Linux Books

It's hard for me to say who this book is for. If I had to guess, I'd say it's for the dedicated intermediate to advanced Delphi programmer with lots of time on his hands. At over 1000 pages, it's going to take some time to get through it. Worse, since the writing style is not consistent, it's hard to get into the rhythm of the book. With a good programming book, I know what I'm getting, so I can skim through sections that I get right away, and read more deeply through tough topics. This book is patchy, if you don't read it carefully, you'll miss things. It's also not a book for beginners. It expects you to be proficient in the Delphi IDE and Object Pascal. In that respect it would also not be a good reference, since there's not even a short chapter with Pascal basics. Although I can't speak for expert programmers, I bet they'd have a hard time liking this book, there's too much style that experts would find fault with, and as others have pointed out, it is not complete on advanced topics. I'm not sure why I'm giving it a 2, perhaps I'm being generous in the hope that I will read it again and find some hidden treasure.

I've been programming in Delphi for the past couple of years, and found that "Mastering" series from Cantu are most complete. The book contains many usefull information about almost anything you may need to develop professional applications in Delphi 4.

I'm seriously considering writing my own book on programming, since there is a huge hole to be filled. From what I've seen the majority of books cater to advanced programmers, which is unfair and unfortunate. You can't start in the deep end. It's also like that in other fields as well. If you are new to Delphi don't buy this book, you won't derive much from it. The topics covered obviously deal with more advanced issues. Sharp looking cover though.

A useful compilation especially of tips and tricks, but arguably not comprehensive enough in either scope or depth. Don't think that buying this book will let you off reading the Delphi help files, or looking elsewhere for basic reference material.

As someone who knew all about the concepts of OOP from a C++ perspective, and was new to world of Delphi, this book was fantastic value. It showed me how to get things done, and how OOP works with Delphi... now I think Delphi is fantastic. I read the first few chapters before attempting anything in Delphi and now that I have started programming in it, use the book as my first reference. Thank you Marco!

This booklet contains a collection of shell script code snippets and other UNIX tips for the DBA. Not everything will be useful for everyone, but only the most experienced UNIX geek will fail to find one trick or the other that he did not know before. And what else is UNIX expertise if not knowledge about such little tricks?

I especially liked the sections about commands to collect performance statistics for the UNIX boxes your databases run on. You do not normally find these commands in general UNIX books (not even in the meatiest ones) and would have to turn to special UNIX admin books, which might be sort of an overkill for a mere DBA.

The book also introduces into some very basic UNIX concepts like piping commands and changing file permissions. This is superfluous as this booklet does by no means repalce a full-fledged UNIX introduction. But if you are a DBA who has already read his "UNIX for Beginners" or the like and who wants to delve a little bit deeper into HP-UX or AIX, than this book is for you.

Decent reference - at least pointing out some interesting options and some things to watch out for at the OS level. As mentioned in other reviews - its HP-UX oriented with nearly as much focus on AIX, but lacks detail on Solaris (and Linux).
Fairly well written - but mainly pretty simple content. Just keeps you from looking up the syntax in some cases. If you are new to UNIX its probably worth the purchase. If you are an experienced UNIX professional - find it used to make it a worth-while purchase.

This booklet is full of usefull Unix commands, most of them at the junior level and just a few more are complex. I used this book maybe 10 times since I bought it a couple of years ago, so I am not sure that I have utilizied my purchase well.

Still, I would recommend the book to any DBA who is new to Unix.

This is a very helpful book which provides a basic overview of using Unix running Oracle. Perhaps the best feature of this book is that the author has spent lot of time providing only the most useful and salient Unix scripts for the Oracle DBA. You will not find any unnecessary or redundant information in this book. In fact, I highly recommend all Oracle DBAs to read this book and memorize all its ideas.

Here are some of the best tips:
1)Script to kill all Oracle processes.
2)Place a SQL * Plus script in a Unix Shell Wrapper
3)Ensure that only the Oracle user can run a Unix shell script
4)Execute a SQL*Plus Script on all the instances in the enterprise.
5)Automatically delete old trace and audit files
6)Copy TNSnames.ora to all the Unix servers in the enterprise
7)Detect when Oracle is not accepting connections and send alert

This is a book that should be in the pocket of all Oracle dbas
beginners in unix, and specially those fighting with several
flavors of unix.
If you are an experienced oracle dba working with Windows NT
or Open VMS and new in unix, these book can help you.
It's reading is easy ç, since the book contains the basics that an oracle dba need to know in order to begin working with unix as soon as possible.

I bought this book based on a couple of favorable editorial reviews, expecting that it would provide the essentials of a roadmap for finally making my transition from Windows. I had been reading a lot of very informative articles about Linux, but I felt that there must be a more succinct overview available that would highlight only those things I would need to know, why I needed to know them, and what they meant. This book falls far short of those expectations.

Aside from the annoyingly familiar writing style (do the Eagle's Nest editors care?) and the large number of pages of anectdotal fluff, the author seems to miss the point of his original intentions, as stated in his foreward. Topics are presented with no overlying concern to context, and without any indication as to why the reader should care. Detailed instructions are given in some cases without explaining the purpose of the commands. It left me constantly asking the question "why is that important?".

I do give credit to the author for donating all proceeds to charity, but I just don't think the book offers any real value to newbies, experts, or anyone in between. You would do better to write your check directly to your favorite charity, and spend five minutes with google to choose from any number of options for more focused, appropriate, and free instruction.

I'm a Windows user too. I read the note and yes this product does refers to the second edition, not the first edition. This second edition book is very good for new users of Linux.

I was most interested in chapters under the desktop interfaces section, especially the one called From Windows to Linux. But had I stopped there I would have missed out a lot.

The section on installation seemed somewhat redundant since everyone of the linuxes comes with ample installation guides. That was until I read the instructions. The author is making points I don't read in other guides. He suggests how not to screw up your system when doing a dual boot, and is candid about how some things with windows and linux are uncompatible.

Mostly I enjoyed the fact that the author didn't assume I knew stuff. He helped me think through the steps instead of just shoving them in my face with an attitude.

I also agree with the other review here that the author has a very respectful tone. I enjoyed it and read some of the chapters several times because it was actually fun to read! Impossible prior to this for me to say about any other technical manual.

It's inexpensive for what you get out of it IF you are a linux beginner.

The bad part? This book is truly for beginning users. Once you get past the rudimentary stuff this book describes like getting linux setup and running on DSL, it becomes a very good reference but has passed along all of its knowledge. It am glad I got it, it helped me get started in a way I didn't expect... easily and with clarity.

This book served me well. I hope others will also find it serves them well too.

For a long time I have been interested in learning Linux but have been thwarted by not having a book written for beginers. The learning ladder was missing too many necessary bottom rungs... there was no starting point. Mr. Rais has supplied those missing rungs and has made it possible for me to now profit from those tomes which begin in mid-air. This book has been invaluable to me and I strongly recommend it to anyone else stuck at the starting line.

Being a Windows user who wanted to learn more about Linux, I read the reviews here and also on linux.com and ended up buying this book.

I must say I was very pleasantly surprised.

What Amazon does not make clear is that this book ($19.95 version) is acutally the updated 2ND EDITION. Apparently the author took to heart what the reviewers had stated about his first edition and boy does it result in success.

First, the author is genuine. Never does he talk down to the reader. This book goes out of its way not to be another "dummy" guide but instead an intelligent personal guide.

For instance in several cases, with unabashed honesty the author tells it like it is. He does not sugar coat some of Linux's weaknesses but pronounces them and then guides the reader around the problem easily. In the chapter titled From Windows to Linux, the author states, "the file hierarchy is perhaps the most cumbersome aspect of linux" and then goes on to clarify the differences and how to easily navigate this mess! That's from page 66.

Second, the author goes way out of his way to ensure that things he writes work on almost all of the newer flavors. For instance I was amazed to find specific step by step instructions for making basic network configuration changes in this book for Fedora users, Mandrake users, and SuSe users. Often the author also makes clear distinctions between how things will work under the Gnome or under the KDE desktops.

Third, this book covers it all! From a beginning user's standpoint I've never seen so much covered specifically to address a new user interest. 36 pages of details on getting Linux working on the internet. 24 pages on desktop interfaces, specific differences and similarities with Windows, and how Gnome and KDE work. Not a bit of extra fluff either. No extra fat 2 inch wide white space margins. This book is packed with information.

This book is complete.

Even more enjoyable, it also covers things NO ONE else would be willing to state openly about Linux. The author makes sure a new user isn't caught up in the baloney but instead can get their own personal setup working and working well.

I enjoyed this book and am amazed by how much the author got compressed in this 244 page guide.

THE BIGGEST BONUS OF ALL I found was that the author has a tone and a voice in this computer book that is unlike anything I've ever read in a technology manual. It's personable, pleasant, optimistic, and clear.

I enjoyed it and recommend it to any person who want to begin using Linux.

Not what i expected.

I expected an overview of Linux aimed at the "Rest of Us":
a. Win Home Desktop/Internet user
b. Win Soho Desktop/Lan market.

What i got was a very thin skimming of the major Components of a Unix/WinNT OS
as implemented by a generic Linux and no coverage (other than Name) of any Linux GUI.

To attempt to introduce and suggest successful installation of the following info into approximately 70 pages is a waste of every bodies time and money.

a. Linux as a Desktop
b. Linux as a File/Print server
c. Linux as a Wep server
d. SQL
e. Telnet
f. FTP
g. Multi OS on same computer
h. 3 different Text Editors

Section 4 "Stories from the field" pp 77 - 96 are superfluous
as you are preaching to the converted.

I can not belive the 4 or 5 star reviewers read the same book as me ?.

I am amazed that this book got a 4 1/2 star average rating.

The argument "You get what you pay for" only strengthens the WIN camp and undermines the argument for open source software.

Jim

I took and passed the test in October 2006. I found that many of the questions on the 2005 Exam covered areas not in this book. As other reviewers have posted, I also used Michael Jang's RHCE Prep guide to flesh out the weak areas. The exam itself leans toward RedHat so it is not surprising the exam prep does too, and why Yang's prep guide was so helpful. So my advice is get this book but also get Jang's book also.

Read the book entirely, reviewed, and learned all the information. There was an abundance of questions on the Linux+ exam that were not mentioned in this book. All the questions that were covered in this book I got right in the exam and still didn't pass. One question that came up in the exam was " How do you finish off a while statement" and nowhere in this book gives an example of a while statement. I happen to know now that the answer is "done" thanks to another book. That is only one example of many. Other than that, I do believe this book is well written and has resourceful information.

I found this book had alot of useful material and little filler. The book provides useful commands and common examples for using those commands without filling it with a bunch of man pages like some books. It also gives some key tips that will be helpful to any system administrator. I thought there should have been more information on system services like apache or mailsend, but maybe those won't be really covered much on the exam.

The questions at the end of the chapter, as mentioned by other users, aren't very useful, so you'll likely need to test yourself with other resources.

Don't be fooled by some reviewers who try to dispute the book with petty inconsistencies. They often are more interested in sounding like they have been diehard linux users all their life than actually giving any reliable feedback.

Pros: good coverage of cli commands, concise information without filler, useful tips that help you become a system administrator.

Cons: bad end of chapter questions, somewhat disorganized in the way the content is presented.

In this book you can found a good start to the Linux+ Cert.
It dont have electronic material. It is a con.
Another good book and a great complement is Roderick Smith's Linux+ Study Guide from Sybex...
Best wishes in your cert!!
JRB

This is a good book to prepare the Linux+ certification.
There are chapters on hardware and software in which you can find also basic informations those could be useful also for technicians to recall knowledge. If you are a Linux expert you could find too easy, but it gives you all you need to understand the topics of the exam.
I'll use it also as reference in the future.

To keep it simple...THIS IS THE BOOK!!!
You'll only need one. Learn everything in this book!
Easy to read and lots of examples.
You won't be disappointed!

I purchased this book to keep as a reference for my Linux users. I have found that is easy to use with a plethora of good practical information. It is well written and fairly comprehensive. It takes the mystery out of a lot of the more intricate Linux tasks. It explains things very well and the "How To"s are easy to follow. This is a great book for beginning to intermediate Linux users and a great reference for those that are more experienced.

Book is very well written. Concise yet offers valuable info on many different aspects of Fedora. Highly recommend this book.

I have read the other reviews of this book. All got to say is that I feel that most of them must have read a different book! I not completely new to Fedora or Red Hat Enterprise but I am no expert so I thought the book would be very suitable for me how wrong can you be. I give you an example Samba very popular application. Can be difficult to setup with the in-built Fedora Firewall. The book chapter is useless in giving you a real tutorial on how to really get the program working it gives you a little bit of information than completel lets you down. This is only an example chapter after chapter are like this. My recommadation if you learning Linux buy an other Red Hat book.

This book is not for would be admins. The writer wasted a lot of time in explaining mundane stuff. I don't understand why all those reviewers gave so much praise for this merely entry level book.

The computer game market is dominated by dedicated game console platforms, like Sony's Playstation and Microsoft's XBox. But the steady rise of linux on fast, cheap hardware and the parallel rise of an open source community leads one to wonder if there are alternatives.

Which leads to this book. It has some of the ambience of the flashback to the 70s or 80s, when programmers in their spare time might gin up a cool game, which would then spread like a virus when word got out. Of course, you can use the book's advice to design a proprietary game. Nobody says you need give it away.

The book's code examples are in C. Not Java, please note. While Java is good for some applications, typically in gaming, performance is always an issue, as measured by latency, for example. The book also does not mention C++. Pity. C++ compilers nowadays are usually as efficient as C compilers. Plus, if you want to code a game of any complexity (over 100 000 lines, say), then C scales badly, unless you use really strict design and coding standards.

Overall, though, the book is well done. Very easy reading if you're experienced. Very little knowledge of graphics is required. The book is more about the back end design. Graphics is pushed out to OpenGL and similar packages.

There aren't enough books written about game programming for Linux. Although this book is dated (A lot of API evolution can occur in 4 years), it is probably the best introduction I have seen so far. The book walks you through the creation of a simple, but full-featured game using mostly cross-platform APIs. It is elegantly written and easy to understand. Because of how much the libraries have changed, you will not be able to use all of the code directly, but it should not be difficult to look up the new function calls in the respective libraries' online documentations. It would be great if someone could write an update of the book. This book is not a one-stop place for all you need to know, but it is a good place to start and get you thinking. After reading the book, you should know what to look for to learn more.

Programming Linux Games is an excellent beginning to Linux and cross platform game development.
Its main deficiencies are:
detail on the libraries suggested,
the use of C instead of C++,
and buggy openAL code which I could not get working.

It is a very good reference to basic SDL and OpenAL, and is very handy to have in one place.

I still recommend as a basic book on game programming.

The book starts off ok with a good introduction of the various API's and is ok reading up untill chapter 6 "Programming Linux Audio". This is where the book fails terribly. None of the audio samples will compile and the information about OpenAL is just plain wrong. First the function used to open a WAV file is no the corerct function to use for linux. The author uses the win32 version. This is just the start of the openAL errors. Minus one star!

Second the book's two websites (one of which no longer exists (Loki) ) contains no errata and no way to contact the author. The only information is avalible is a zip file of the books sample files (which do not compile of course). Minus two stars!

Ohter things about the book that did not work for me was the fact that the author uses C instead of C++. While C is still used for game development , most programmers are attempting to migrate to C++ and OOD. Books released about 1950 should reflect that!

Second the author uses Tcl as a game scripting engine. While I can agree to a point (based on the fact of the easy of implementation) the author should have used a common scripting engine such as Lua. (although the author does mention at the end of the book that Tcl was proably a bad idea.

Third the author should have introduced Autoconf very early in the book instead of waiting untill Chapter 10.

The main thing that I liked about the book was the good intro to programming with Linux in general. The topics of linux debugging and Makefiles I thought was good (assuming you have experince in these areas on other platfoms).

Also the coverage of SDL was a pretty good intro.

I had high expectations from this book, coming as it was from a
company specialized in porting the most complex games to Linux.
Unfortunately it seems that the fall of Loki has brought down this book with it. As other readers have said it is a good SDL
primer (covering just the basics). Other APIS are mentioned but just ina cursory view. There is a whole chapter dedicated to the code of a sound player software whoch is really out of place here.. it looks more like the author stuffed it in since he for some reason had developed it and he thought it was marginally relevant.. A good point is the book is about a working 2D game, Penguin Warrion ( a spaceship against spaceship typical game ) but the game development is not properly explained.. it loks like the book is an appendix to the game and not the contrary... in short to really learn something you must go and scan the code on your own...
With a little bit more affort and time to give the book more depth and solidity it could have been a great beginner's text..too bad!

This book gives you a relatively quick and easy introduction to using Qt. You should know the fundamentals of C++ programming to benefit from the book. However, if you seriously want to get into using Qt are several much more up to date titles that also comes with a more modern and appetizing style. I bought this item because I have been using Qt for some time (Qt really rocks!) and went in to get all the books without critically reviewing before buying.

I am new to Linux programming (I'm a .Net developer) and was a bit frustrated with the online tutorials for Qt and decided to give this book a try. I am very happy with the decision, this book is very well written. I like the style of the author, giving us some practical exercises after each topic, so we can improve the application he develops throughout the book (a "paintbrush"). Now that I understood the basics I can use the Qt documentation to do my own apps.

People who like those huge, "step-by-step" ("click File->Quit to exit the application...") books might be a bit disappointed with this one though, the author assumes that the reader knows some C++ and can figure out some stuff by himself/herself, so be warned. Not that he skips any information needed, but he doesn't repeat the same thing 10x either, so you gotta be a bit "smart" to read this book.

Not enough examples und for beginners as I am, too many questions. Betterone is "Das Qt Buch" in german. This ise tehe bestone what I have ever seen.

If you want to learn Qt, you'd better start with Qt4. This book is really for Qt3, but it's still full of useful examples and information. In order to get the code in this book to work, you should #include at the top of your code, and then add "CONFIG = release", "CONFIG += qt", and "QT += qt3support" to your *.pro project file. After that was done, I had no problems with the code from this book.

Book starts out strong, and was helpful as an introduction for Qt. However, it seems to cut out about 350 pages in, putting subjects such as "Focus Handling" in its own 3 page chapter, rather than integrating it into an existing chapter. That said, the Portability chapter, which includes a list of Qt functions that are not portable, was a valuable addition.

Keep in mind, the 2nd edition of Programming for Qt was written for Qt 3. At the time of this review, the latest version of Qt is version 4. This is a problem because Trolltech appears to reinvent the wheel for each major version. While the author had me salivating at the thought of a QStyleSheet, checking the API docs for Qt 4 QStyleSheet is now a deprecated class, and as far as I can tell there is no current equivalent.

One aspect I wish the author had covered in more detail is the actual compiling and linking of applications that use Qt. I'm starting to get the impression that Trolltech's dirty little secret is that while their API is both clean and thorough, the signal/slot method is overly reliant on #defines, and the developer has to compile and link as many as twice the number of files to make it function. Trolltech includes a program 'qmake' almost as a bandaid which will generate Makefiles that will then automatically generate and compile the extra 'moc' files. The problem is that if you're porting an application to Qt, you're likely to have existing makefiles. Adding the additional layer of qmake and it's .pro files is both cumbersome and not actually necessary. While you can certainly figure out on your own how to avoid using qmake, it would have been helpful if the book described the functionality of the qmake-generated makefiles. This would help developers porting to Qt to include that functionality in their existing makefiles.

For anyone that would like to code C in Solaris, this is a book that is a must. Provides a very complete overview of 64bit coding, secure coding practices, a c library and more.

I was very disappointed that a book that claims to be "in the tradition of W. Richard Stevens" adds little to no value beyond what the original APUE (and now APUE2!) has taught generations of Unix programmers for many years. I already had a beat up copy of APUE on my shelf for years and recently purchased APUE2 (the *real* second edition of APUE). Considering SSP is very, very, very similar to APUE, I don't see the value of buying another book that doesn't add a lot of value beyond what I could figure out on my own by using APUE and Solaris manuals.

If Rich Teer was sincere in his claims of admiration for Stevens, he would have properly credited him for the majority of the "borrowed" content - not doing so is not only questionable ethics for an author but truly disrespectful to a legend that is no longer here to defend himself.

If you really want to do Solaris system programming, do yourself a favour - get a copy of APUE2 (ISBN: 0201433079), read the Solaris man pages and go hang out on developers.sun.com

This book may be easily read page after page. Teer has a very subtle wit and actually places numerical jokes in his code examples. It is very much like older UNIX texts in that it covers off well documented material but does the great justice of bringing it all under one roof. He presents the information with complete code examples not merely fragments or pseudo code. Teer illustrates the concepts and walks the reader carefully through the learning process. One may easily replace six other UNIX text books from the past and gain updated knowledge while losing nothing.

I have had this text on my desktop for nearly a year. Over a year in fact and I use it often. It is precious for anyone that must look closely at UNIX. One may place the Kernighan & Pike "The Practice of Programming" along with "The C Programming Language" by Kernighan & Ritchie on that same desktop and rest assured you are well covered.

It should be noted that I had the opportunity to preview and edit the text before publication and I have withheld my public comments until now. I wanted the opportunity for the OpenSolaris project to be born and for this text to establish itself without the possibility of prejudiced opinion.

This is an essential text. It is fit for any university computer science student or professional software engineer.

Dennis Clarke
[...]

This book is true bible of solaris knowledge and, what is importand too - written using very simply and clear language - that (unfortunately rare) property of technical book makes it very good and useful manual.

System programming with reference to a specific operating system involves the proper usage of C program function calls that the operating system has available so that programmers can hook into the internals of the operating system itself and influence and utilize such things as the file system, the date and time functions, and process control. 13 years ago when I first began UNIX system programming on Sun computers, they came with reference books that had this material. Unfortunately, that is no longer the case.

Richard Stevens' book "Advanced Programming in the Unix Environment" has been a great book on generic UNIX systems programming since it was first published. However, there are so many facets of system programming that are unique to Solaris that this is an essential book. The book is logically laid out and discusses all of the hooks available to you via Solaris system programming function calls. There are plenty of code examples, detailed explanations of function parameters, and even some exercises with some solutions available. In conjunction with "Solaris Internals", just recently released in its second edition, there is a wealth of information available on how the system programmer can monitor Solaris, or perhaps add some features of their own.

The first two chapters are an introduction to operating system components in general and the history of Solaris through Solaris 9- the current version being Solaris 10. The book is then divided into system programming topics. The first of these is "fundamental topics", which basically starts with manipulating strings using the C programming language and then goes through the basic resources available to the Solaris system programmer. Next, each topic that was covered in the introductory fundamental topics section now gets its own section in the book - input/output, process control, interprocess communication, and pseudo-terminals.

I highly recommend this book to any C programmer that needs to write programs to interface to the Solaris operating system. I notice the table of contents is not shown, so I present that next:
Part 1 INTRODUCTION
Chapter 1 Introduction 3
Chapter 2 A Brief History of Solaris 45

Part 2 FUNDAMENTAL TOPICS 57
Chapter 3 Utility Functions 59
Chapter 4 Basic File I/O 123
Chapter 5 The Standard I/O Library 159
Chapter 6 Date and Time Operations 201
Chapter 7 Users and Groups 223
Chapter 8 System Information and Resource Limits 275
Chapter 9 Secure C Programming 337

Part 3 INPUT/OUTPUT 351
Chapter 10 Files and Directories 353
Chapter 11 Working with File Systems 417
Chapter 12 Terminal I/O 461
Chapter 13 Advanced I/O 507

Part 4 PROCESSES AND PROCESS CONTROL 601
Chapter 14 The Environment of a UNIX Process 603
Chapter 15 Process Control 629
Chapter 16 Process Relationships 677
Chapter 17 Signals 703
Chapter 18 Daemon Processes 805

Part 5 INTERPROCESS COMMUNICATION 827
Chapter 19 Interprocess Communication Using Pipes and FIFOs 829
Chapter 20 The System V Interprocess Communication Facility 867
Chapter 21 Advanced Interprocess Communication 927
Chapter 22 Doors 951

Part 6 PSEUDO TERMINALS 995
Chapter 23 Pseudo Terminals 997

Appendix A An Internationalization and Localization Primer 1035
Appendix B The BSD Source Compatibility Package 1047
Appendix C Function Summary 1057
Appendix D Miscellaneous Source Code 1117
Appendix E Solutions to Selected Exercises

the book does not contain enough information to be usefull. I would recommend other books such as "building Embedded Linux Systems"

Hey embedded Linux developers,

This book is great. The simple examples clearly illustrate how to get a development system up and running, then how to develop simple device drivers to exercise hardware. I learned from these examples and put them to work on my project immediately. I read the other reviews below and don't know why they didn't like this book, did they even read it?

Its a great book, buy it now (its the best [money]spent on embedded Linux available).

Satisfied Customer

As of 4/2004, the book relies on a free distribution of Hard Hat linux that is no longer available on Montavista's site (as they charge $25K for a single seat, I guess they felt they were giving too much away ;-) HOWEVER: Hollanaugh has copies of them with all of his scripts on his site, so look for them there. His scripts are also now modified to point to the new locations. Though even this distribution is somewhat out of date, this book does a pretty reasonable job of getting you through it all. I found finding free (useful, current) distributions of embedded linux very hard to find but eventually did.. Check out www.denx.de and store.yahoo.com/snapgear/snemlidi.html for current multiplatform distributions. The denx distribution ELDK appears to have morphed from the original Hard Hat distibution as many of the utilities still exist, I used this and was able to "generally" follow along. It's a more recent distribution and supports more platforms (at least for the PPC). I would definately repurchase this book again..
His site is:
http://www.embeddedlinuxinterfacing.com/overview.shtml

This book is clearly the best reference I have for embedded projects under linux; future and present inclusive. The author covers USB device integration quite well, and gives a well worded approach to mounting and setting up your own usb-devfs.
Along with clear examples, the author mainly tries to format the text from an on-lookers prospective to an "embedded ski lift monitor" project- i.e. "My data from working along-side the team" Great effort there-
Another pro to this book is that there are many code samples (all but one I got working, first try) that keep the flow of the book geared towards a beginning hardware-level programmer, with teach by example in mind.
The biggest down side to the text is the beginning material about setting up the workspace environment. A friend tried the same book, and had much trouble simply because they didn't know what pitfalls to expect when installing Debian. Although, the setup does allow for multiple-processor compilations of source code. A Great plus, and another reason for me using the book as a reference.

Out of all the good and bad, this book earned the 4 star rating and with honors. If you want a place to begin embedded systems, and aren't weary of installing a fresh copy of an older model of Debian, have at this book!
Hope this helps-

Dr. Hollabaugh has certainly shed useful light on the concept of embedded linux. He intelligently sets the stage and walk you through real steps for deploying a fully embedded linux control and monitoring system. The diagram, table, and code examples will leave you with a very clear understanding of the subject matter (providing you have some background with linux development). Personally, I was totally captivated and found myself extremely happy that I have chosen this book to help thrust foward my own intelligence of embedded linux. This book and website....has become a primary reference for future embedded linux application.

I bought the 4th edition of Hack Attacks Revealed. This whole genre seems to be drenched in hyperbole and once again the marketing machine seems to have invaded these pages. The book does have copious basic information. The Tiger Tools are a very sick joke with barely any functionality or worth. Someone really should sue. The exploit code, which is unusually copious for a work of this ilk, does not of course in the main part work and I found only a very few of the very most mundane code would compile under MinGW, Cygwin or Linux, even after downloading the libraries specifically recommended by the online support team at tigertools.com who, to be fair, were prompt in their reply. No manner or library-jiggling and simple repairs sufficed: you've really got to understand programming sockets in C or perl to fix the average exploit. The hype of the titles and cover blurbs for this kind of book increases every season but the delivery remains as lame as it always has been. For anyone serious about taking a practical look at hacking time spent at securityfocus.org, neworder.box.sk or similar is in my opinion much more rewarding.

This book has done nothing to dispell my theory that the information
content of a book is often inversely proportional to the number of pages
in the book. I'm 200 pages into it and that's as far as I'm
going to get. I expected some basic filler/theory in the first few
pages, but plowed on in the hopes that the author understood
the theory he was presenting and would use it later to explain security
exploits. However, I lost all confidence in the book when
I reached page 167, where the author demonstrates that he doesn't
understand ping and/or DNS. I don't bring this up to nitpick. I bring it up
because I think that anybody with pretensions to
being a security expert had better know the basics of how the
Internet works. How is anybody to make sense of, say, DNS spoofing,
without knowing how DNS works?

In case it's not obvious, the author confuses and muddles together
the actions of resolving a DNS domain name to an IP
address, and then using that IP address to send an ICMP echo
request to the destination. This may seem like a minor thing,
but its not just a typo (he makes the same mistake in three
different places on page 167), and security is a confusing
enough business without muddled descriptions like these.

On a more minor note, I do not see the point in filling page
after page with pretty pictures of the GUIs that hackers use
at their end. The publishers probably know better than I do
what sells today, but I don't understand why they and/or the
authors apparently feel that the thicker a book is, the better.

John Chirillo has made a career of hacking. As a hacking consultant to Fortune 1000 companies part of his job is to break in to corporate networks to expose their holes and help his clients secure their networks. In Hack Attacks Revealed, he shares his knowledge of how hackers gain the information necessary to break into your systems.

The book begins with a basic history and understanding of computer and networking technology. Mr. Chirillo covers the the protocols used and the purpose of the various ports used. The book also provides information on the scanning and network discovery tools used by hackers.

(...)

Reviewed: Hack Attacks Revealed, 2nd Edition, 2002

I must say I am thoroughly disappointed with this book. The book's description, as well as other readers' comments led me to believe that this book would have been more than just a compilation of information that could be freely obtained at the dozens of security related web sites. Sadly, this was not the case.

The bulk of the book merely describes (mostly outdated) common
attacks/vulnerabilities, without getting into much detail why they exist and the underlying explanations on how they are exploited. As such the book reads like "For Vulnerability X, Install patch Y" without getting into more detail. Heck, even Microsoft's Security Bulletins give more info that this!

Many of the "75 Top Hack Attacks" that the book promises can be freely found online (check CERT's site).

The general impression I get from reading this book is that the author tried his best to fill up space in order to deliver an impressively thick book. Was it a requirement that he include SCREENSHOTS of various hacking tools/trojans, including step-by-step INSTALL SCREENSHOTS for the included TigerSuite software? (If you don't know how to install software then you need to develop more skills before learning about hacking!). Did he HAVE to include the useless 10 year old 'how to build a modem filter' BBS textfile (which by the way doesn't filter noise on modern modems)? Did the publisher mandate that he include 9 PAGES of Decimal-to-Hex conversion tables when you could use, say, Windows Calculator to do any needed conversions?

Another thing I disliked was that Windows XP as well as Wireless networks (802.11/WEP were glossed over) were not really covered in the sort of detail that I desired.

And, although I appreciate that a basic understanding of the x86 instruction set is required for better understanding low level security issues, I really don't see the point to Chapter 13's discussion on programming "How to Draw Circles in DOS mode" using the VESA bios interface. This is, in my opinion, not relevant considering the book's topic, so why include it? (A better choice would be explaining how the stack is used in high level languages (C, C++) and how buffer overrun hacks work). If you want to learn C, Assembly, or graphics programming buy a book dedicated to these topics. I think it's safe to say that the average reader will NOT become a programmer after reading the "Crash course in C" - it's an unreaslistic expectation.

And to top it all off, the final insult to readers is the interruption of the author's hacking experience "Intuitive Intermission" with the phrase "... to be continued in: Hack Attacks Denied, 2nd Edition". I guess both the author and publisher want you to buy both books!

My chief complaint with the book is that it doesn't seem to know who the reader is. In some areas the author gets down-and-dirty technical (x86 assembly/C programming) while in others he doesn't really explain details or just mentions things in passing (case in point: nowhere does he explain workings of a typical buffer overrun exploit, etc). Also, the author really does not give advice on how to secure or harden systems, aside from "install the update patch". For a book whose focus is security/hacking that's a pretty fatal flaw.

Like I said earlier, this book really seems to me like the author just threw any material that he could find that was remotely related to hacking and presto, one hacking book ready to ship!

If you are new to either the computer or security-related fields then perhaps this book may be of some value to you. If you are not an absolute beginner and know how to search the web, then I'd say that you probably don't need this book. Even if you do buy this book, it, like any security related book, will become technically obsolete as new software/exploits/patches are found.

Quote: (under "Who should read this book?")

"The hacking enthusiast and admirer of such films as Sneakers, The Matrix, Hackers, and Swordfish"

If you still need another reason not to purchase this book, the above quote says it all!

I was relieved to read that this isn't considered a very useful reference on How to Hack. Certainly Ch. seems at his most enthusiastic, frothiest, even foamiest, in talking about the wonderful world of hacking. Yeah, he repeatedly trots out the line about having to know how to attack to know how to defend, time after time, but ya' gotta' wonder where his heart lies (Okay, even Milton had this problem.)

And that certainly is irksome if you, like me, are one of the growing number of people who have reluctantly become 'security amateurs,' and find ourselves reading 900+ page books, due to invasion of our privacy by amateur criminals. Whatever its merits for security professionals, this is probably not the book for you. It assumes too much technical background and doesn't provide sufficient detail on implementing various solutions. True, this may be covered in more detail in his other book, but including that we're talking 1800 pages...

Editing would have helped, certainly. The 75 basic hack attacks are a useful overview on just how paranoid you should be, but the basic information about some of them is repeated up to 4 times, sometimes as boilerplate.

I have seen a few books more suitable for amateurs, but the truth is that they aren't detailed enough to be helpful. I think that the only real solution to the security problem in the IT industry is to wake up to the fact that caveat emptor, 'professional ethics,' and self-regulation isn't working any better there than in health and safety, restaurant sanitation, the stock market or...well, you work it out. As long as it is only sort of illegal to break into someone's house as long as you use a computer, most geeks will do it.

The ISPs aren't taking this seriously because they know people aren't much more likely to stop using e-mail than to stop using the phone, and most companiues were only kidding when they said they were interested in your problems.

Once there are some laws with real teeth and real fines and real jail time, those who aspire to the appearance of respectability will go back to their regularly scheduled activities including tale bearing, beating the old lady, bothering the women (men) at work just enough to stay on the right side of the law, bitching about how the old lady (old man) doesn't want to screw, kicking the dog, pulling the wings off flies, and complaining how much better everything was in the good old days.