ANTenna Blog -- Hardware & Software

Pros: Site editors approve content before it is published; the tutorials tend to be focused, well-written, and technically competent. The site is also very well-organized by distro, application type, and functional category (e.g. security or virtualization).

Cons: There is a lot of material here, but since it tends to focus on very specific topics, there is also a lot of territory that doesn't get covered here. You'll be happy if you find what you need here, but that won't always happen.

Pros: The site takes a thorough, systematic approach to the topics it covers, and the material is extremely well-written. Most of it is appropriate for beginner Linux users, although some topics will be more relevant to advanced users.

Cons: The author uses a specific distro (SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop) as a reference point for much of the content. While most of the tutorials are still applicable to users running other distros, this does make the content less useful at times.

Pros: You'll find documentation here that you won't find anywhere else. Even if you have to dig a bit, chances are good that you'll find something applicable to whatever you need to learn more about. And some of the free content available here is better, both in terms of quantity and quality, than books that will cost you $50 or more from a commercial bookseller.

Cons: Some of the material is dated, some of it is very dated, and some of the authors aren't exactly master wordsmiths. This also isn't the best place to begin if you need a clear, methodical, step-by-step beginners guide to Linux or other open-source tools.

My favorite resource here is the LinuxQuestions Linux Wiki. It's not complete by any means, but a lot of the material here does a wonderful job of tackling complex technical topics.

Pros: If you have a problem, you will almost certainly find help, or at least a pointer to someplace else that can help, on one of these sites.

Cons: Finding what you need can be about as daunting as a trip to one of those Enormo-Dome sized Home Depot stores -- sans employees.

Pros: If you need help working at a Linux or Unix command line, this is probably a better place to get started than any of the general-purpose Linux tutorial or documentation sites mentioned above.

Cons: Absolute beginners who break into a cold sweat when they even see a Linux command line need not apply.

Got a favorite Linux support site that I didn't mention here? Feel free to pass it along by email or simply include it here as a comment, and I'll save the best of the bunch for mention in a future blog post.