Being quite *nix experienced, I do not hesitate to go through some tutorials for beginners every now and then. It is a pleasure to discover a pieces fo fundamental wisdom hidden there. I want to explicitly remark that a hidden pieces if wisdom can be found only in *NIX tutorials. Most likely because the tutorials are written by a hackers in love in a subject they write about. If you want to know the difference, try to read some Microsoft books written by a so-called technical writers for money. The difference is notable.
Recently I went through The Unix and Internet Fundamentals HOWTO by Eric Raymond. That one is exceptionally good for a beginners. I’ll explain why. The structure of the tutorial’s content delivery is organized in a way every computer introduction should be organized. It starts from a low level and goes to an upper ones. But it’s not about a piece of some hardware or software in an imaginary or omitted infrastructure, it is about the infrastructure in a whole. A pieces of an infrastructure are not described in detail but their role is described. Instead, the tutorial describes the Internet as a whole. It concentrates on the pieces’ interrelation to each other and describes their relations in a detailed, but clear way. And it’s short. It’s takes for about 2-5 hours of reading.
If you have any gaps in your understanding of the patterns of computers and/or Internet operation, you must read it. Normally, it should build a picture out of a jigsaw puzzle for anybody interested. I highly recommend to bookmark the tutorial and to offer it to any fried of yours who is willing to learn more. It is strictly recommended to the ones who suddenly decided to install Ubuntu.