linux

I bought most of these books separately, not in the CD bookshelf format. I plan on buying this set soon for the convenience of having them all on my computer. I used most of the books in this set to go from zero UNIX knowledge to what most would describe as a "unix geek." I just want to echo what others have said about previous versions of this set. Start with "Learning the UNIX Operating System." Then move to "Learning the Korn Shell" and "Learning the vi Editor." From there, you will feel comfortable digging around in "UNIX in a Nutshell" and "UNIX Power Tools." I should note, however, that I studied Computer Science and was using these books during my studies to learn UNIX. If you have *zero* programming experience, "Learning the Korn Shell" will probably be a bit too heavy for your first stab at programming, and you probably should start with a ".. for Dummies", since those do a better job of assuming no previous experience. Anyways, if you're fairly comfortable with computers and have just a bit of programming experience, this set is all you will need to go from a UNIX novice to a UNIX pro. If you're running Mac OS X, I would also buy "Learning UNIX for Mac OS X" to use in place of "Learning the UNIX Operating System" since it will be specific to your system. And, congratulations, you are running the world's best operating system.