I’ve used Linux as my everyday system for years, and I fixed computers for a living before that. The Free Machine is the book I wish someone had handed me at the start. It got big enough that it’s now two books.
The practical half
It starts with the basics: installing Xubuntu on an ordinary Dell laptop and living with it day to day. You’ll learn to do real work without Microsoft, using open source office suites, GIMP for images, a free video editor, and installing software with Flatpak and Snap. There’s also a long section on using Linux with AI to actually build things. Several of my own programs, including a personal budget tracker, started out that way.
For people who like hardware, there’s Raspberry Pi and basic electronics: Ohm’s law and the theory behind it, explained for hobbyists.
The history half
The other half explains how we got here. It runs from von Neumann’s architecture and Turing’s limits on computation, through Bell Labs and the transistor, telephone switching and the move to digital, to MIT, GNU, Linux and the rise of Microsoft. It also covers the people who poked at the edges: phone phreaks, early hackers, console modders, and the piracy and torrent fights. The thread running through all of it is who gets to control the machines, and who has kept them free.
There are no screenshots. Interfaces change every year, but the ideas last. My own stories from the repair bench and from a lifetime of tinkering are mixed in throughout.
Get it
Both books are on Amazon in Kindle and paperback, and the whole thing is free to watch as a scrolling-text read-along playlist on YouTube.
Book One: Amazon · free read-along
Book Two: Amazon · free read-along
