I would recommend Beginning Ubuntu Linux for beginners who don’t know much about Linux and are interested in slowly jumping from Windows bandwagon to Linux. The book is well written, keeps you interested in the subject and also has lot of screen-shots to make things easier for you. Beginning Ubuntu Linux looks pretty daunting with 729 pages but since it is fun to read and interesting, i am assuming you will finish it in a week or two.

The book is divided into 8 parts and some sections are good and informative and others are very basic. Part 1 and 2 mainly deal with the questions like Why Ubuntu, Why it is better than Windows and Installation of Ubuntu. Part 3 focuses on how to install softwares, adding hardwares, personalizing ubuntu and managing files. I would request you to concentrate on Part 4 because it teaches you the basics of shell scripting, permissions and gives you a feel of vim and grep. Part 5 is a boring section which concentrates on Multimedia where they just explain about the multimedia softwares, audio software, photo-editing softwares and Part 6 deals with OpenOffice.org and how to use it. If you are well versed in using multimedia softwares and using OpenOffice.org, you can skip these sections (that is 200 pages less for you to read). Part 7 is an important section in this book, it deals with how to install and remove softwares in various ways like synaptic manager, APT tools and compiling softwares. It also teaches you important things like Backing up data and scheduling tasks via cron and anacron. Part 8 deals with Linux terms and bash commands. All in all a good book to read but if you are taking more than 2 weeks to finish it, then you are wasting your time.