Introduction
This guide was designed for absolute beginners to Intermediate.  A lot of it is based on the Windows OS but not all, as eventually you will have to learn different OS so those will come into the tutorial later on. I cannot be held responsible for your actions. 
To become a good hacker, you cannot rely on just one document.  You should read many.  To give you an idea of how many you should read, I can tell some hackers how to do something even though I have never done it before. Its just because I have a lot of experience. Also, remember that hacking is mainly social engineering.  You manipulate them for information ie.  Tell them that this copy virus is actually a porno game.  Gets them everytime. Or mainpulate them into believing that u are someone they trust even though you are their worst nightmare.

 I think its time for a useless fact so I am going to tell you what the first computer crime was.  It was in fact committed in a US bank.  When people deposit checks, the resulting number is usually 3 decimal points.  The banks just generally cut off the last digit.  What someone did was route all the numbers past 2 decimal places to his account. Those .5 cents added up and he made thousands of dollars. If it werent for the fact that he boasted alot, he probably wouldnt have gotten caught.
Yes there was a point to that story.  The point being that dont brag about your hacking skills as if you are reading this text, there will always be someone better then you.  Bragging is also an easy way to get caught.

Also, you must learn some definitions
Hacker => non malicious information seeking curiousity based user who has no intent to damage the system but only obtain information.
Cracker=> breaks into networks with sole intent of damage like defacing web pages.
Script Kiddie=>Someone who uses other peoples programs and dont know the physics of it.  Generally younger people learning to hack who are too stuffed to learn how to properly hack and learn a programming language.  Most people gain interest in hacking by beginning as a script kiddie.

I wrote this text because there are too many lamer hackers around who tell everyone they can hack, but have no idea.  These lamer hackers are also the ones who haven't read one text before and just use premade trojans to hack.  One "hacker" came up to me and asked how to delete the windows directory... in Windows.  However, while I do approve of using Windows programs to perform common hacking tasks, such simple commands need to be known.  In linux, I also approve of X-Windows programs such as Nmap Frontend because, it isn't like u wouldn't be able to work it out by typing nmap --help.  If u wanna be a good hacker, dont be lame, try to learn enough terminal commands to get around.

Loyalty between hackers is a must if u want to be successful.  U gotta be sure of your real-life hacker friends loyalty before you mention anything about hacking to them.  While many texts will tell u to trust no-one, there are usually people u can trust.  

I would also like to thank Astalavista.