Linux Books

As the various unixes developed in the 1990s, vendors tried to make administration easier by writing proprietary UIs to simplify tasks. For example, IBM came up with SMIT. Of course, each UI was only for that vendor's unix. A developer, Cameron, set out to simplify this across vendors, by writing Webmin. As the book explains, it has now been ported to most unixes and linux.

The book shows that Webmin is ideal for a new sysadmin. Reduces the intimidation factor of unix. It may be increasingly relevant if linux keeps growing on servers and even on desktops. On the latter, a sysadmin (you!) may well be a former Microsoft OS user who decided to take the plunge into a free operating system, but is worried about the necessary level of expertise.

All the important admin tasks, like making new user accounts, setting up a mailer, and networking, are possible via Webmin. So if you are still trepid, this book might assuage your concerns. Cooper writes clearly and at a level accessible to many. No prerequisite knowledge of unix is assumed. Plus, he gives only the core functionality of Webmin, to avoid information overload. The book deliberately eshews explaining every module.

This is a great book that describes one of the best pieces of software for a *NIX enviroment I have ever seen. It is easy to read and understand

Webmin is a great web based interface that can handle clustering, updates across all servers handles by Webmin and many many other things

Joe does a great job getting into the details of Webmin and the basics of everyday system administration as is relates to the use of Webmin

As a experinced Linux System Admin I found many tips for the use of Webmin that have made my life as an Admin much easier

My hats off to Joe for such a great book and Jamie for a fantastic piece of Open Source Software

The print is large, the pages of soft, and it's a great way to quickly learn about the most commonly used aspects of the Motif widget set. It's quick reading and the book lays out the information very systematically. However, before reading this book I thoroughly went through the first hundred pages of The Definitive Guides to the X Window System: Volume Four - X Toolkit Intrinsics Programming Manual Motif Edition. This book goes through each concept thoroughly (and agonisingly). However, it did give me a very solid foundation to build on. You should already have a basic understanding of GUI development and X before reading this book.

If you already know how to compile and link in a UNIX environment, this book will be an excellent place to start to learn Motif and CDE. If not, you may find some things a little confusing. The author assumes you already know some of the basics and so doesn't waste your time with review, but instead plunges right into the topic. I found this book helpful, but only after learning how to compile and link in UNIX.

This book is targeted for writers of printer configurations files, and not for System Administrators.

As a UNIX and Linux system administrator of 5 years I find that setting up network printing was and is one of the most surprising challenges. And perhaps one the most challenging issues to explain to my users and management. After all Windows printing is virtually plug and play. Whereas configuring printing on UNIX and Linux is virtually without standards and is unique to each printer. Thus I am very excited to see any move towards a standardized printing configuration for UNIX and Linux.

Also a lack of printing configuration standards on UNIX and Linux meant that the selection of printers that would work was extremely small. That is until CUPS came along. However, I still find CUPS very confusing. So I broke down, bought this book and studied it.

This book is more like a reference book. And it is mostly oriented towards programming with CUPS and writing PPD (Postscrip Printer Description) files.

I was disappointed that it didn't cover more on installing new printer configurations and steps for debugging them. I was also disappointed that it left out an important step of how to install new PPD files.

CUPS requires a PPD file to describe the capabilities of each printer, and how it will interface with the printer and driver (if any). The book lists several web sites for retrieving PPD files. However, the book does not explain how add in a new PPD file in the "Adding Your First Printer" section or anywhere else for that matter.

By visiting other web sites I did find these instructions for adding in a new PPD file:

Put the PPD file in /usr/share/cpus/model
Then restart CUPS: /etc/init.d/cups restart, or
/etc/software/init.d/cups restart

However, there are other places and methods depending on your set up. So this is very confusing.

I was very frustrated that this book would leave out something so simple and necessary.

For programming and writing PPD files, this book has a lot of material, but I haven't gotten that far yet. I'm still trying to configure an HP DesignJet 5000 plotter to plot from my Linux machine.

Also the author deserves considerable credit for tacking on the challenge about writing about Linux and UNIX printing. Very few people are able to write about Linux and UNIX printing in detail. For taking on such a challenging subject and the rarity of this kind of book I gave the book the coveted 4 star rating.

I hope to see more books on Linux printing setup, print drivers and related material.

This is an excellent book on what seems to be the most advanced printing system for UNIX these days. It covers a vast number of topics including building and installation, printer setups, server and client configurations, and several chapters on programming CUPS with an API. The best part that I got out of the book was the numerous examples, including code examples.

I'm a Master student in information Systems,currently taking Software Engineering and Database Concepts courses at the Univeristy. This is a great book which contains book subjects with good examples. The Good thing is I don't waste my time to study the courses twice. This book Contains usefull relations between the two subject with a open source approach. One last to say Every Thing I want, I found.

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The first third and some of the last few chapters contain a good deal of "Software Methodologies for Dummies" content, which is certainly NOT what I purchased this book for. There are chapters on Design (application, not database), Analysis, User Interface Issues, Object Orientation, etc. Since the book is about 490 pages (less index, etc.) maybe the author just added such content for filler.

That having been said, this book is a VERY good overview of Database technology on Linux. In covers all the major DBMS options including installation tutorials for each, admin and GUI interface tools, and programming against those databases in a variety of Linux languages (C, C++, Java, Perl, Tk, Gnome/Glade, etc.)

The book include LOTS of super links to tools and products (both free (Open Source) and commercial. It includes lots of tips and hints that would take weeks to find in the documentation and I especially appreciated the special points of reference offered by the author for those of us who are more famaliar with Windows Database products than Linux products.

This subject matter gets little coverage and this book makes for a great quick start. At $45 it's a little pricey, but there are few alternatives that deal directly with this subject.

The primary author's web site is published in the book, you can download the source code from the book examples and there is a message board for book related discussions (in which the author answers questions) and there is an errata section as well !!

Overall a good buy.

Joe@ASPGurus.com -

Although I am an experienced Linux user and do some Admin, I'm on my current project developing a linux embedded system that will be a router. We have QoS and netfilter requirements and I found nearly all the data on QoS old and dated for the 2.4 kernel. Furthermore, due to lack of info I had a hard time developing basic test scenarios.

After reading this book, I feel much better preparred for the project. What I liked about the book was the real world examples with some sense of humor. Even on a dry subject like network packets I was able to read thru the book easily. The tc examples and kernel config was what I really needed, and the book handled that well. The book is based on kernel 2.6.14 at least in a few areas.

I'm giving the book 4 stars because I'm just starting. The book does have large and small examples but I haven't used them yet. As an intro I give it 5 stars.

If you like opensource, QoS, Firewalls... this book would be what you need.

If you are netadmin, sysadmin or you are an IT guy and learn this book, you can limit p2p/bittorrent traffic, guarantee bandwith for some services like http, ftp, voip, etc. (QoS), you can protect your network with firewalls.

First in chapter 1 we learn about Networking Fundamentals, then in chapter 2, about Security Threats in every OSI layer. After that we are ready to learn about basis of netfilter and iproute (Firewall and QoS).

In next chapters, show us how to do layer 7 filtering, practical QoS and more advanced things. Then we apply this knowledge in a very practical serie of scenerios that come later in the book.

Very good book, I recomend this to you.

Expanding Choice: Moving To Linux And Open Source With Novell Open Enterprise Server by the team of Jason Williams, Peter Clegg, and Emmett Dulaney provides a detailed, hands-on guide to all of the technical and business benefits of implementing open source software in an enterprise environment, particularly when combined with select proprietary technologies. A review of the benefits and costs of both open source and closed source software systems is provided, as well as an analysis of the benefits of an approach that blends the choice and flexibility of open source with the reliability of Novell's proven networking software. This is an essential core addition to the Linux reference user's reference shelf.

You probably know that the major unix vendors, IBM, Sun and HP, are migrating their unixes to linux. But the smaller players are also doing so. Notably Novell, as described in this book.

The first 3 chapters are a good, vendor-neutral explanation of open source and why you might want to go with it. The advice is commendably objective. For these chapters alone, you may want to seriously consider getting the book.

The remainder of the book explains Novell's proprietary offerings. It suggests possible advantages in adopting their Open Enterprise Server. The level of discussion is moderately technical. Seems mostly directed as an overview for management.

En passant, I have to remark on a list of 10 reasons, given in chapter 4, claiming that Novell "is the best choice as a partner". One reason is "Novell has more resources and talent focused on delivering enterprise class linux and open source technologies than any other vendor". I am very dubious about this. IBM is much larger and has been offering this type of linux support for several years.

I just got this book in the mail so have no had a chance to go through the entire thing, but looking at the contents, I can tell at least a few chapters are wasted on topics such as:

Installing Linux: pgs 79 - 114
Using Linux: pgs 115 - 149

I can forgive a dozen pages devoted to getting, installing and using NASM since that info might be needed by a real novice. IMO, if you are looking to do assembly-level programming on Linux, and you don't know anything about Linux and don't even have it installed.... better learn something easier first.... there are entire volumes dedicated to using Linux... no need to waste space in an ASM level programming book.

Otherwise, this book looks very good. Much better than "Linux Assembly Language Programming". Don't get that book; I own both and this book has proven more useful in 2 days than the other one in 2 years.

This book begin with a good introduction of what assembly language is and who can be implemented, give you step by step all information you need to learn and use this language, if you use Linux on intel X86 based machines and you are interested in learn assembly, this book will be very helpful.

This is a fantastic book for people like who me who do not know much about Linux at all ... the visual step-by-step instructions are really easy to follow and understand.

This is an excellent book for linux newbies. Maran graphic's "Visual Blueprint..." series are great books for those looking to learn about computers and software.

The only problem with this book was that I couldnt get Red Hat 6.2 installed on my Compaq pc. Although at the back of the book it recommends the OS is compatible with IBM pc's. A better version of Linux would be Linux Mandrake. I feel Mandrake would compliment this book better than Red Hat.

This is by far the most underrated books on linux. Unlike lots of books published these days on the linux subject, the writer has the reader in mind when writing this book. Most of the essential concepts on linux kernel are well explained. The level of detail is almost perfect. You can tell if you read at least 30 pages of this book, the author is trying to tell the story with his own words and not just presenting some "raw" material.
This style make the world of difference. I have read over 10 books on linux and this is the best on explaining how linux works.

This book is very comprehensive. It includes information about the kernel auto loading and recent upgrades in the 2.X kernel series. A good start if you want to understand how the linux kernel works and want to develop drivers for the kernel.

The concepts and the theory in this book are really good.
As stated in the book, the author installed openldap in ubuntu but the documentation and implementation do not work if you try to install it in ubuntu 8.. I found the documentation in Ubuntu community easier to follow and worked in a matter of minutes for basic authentication in openldap and phpmyldapadmin.

This is an extraordinarily well written book. In the preface the author promises to prepare system administrators or software developers for building a directory using OpenLDAP using a practical approach, discussing theory where that helps answer practical questions.

Along with some of the best illustrations of the theory and practice of LDAP directory management, this book contains a wealth of detailed information on the servers, clients and utilities that make up the OpenLDAP suite of software. The examples provided of different configurations are not only detailed, they also methodically build upon each other in a way that really illuminates various concepts far better than I think has been done before.

The appendices in this volume are also worthy of mention: "Building OpenLDAP from Source", "LDAP URLs", and "Useful LDAP Commands" -- the last deftly handling one of my favorite pastimes, "Rebuilding a Database (BDB, HDB)".

This book would be an excellent textbook for use by students learning Internet technologies. It would also make a terrific technical manual for system administrators or developers involved in deploying or maintaining systems and applications that use directory services. Finally, it's the one essential book that all directory administrators should have on their own personal bookshelf.