Linux Books

Some useful information, but way too much useless garbage,
they could compress this book to about 1/4 of the size

My web site runs on Windows, IIS, Cold Fusion and Microsoft Sql Server. At the time I was building the site those were the packages to use. .asp, the Microsoft equivalent of Cold Fusion, hadn't been invented.

If I were doing it over, I wouldn't use any of this software. I'd use Linux, Apache, PHP, and MySQL or maybe Postgre, like some 73% of the web servers out there. In fact, I know I need to step up to the learning curve and started with this book. I've taken an old machine and with this book I was able to get the operating system (which comes on CD and DVD) to run. Now I'm going to Chapter 17 and turning to the section "Choosing a Database: MySQL Versus PostgreSQL."

This book is not totally simple. I've read few thousand page computer books that were simple. The book is well organized into chapters that lead you through what you want to know. Those chapters that don't interest you, just skip. I'm building a web server, the chapter on Viewing TV and Video isn't of much interest. This material is well isolated from the rest so that it's easy to skip.

Is this the best possible book. How can I say? I can say that it worked for me.

Software provided with this book runs just fine, however quite a few patches are required after the install has compleated. As for the book, it is written extreamly terse and covers the Linux 2.6 kernel. Since there are over a thousand pages, almost everything is covered. If you buy this book, might I suggest you also buy "Linux in a Nut Shell" by O'Reilly publishers so you have a command reference book.

This book is for those who need the ability to move around the Unix filesystem, edit text files, and perform simple commands such as copying, moving, and deleting files. It also gives a good review of Unix as a whole. I'm not sure if there is a Linux version of this book, if there is I would recommend it instead of this one. But most of the book is applicable to both Unix and Linux.

I know someone who wants to learn Unix, so he picked up the book and I read it as well. I'd heard from a friend that Sam's Teach Yourself books were really good. I've been using Unix for over 10 years, so I was curious to see what this book could show a beginner in '10 minutes'. I will say the lessons are intended to be short so you don't end up getting bored. The explanations are good, giving enough detail so you find out what you need to know.

I was glad to see the book mentions how not to get frustrated if a particular command doesn't exactly work as you see in the book. There are many flavors of Unix nowadays so it's very possible each version may have the command that's being talked about but it may be just a bit different.

I found a couple of commands that I hadn't heard of before (pushd and popd) so this old girl learned something too :-). I didn't give the book 5 stars because of its section on the editors available in Unix. The section on vi needed to show a few more basic commands plus maybe one or two tips. The vi editor can be hard for some because due to the structure of the commands.

Overall, the book gives a newbie good information to get their feet wet. Once a newbie gets going and wants to dig in to Unix some more, I highly recommend the OReilly "Unix In A Nutshell" book. Once you get the feel of how Unix is structured, using the Nutshell book will make more sense.

A very good UNIX tutorial. Covers yhe most basic 'need to know':s Excellent for Beginners

This is far the greatest linux book that I have read. I used this book for 4 yrs, eventhough i spill water on it, i did recover it and still used it. I hope GM can create a new book for the new linux distros like this.

The great content is marred by countless grammatical foibles which make the book nearly unreadable. Here's an example: "By default denying access to every one, is the first step of a reliable security policy. In this way we eliminate the possibility of forgetting someone or to making a mistake."

This is the GREATEST LINUX book I ever known. A must have book for every linux geek!

Thanks Gerhard for the great masterpiece, keep the good job on and you have my support.

--- DISCLAIMER: This is a requested review by PTR, however any opinions expressed within the review are my personal ones. ---

The book SbE comes in 3 parts and additionally with 45 page strong Appendix
containing more detailed information where to get additonal information from.

Part I - A general overview (p. 1-55)
Part II - The SELinux Policy language (p. 57-236)
Part III - Creating and writing SELinux Security Policies (p. 237 - 362)
Appendix A (p. 364 - 409)

The book is mainly about policies itself and how to implement them.
Writing those policies is most of the time a time intensive and error prone task.

Readers planning on understanding SELinux should bring some time with them to fully understand and appreciate
the examples given for the "example" policy (f.e. strict or targeted) and the "reference" policy.

Whats going to prove useful is the hints given towards which trade-offs you may need to take when deciding
f.e. to use the strict policy. While the topic itself might seem dry for many readers the book will prove
useful for those genuinely interested.

The book does describe the most useful tools to put the reader straight on track and avoid loosing time.
The lovely prepared useful details like the 17 page index are a nice feature you will find yourself refering
to when in need. Some readers might find that they better leave the setup of SELinux to professional service
companies, but still the book serves to get an understanding what you can and possibly cant do with SELinux.

The article "Secure Linux - security kit review" from Hakin9's online library serves as a nice compliment to the book.

SELinux by Example is not my first venture into learning about SELinux, but in fact my second. My first was the study guide for the RedHat SELinux Exam (which you only get if you pay for the course, so i realise it is not a cheap option). While the Red Hat material is very limited (to be covered in 4 days and with the aim of preparing you for an exam) it has three gleaming advantages:
1) it is current
2) the exercises are practical and come with solution in the book; and
3) there are nowhere near as many mistakes.

So let's cut to the downsides of this book:
1) it's dated (now in 2008)
2) there are mistakes, many mistakes but thankfully most are obvious
3) there are no easily accessible answers. They might be online, but so far i have not found them...

So that sounds pretty bad, but actually the book is very good, mainly because of its depth. It seems to go through the entire beast that is SELinux, using non-contrived examples of policy. Unfortunately it does not help you in administering your system all that much (though there is a chapter devoted to this). The reason for this is simple: this book aims to tell you how SELinux works, rather than how to use it. In other words, this book needs to be read together with something more practical. The practical content of the book is probably confined to the last two chapters which amounts to just shy of 70 pages out of 425 including index.

Honestly, i am torn on this: on the one hand i'm disappointed about how out of date the book has gotten, and how quickly, but at the same time i understand: SELinux is still evolving significantly AND how distro's are using it is still evolving. Just see some of the references where the book acknowledges its shortcomings: The authors know where things are headed, they know their stuff. Which on the other side of the spectrum is why this book is so good as an introduction: you cover everything, you have a really solid background of the area, but you are left wanting more, you are left wanting ... well >practical< examples, rather than the examples in the text.

I would recommend that anyone wanting to get into using SELinux get material of their distro's support site (Red Hat / Fedora have guides and links to other materials which are excellent and free) and use those materials with this book. I have yet to find a source that ties all of SELinux together so well, but at the same time, there is the sensation that this material will need a revision very soon.

One last issue is that the book is a little too formulaic. The text will inform you there is a summary of syntax on page X, where X is the page you are on and the summary is the next paragraph. It just rubs me the wrong way, it is pointing out the obvious, it is adding volume where none is needed. The text is concise, but for some reason it seems the authors want to add bloat and volume when otherwise they get right to the point.

In conclusion, consider this book a foundation, even if its not as current as you might want (and those issues are related more to module based policy writing which is covered in sufficient depths, especially because examples are included with your SELinux policy anyway), and read it with the man pages and the documentation you get with your distro and you'll be fine.

If you are a linux or unix user, then you're probably pretty familiar with the permissions settings on files. It's a basic methodology that is essentially unchanged over 20 years or more or unix development. But its shortcomings have been just as well known to unix experts over that time.

What Mayer et al demonstrate is that the latest linux 2.6 has a very interesting add-on. SELinux. It is incorporated by default. So if you're running linux 2.6, it's been present all along, hidden in the background. The book describes what it offers. A vastly improved and very granular security model. Based on the concept of type enforcement. It goes way beyond earlier implementations of Mandatory Access Control.

The book can be heavy sledding if all this is new to you. Luckily, it describes a neat GUI tool, apol, that you can run as root. It can greatly assist understanding the use and making of rules.

Most users and sysadmins of linux machines might still not require the active use of SELinux. There is a considerable investment in time needed, to understand and use it. Plus, most of the examples cited in the book refer to government or classified contexts. Outside these, you have to really ask yourself if it's germane to you.

I work with a couple of flavours of unix and find that some basic things slip through the cracks sometimes. I found that this book is great to refresh my mind on some of the differances between them and also simple things like the names of various utilities. Overall a good book if you want dabble in a Unix that you are not familiar with.

I use various flavours of UNIX (including Linux) and have found this book useful and well organised. It took me a while to find a concise reference which manages to direct one in the right direction, even if the exact solution isn't available. Ideal for people tampering with various UNIX systems simultaneously.

I haven't had a chance to go through the entire book yet, but from what I've seen, most of it is reasonably concise and thorough. However, they seem to like certain pieces of software more than others and thus leave holes in their text: 3 good examples are their discussion of Vi being more or less the editor of choice on UNIX systems--and then give just a glancing explanation of Emacs, not even mentioning its LISP capabilities (among others--we all know Emacs is less of an editor now and more of an environment!); their discussion of windowing systems didn't concentrate on X, but CDE, which runs under X; only 3 other managers got cursory mention, and FVWM wasn't even among them. But worst of all was that there isn't even a single mention of Perl in this book--NOT ONE MENTION!! Perl is more and more becoming indispensable now, not to mention the language of choice for CGI scripts. Nevertheless, this seems to be a pretty decent book overall, so I give it 4 stars, though part of me only wants to give 3.

This book is very well written and useful as a first book on Linux or UNIX in general. Many subjects have been covered with much attention to the details and overall impression of the book is very positive. It is not a book for advance UNIX user and should not be judged as a such.
I also found it to be useful to pair this book with Linux and UNIX for a beginner training suite, 4DVDs + 2CDs includes 4 Unix Academy Certifications ed.2008 and they contribute very well one another. It gives you ability to discover whole workflow as you read. Don't be fooled by the title of the book, despite it is for "dummies" it goes throughly over many subjects.
It is a decent and friendly book and it takes you to new many things if you have never touched Linux or UNIX before. If you like good reading, not the manual of action it is one.

simple concepts that can easily be derived from a user's intuitiveness are broken down into "concepts" in this book. i can literally learn the first 200 pages of this book in 10 minutes by installing the SuSE Linux software myself.

A little too beginnerish IMO. if you know the slightest bit about Linux, go for more advanced material.

If your new to Linux and want a nice package....

this book and Suse 9.3 would be the way to go.

Suse 9.3 is very much like Windows XP and this book will take you through it step by step. You will be up and running in a day and be very advanced after a weekend!

My father is 60 years old and barely knows computers or understands Windows XP. I gave him a copy of Suse 9.3 and this book for his birthday. Now, 2 months later, my father is actually teaching me tricks I did not know about!

This book goes over installation, navigating the environment, connecting to the internet, networking, setting up printers, applications, configuring your wireless network, and the list goes on and on.

It takes you through all the foundations of everything you need to know as a beginner. Once you get that down and if you desire to extend your knowledge and skills, you can pick up a more in-depth tome like the Linux Bible 2005 by Wiley publishing.

This book scratches the surface of all things Suse and Linux. It gives you an excellent overview and general amount of knowledge without overloading you. It is chock full of detailed screenshots, diagrams and step by step how-to sections that won't confuse you.

This book is a very pleasant surprise since most publishers are hesitant to publish a book on a specific Linux distro. They typically just go with "linux" and give general features and details but this mostly confuses the beginning Linux user and scares them off. SUSE 9.3 is popular and widespread enough to warrant it's own book.

Grab this book, buy a copy of SUSE 9.3 or just use the free version that is included with the book and try it out yourself.

Free yourself of the Microsoft shackles, enjoy free, open-source computing. Watch the speed of your old or new computers increase greatly and run more efficiently.

This Book is definitely about customizing a linux systems and the concepts behind. its more a "how to" thing like : how and where should i install the "sun java SDK" or how to use (install, configure) other important software like "open shh" or apache. and on these subject the authors do a fairly good job on explaining and guiding through this process. the word tuning in the title may be give you eventually wrong expectations, because its not about tuning in the meaning of "how can i squeeze out the last bit of performance of the system" or something similar.

The growth and the penetration of the Linux Operating System in the recent years has caused an increase in both the need for professionals familiar with Linux and an increase in the sheer number of available books, journals, web sites, etc, that cover this topic. Morrill's book on Tuning and Customizing a Linux Operating System finds its way to the top of the "must read" stack due to its applicable coverage of the topic. The author starts with the Linux mentality and "physiology" and delves into the details of how to build, maintain and administrator a Linux-bases workstation or PC. Other book cover the commands, or at a more engineering level, cover programming in the Linux environment, but this book talks about how to actually build a Linux-based system and how to configure it. Talks about how the file system in configured, and why the directory structure is the way it is. It talks about how to install, remove or update software packages to your system under three popular Linux OS distributions.

To me, the most valuable part of this book was the explanation of why "things" are the way they are. For example, why there are /etc, /usr/etc/ and /usr/local/etc in the directory structure of Linux? And why you should pick or refer to one over the other if you need to look for a configuration file? To me, these are the details in one handy chapter that is very hard to find, and one would only get that type of information from an expert who has been working in the field for a number of years. The example I just gave is along the same lines of the other examples and topics that you find in this book. Three different Linux distributions are covered: Red Hat, Slackware and Debian. Each distribution is covered in detail, and their differences are pointed out. The authors show the reader how to do basic administration and tuning for any of these packages. The package installation utilities such the RPM from Red Hat, the Slackware's classic tarballs, and the dpkg program from the Debian distribution are discussed and compared. The options pertaining to package customization are covered in detail, and examples are given for each tool.

You need to keep in mind that this book teaches you how to install and configure your Linux system, and how to navigate your way around it. This book does not cover each command nor does it cover the programming aspects of Linux. It discusses the installation and manipulation of the operation system and any software package that you may want to install and configure on your system. Six popular programs are given as an example of the various ways that almost any software package is installed on Linux. These packages include:
* The OpenSSH Secure Shell
* The Pluggable Authentication Modules
* SOCKS Library
* Apache HTTP Server
* CVS
* Java JDK

In addition to being a very useful reference, these examples portray how manage any software installation in Linux. The three different Linux distributions are referred to throughout the text, and the variations between how each system is manipulated and customized to take advantage of the newly installed software is given.

The author brings the book to a closure with detailing two case studies: how to build a simple desktop system, and how to setup a corporate software development environment. All the topics covered in the text are revisited with these two case studies to bring the topic to a full closure.

I was looking for a good resource on Linux system tuning. This book does NOT fill the bill. The word "tuning" doesn't even appear in the index!

If you need help with installation options that go beyond the basic defaults, you'll find this book helpful.

If you want to tune your Linux system for maximum performance, look elsewhere.

When I review Unix books, I come from a totally non-techical perspective. I always look at it from a lay-person's perspective, as someone who has to learn to use Unix because that is the only operating system available to use.

This is a handy referene book, if you have a basic knowledge of Unix, and are comfortable with using the OS. Sometimes, the explanations tend to be a bit lengthy, and that is something you will find in almost all Unix-related books. So, don't despair if you are unable to follow through completely, reach out to a live person to help you. At least that person will know that you tried to solve the issue, before asking for their help.

Ok guys this book isn't bad. It is very descriptive and well written. The problem is there's much of water, long blah-blah-blah and so on. It takes too long to start and then looOOoong leaps from one real problem to another. But it is "for dummy" book it supposed to be like that with all explanations back to the beginning.
I have found here on Amazon training Linux and UNIX for a beginner training suite, 4DVDs + 2CDs includes 4 Unix Academy Certifications ed.2008. It is very cool one, straight to the subject, very useful. I coupled this book with DVD and I believe I learned more then my friend who attended $2000 class.
This book is good , but DVD is DVD, it is like you have class at home. This book is very useful though. When you start with UNIX it is like starting with violin:you have to practice every day and this book paired with the DVD gives much of what you will ever need.

The Quick Reference guide is exactly that. A quick reference to allow you to get specific information about the aspect in UNIX you are having a problem with. I have a couple UNIX books and I find myself coming to this one, because it keeps it in a nutshell. If you are looking for something to "learn" UNIX, I would keep looking, but if you have read the UNIX books and now you need "one" guide to keep at your fingertips, this would be it.

This book is good for the "newbie" to the UNIX OS. It explains concepts very clearly starting from the simple ones and goes onto the more complicated concepts. Ive given 4 stars since it lacks the quality on the SED chapter - v. little material and v. complicated too. Need to use simpler examples in the beginning. OTW, its an excellent beginners book.

A very well written book for the beginners trying to understand Unix. Much better than many other Unix books competing for the same audience.

Don't let the 1994 publish date scare you away. This book is pretty good. One of the few books that isn't filled with Linux hype/fluff. Looks pretty SunOS/Solaris based as far as screen shots. But covers 4.3BSD. The examples are clear and concise.

Hi guys, first of all, thanks for actually considering buying this book. I do appreciate all reviews, whether they are good or bad, as this is the very first book I wrote. I do have to say in response to T.Arora that I did spend a lot of time writing this book (took me over a year), and the reason I did not include more images was a contractual restrictions. I was told to write a book of about 300 pages, and adding images would have made me go way over board. I felt it was more important to concentrate on explanations and the actual code. After that, you could always write the code and see what it looks like.

I do hope you read it till the end. I've heard good things about the last chapter, when everything gets together. Hopefully you will like my examples a little better. :)

For those thinking on whether or not to buy the book, realize that this book is about learning how to make database-driven websites, not how to make pretty pages. If you want to learn tricks and dangers of Web programming, the book can definitely help you. If you just want to learn Web design and how to choose colors, get a different book.

Thanks to all of you that have purchased it so far! :)

Have read 40% of the book so far. There are many places where visual aspects are discussed, and there are no visual illustrations!!. The book is clearly aimed at people whose knowledge is elementary in the areas being discussed, and yet there is no attempt to make it easy for the reader to learn. Also, the examples are unimaginative.

On the bright side, I like the casual conversational style.

This is the book I wish I had had when I was starting to set up my Books-On-Line web site. Here in one simple step is just about half of what you need to know to set up a fairly complex database driven web site. I say about half of what you need to know because he spends no time at all on appearance, type fonts, color, illustrations, all that stuff. As he says in the introduction, he's not good at that (neither am I), and for those subjects you need another book.

But for a functioning web site he recommends what is sometimes called LAMP - for Linux, Apache, MySql and PHP. To summarize why:

The software is FREE, a very good price.
It doesn't crash as often
It runs faster so you can use a slower computer.

By the time you finish, you'll probably want at least one book on each of these software packages, but here is an excellent place to start. It gives you enough to get started and you only need to go deeper into each of these packages when you start getting fancier. The nice thing about this book is that it gives you everything you need to get started in a well written, easy to understand way.

Mr. Gabarro, there are two things I would suggest for your next edition: One, include a cd of a working collection of the four packages rather than saying go get any distribution, and two, talk a little about past and emerging technologies such as Cold Fusion for the past, and Ruby on Rails for the future. I'd be interested in your opinions.