OStatic

One of the chicken-and-egg problems that keeps some users from trying out and becoming skilled at good open source applications is lack of adequate documentation. How are you supposed to learn effectively without it? The good news is that for a whole lot of open source applications and operating systems, there are good, free books you can get online. We've covered these for the powerful Blender 3D graphics and animation app, for Ubuntu, for Linux hacks, and for the GIMP (graphics). We've also covered FLOSS Manuals, which free documentation for many open source applications. In addition to these, one of the best online sources for free books and tutorials is Linuxtopia.?

One of the great things about open source platforms and applications is that skilled authors often put free books online as guides. We've written about excellent ones for Ubuntu, one for Linux hacks, and one for the GIMP graphics application. ? Recently, I came across a great, free online book on the super powerful open source 3D graphics and animation application Blender. The book is called Blender Basics, Second Edition, and while it has the slight shortcoming of showing examples from Blender version 2.4 (Blender is now on version 2.48) it's still an excellent, very thorough way to learn the application. If you're unfamiliar with Blender, it's so flexible that impressive, full-length animated movies have been created with it. Here's more on what's in the book.

Have you been considering trying Ubuntu or are you new to running it? Keir Thomas, a noted Linux author, is out with a new book called Ubuntu Pocket Guide and Reference which is designed to get you up to speed quickly. It's available for $9.94 from Amazon, but you can find a nearly identical version online for free, downloadable as a PDF here. I did the download and like what I see--lots of plain language information on getting started with one of the most flexible, powerful and compatible Linux distros.