than having someone help you every time, even if that was an option.
6. If you're learning RHEL-based linux, try get familiar with Debian. The converse is equally useful. Know the differences, just so you don't feel like a fish out of water when you encounter something Linux that feels like nothing you've ever seen before in your Linux experience.
7. practice, practice, practice...
Alot things Linux are related to automation. A good start towards that and also your first steps on the commandline is to learn more about the bash shell. I found the following online book to be a good resource for getting into bash shell scripting and shell commands/functionality:
HTML: https://www.tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/
PDF: https://www.tldp.org/LDP/abs/abs-guide.pdf
Another hint is, to use Linux as much as you can. Setup a machine that you are working with daily, to get practical experience and most importantly: Have Fun!
- Rudolf Kastl
Great resources @Rudolf! I agree the best combination for new learners is using formal materials backed by daily practice on a machine.
[MOD: Moved this to Linux as it is off-topic in RHLC Welcome.]
Red Hat
Learning Community
A collaborative learning environment, enabling open source skill development.