Try things out as you read. I read the Unix manual from cover to cover when I started out. As I went through it I'd try the commands. Often there were short

Try things out as you read. I read the Unix manual from cover to cover when I started out. As I went through it I'd try the commands. Often there were short examples. This was when there were only a couple of hundred pages though. Regarding the language -- usually it's not only too terse but badly written. However the classic books e.g. Kernighan & PIke's UNIX Programming Environment are excellent.