Linux Books

Hey folks... I've been an RHCE since 2000, training RHCEs since 2003, and "doing Linux" since 1996.

What I like:
The three big things that I like about Linux Toolbox are:
1) It concisely shows you how to use the Linux command line to solve many of the most common personal and administrative tasks.
2) It uses the proven "learn by doing" method to show the reader how to just "get stuff done" from the Linux command line.
3) What really sets this book apart from other "next level" type books is its well thought layout and how they organized the content in a quickly accessible way. Negus & Caen split the content out by Shell stuff, Working w/Files, Text Manipulation, Multimedia, Administration, Backups, Networking, etc.. . Well thought out and quickly useful as an on-hand reference.

So who should buy this book?
I see it being a "best fit" for two groups of people:
1) Technical users and admins who want to become more competent on the command line and be able to do ten times more work thought automation (scripting).
2) Windows power users who want to become more savvy on the Linux side (Linux power user wannabes). Especially those who need to get Linux CLI/shell proficient quickly (such as Windows sys-admins who have had Linux forced on them)

Old Timers Too:
The cool thing is that even if you've been using Linux for years (as I have), there are still useful "Oooo.. cool!" moments peppered throughout the book. Do you know how to properly (and quickly) get the most out of classic power tools like find, sed, awk, case, and tr? Are you armed with experience in all the newer über tools such as screen, dmidecode, growisofs? Do you know how to do software RAID from the command line (mdadm) or know how to build & control LVM via its command line tools? If you answered "no" to any of these.. you should check check out Linux Toolbox.

Negus and Caen have a winner here. Good job guys.

Tweeks

I hope this book will be of guide to many others and I think xenix is still the best in the computing world. This book will be of help to any readers who have a little knowledge in computers and will fit most of the readers. It will guide us from the beginning to the most complicated tasks. I recommand many others to read this book.

This book is just a book that explain how to implement the TCP/IP application layer protocols on the embedded systems.

The definition of embeddes sytems are,
"An embedded system is a specialized computer system that provides a dedicated function such as control, monitoring or other services with in a larger system."
"It's important to note that an embedded system in no way implies a real-time system."
"One other interesting distinction of most embedded suystems is that the software that is developed for them is built(compiled and linked) on another computer."

There are some views about the embeddes systems in chapter 2.
"RTOS or no RTOS"
"Blocking or Non-blocking calls"
"single or multi-thread designs"
"memory management issues"
The last issues is the important, the dynamic allocation or pre-allocation of memory.

If you want to implement some applications using TCP/IP, this will be usefull for you.

If unix is making you cry because you don't even know where to start, this is the book for you. It will clearly get you through creating directories, moving files, basic printing commands. All the stuff the other books leave out because they think it's too obvious. I often recommend and loan out this book to people who are using unix for the first time, it will get you to the place where you can look up everything else you need to know online.

Liked it a lot.Good story,clever plot

I have toyed occasionally with both Red Hat and Ubuntu over the years, but I definitely meet the definition of "non-geek." Installing these operating systems before always required some degree of struggle, and not uncommonly (especially with some earlier distros) I would simply fail. But that has changed. The current 8.04 version of Ubuntu partnered with this book is frankly outstanding.
First, a word about the operating system: this Ubuntu distro, code-named Hardy Heron, may well be the one that has finally made Linux as easy as Windows. I had always previously laughed at such claims from Linux enthusiasts, but this distro impresses me. It is the one that may at last enable me to defenestrate completely. And this guidebook is the perfect match, using normal language. One thing that it does very well is explaining what the few text commands that it uses actually do, instead of just instructing the reader to type it into the command line and leaving you wondering what exactly those "magic words" meant. There is a single short chapter about using the command line, but 99% of what the guidebook leads you through uses the GUI, so if the command line intimidates you never fear.
I installed Ubuntu 8.04 dual-boot with Windows XP on my laptop effortlessly. Not a single thing went awry. The new partitioning tool that is used during the installation is a great improvement over those in any of the (few) other Linux distros I've seen. The book follows step by step. My laptop is about 4 years old, so I am sure that a newer laptop may have hardware that is not as well supported and effortless. But on mine everything just worked, including my wireless internet.
Though they are enthusiastic, sometimes getting an understandable answer from the Linux community can be challenging. I had always struggled through installing Linux software before, especially if I needed to compile it myself. In fact, I can count my successful compilations on one hand. I never knew that GUI-based tools like Synaptic Package Manager or GNOME App Install were available to make it all so easy (assuming that a deb package is available, as there usually is) and again the book walks you through flawless examples. One example used for software installation is a program to automatically detect and load a driver for any ATI or NVIDIA graphics card- something which has historically been very difficult on Linux systems
My biggest criticism- and it wasn't enough to cost half a star or anything like that- is that the CD included with the book only has the i386 version of Ubuntu. If you want the 64-bit version you have to download it and burn the ISO to disc. (In fairness, the i386 version will load and run on a 64-bit machine, but only in 32-bit mode.) One of the reasons I bought this book was that I can't seem to pass the checksum when I downloaded the ISO, so now I am waiting for my disc from Canonical so that I can install Ubuntu on my desktop.
So, if you describe yourself as a "computer user" rather than a "computer geek," this is an outstanding book. If you know enough to know that Ubuntu exists then you almost certainly possess the minimal computer savvy required to use this book. I know that this review sort of morphed into a review of Ubuntu in addition to the book, but it is difficult to separate them. Suffice to say, the book walks you step-by-step through multiple examples of everything that you have to do. It also explains such details as what the differences are between the various file formats in which Open Office Word Processor can save documents. Almost all of such important minutiae are covered.

I can't describe how much I like this book. It takes a pretty dry subject and presents it in a clear and interesting way. Very few wasted pages here. A good book for beginning to intermediate network admin. Some advanced users might not like this book, but why would they need a book anyway? I started reading this about 10 pm, it is 1 am & I can't put it down.

Finding this book was quite a pleasant surprise. It's one of the only collections out there for Unix admins who want to have fun with their workstations.

The book consists of detailed instructions on how to play:

Canfield, Chess, Colossal Cave Adventure, Flight Simulator, Go, Hearts, Klondike, Mahjongg, Reversi, and Spider

She also includes the source code and precompiled binaries on the CD-ROM which comes with the book.

It would have been nice if she'd included DOOM, but I suppose she only wanted "open-source" games.

This little booklet is a *must have* for C and C++ programmers alike. It is a list of the most commonly used functions, descriptions, parameters, and return values. Have a hard time remembering what strtok does? It's in there

Some authors write in a style that demonstrates their technical mastery at the expense of reader comprehension. By contrast, some modern technical books talk down to their readers in a silly way. This book is like baby bear's porridge, just right. Not too hot, not too cold. Begining with the first enterprise storage technologies, the authors explain where we are today, how we got here and where we are going. Storage concepts are broken down piece by piece and presented in a concise, understandable way. I couldn't recommend this book more highly.