Linux Books

O'Reilly books are always excellent sources. I'm a technician and work on UNIX systems with the SCO interface, so I use this book a lot. Any time I can't remember a command, I can thumb through the book or look in the index for what the command does and have it at my fingertips. Thanks, O'Reilly for all your great books of which I have many.

I would recommend this book for ANY user of SCO Unix, from the novice to the sys admin. It nearly every command and option from SCO System V Release 3.2, Version 4.0. In addition, this book also covers several important Unix utilities such as the vi editor, sed, awk, etc.

I would give this book 5 stars except SCO OpenServer has advanced well beyond this level (this edition is from 1993). Most of the information remains accurate, but there are some issues that exist. Keep in mind that there are some additional commands and additional options to existing commands that are not listed. Also, but more rare, there are commands or options that have been removed or changed in the OS. This is not as serious as it may sound as these issues will probably only be noticed by the more advanced users in rare circumstances.

O'Reilly has done it again, bringing Unix users a priceless reference book. The book is well organize into different shells and is easy to read. This book list all the commands with options and an example for it. Novice to SCO Unix should add this to their bookshelves.

This book contains all the basic commands needed by system analysts in an easy to find format. I recommend this book to all SCO Unix technicians and system analysts of SCO Unix systems.

I could not agree more. This book is an excellent reference for building a secure Linux Server. From file permissions to installing Apache, bind in Secure manner, this book has it all. I was very impressed by the book. Covers Tripwire, sXid, and many other tools to keep linux servers secure. Overall, i give it 5 stars.

This book shows you how to build a secure, reliable and
clean network from the ground up, with optimizations and
security, using RedHat Linux 7.x as a base OS.

This book presents everyhting you need to know clearly,
concisely, and in an extreemly well organized fashion.

Each chapter is well organized starting with an introduction
on what the contents of the chapter are, why the items
in the chapter have to be covered and then a complete description
of how to implement the specific features.

The chapters are in logical order, so you always know the
order of things. HOWTO's are mostly written in isolation
from each one to another, not the chapters of this book: they are
consistent and follow a well organized flow.

I used to spend time searching through hundreds of web pages
for relevant, consistent and well organized info to configure
my network. HOWTOs are nice, but you never know which one
to apply to your situation and in what order to do things in
the big picture. Home grown web pages become obsolete quickly,
and newsgroups have a low signal to noise ratio making it hard to
find what you really look for. This book has the answers I
needed.

Buy yourself time off and get this book. It is worth it.

The short version:

An excellent guide to building a secure and efficient Linux application server.

The long version:

As an NT Administrator I have read many Linux books trying to bridge my NT knowledge to the Linux and Unix world, this book is by far the best.

Most of the Linux books I have read before tell you what to do to administer a Linux server, but they assume that you know how to do it. Gerhard Mourani tells you in detail what to do, how to do it, and why to do it. I have learned a great deal not only about Linux server applications, but about the Linux operating system itself.

If you want to take advantage of Linux's versatility as a server operating system, and do it in the most secure and efficient manner, you can find no better book than this one. In addition to operating system configuration there are many chapters individually dedicated to installing and configuring specific Linux server applications such as Sendmail, SQL server, Apache, BIND, and many more.

One disclaimer: If you are looking for information on how to build a Linux workstation or cool Gnome desktop, this is not the book for you. It is focus is exclusively building Linux application servers.

The short version:

An excellent guide to building a secure and efficient Linux application server.

The long version:

As an NT Administrator I have read many Linux books trying to bridge my NT knowledge to the Linux and Unix world, this book is by far the best.

Most of the Linux books I have read before tell you what to do to administer a Linux server, but they assume that you know how to do it. Gerhard Mourani tells you in detail what to do, how to do it, and why to do it. I have learned a great deal not only about Linux server applications, but about the Linux operating system itself.

If you want to take advantage of Linux's versatility as a server operating system, and do it in the most secure and efficient manner, you can find no better book than this one. In addition to operating system configuration there are many chapters individually dedicated to installing and configuring specific Linux server applications such as Sendmail, SQL server, Apache, BIND, and many more.

One disclaimer: If you are looking for information on how to build a Linux workstation or cool Gnome desktop, this is not the book for you. It is focus is exclusively building Linux application servers.

Wow! What a book. Although I know very little about Linux as an OS, even less about security and can barely dress myself, I successfully used this book to set-up a secure, linux-based environment for my top-notch anime collection... All in all, I highly recommend this product...

I purchased this book because I had the old version from the Red Hat 6.2 era that was severely outdated. The claim that this guide is a total rewrite is VERY accurate. I found the advice given and the steps provided to be extremely helpful in locking down my linux server.

Perhaps the most useful section for me was dealing with Sendmail. Even with the most recent release, working with the sendmail configuration files is tricky on a good day and downright frightening. I learned a couple of new tricks by following the steps in the guide and now have a better understanding of how the configuration file can be modified to make my email gateway more secure.

I also found the section on RPM's to be extremely helpful. In the past, I struggled with keeping my OS up to date and was actually jealous of the windows users that could "automagically" update their machines. Well, you can do this in Linux too by using up2date or autorpm. Check the guide out on how you can automate this functionality!

While I did find this guide to be extremely useful, it didn't cover EVERYTHING. Heck, that would be impossible given the changing nature of the Linux OS and the thousands of applications or services available but I was really hoping to see more example scripts provided in the appendix. Perhaps this will be covered in version 2.0??

All in all, a very good book and a BEST BUY!

Why does every book on Linux try to tackle too many issues? Let's face it, 700-800 or even a 1000 pages is just TOO much information. If you are looking for a complete and concise guide to securing your Red Hat Linux installation then I HIGHLY recommend picking up this book.

I would rank this as a book that is perfect for intermediate Unix admins but a colleague of mine without ANY Linux experience said she found this book to be a valuable resource in her steep learning curve. The book provides many examples of different configurations and provides great pointers to other resources if you want more information about a particular topic.

All in all, I was VERY impressed with this book and I would consider it a "must have" for anyone interested in securing their Red Hat Linux installations.

The excellent SANS "Securing Linux Step by Step"guide suffers from a
major problem: you can't cut-and-paste the commands from it into your
Linux system! The desire to do so constantly appear while reading the
manual, and I was very eager to try some of the things described
thereof.

The guide presents ultimate hands-on, indeed as step-by-step as they
do. A little of text and a lot of commands to accomplish it! All
configuration "recipes" are supposed to be tested by many of the guide
contributors and reviewers. I have found no inaccuracies of any kind.

Its a pity that there is no way to cut and paste from the book and
click on links too. The guide begs to have a CD, floppy or a companion
site since commands need to be typed on the server.

The book starts from a nice security policy primer and a summary of
security principles, which even touch upon physical security, backups
and other useful operational issues.

The range of advice is wide and covers everything from very basic
passwords security to complicated methods of chrooting various network
daemons for extra security. The complete step-by-step instructions for
chrooting bind and ssh are provided together with several sample
configuration files. Tips on securing many Linux applications such as
Apache, Sendmail, Bind, Samba are also detailed in separate
chapters. Securing Wu-FTPD, however pointless it might be in light of
a flood of attacks, is also described. Its a pity that common
replacements such as qmail, proftpd and djbdns are not covered.

While other books offer more breadth (such as coverage of many
different tools etc), this is ideal for those seeking depth. This
guide would likely not win any literature prizes, but can save a life
of a Linux admin.

Moreover, even if you think you know _everything_ about Linux security
- read it anyway, since you find some new stuff, just like I did. On
the other hand, complete novices will also benefit from it greatly,
since even just typing the command blindly and then reading up on them
and gaining in-depth understanding is no the worst way to jump start
your Linux security expertise. Overall, if you own or administer a
Linux system - get the guide.

Anton Chuvakin, Ph.D., GCIA, GCIH is a Senior Security Analyst with a
major information security company. His areas of infosec expertise
include intrusion detection, UNIX security, forensics, honeypots,
etc. In his spare time he maintains his security portal
info-secure.org

Great book, I used it to prepare for the Solaris 10 Network Admin exam. Read this book, learn as much as you can about the IP Filter implementation on Solaris 10 (lots of questions about IP Filter), have considerable hands on experience with Solaris 10 and you should pass the exam. The exam is not easy, but this book provides a good starting point. Hopefully someone will write a exam prep book for the SCNA exam for Solaris 10. Thanks!

Aimed at getting you through the exam, the best book for the job by far. Make sure you have been working with the product for a while, read a couple of good texts and then top it off with this book for the exam.

well, most people buying this book will not be coming into it blind. still it's the small things that trip you up.

what this book does is remind you what those small things are, and gives you some valuable tips on how to maximise your marks.

i think this increased my marks by about 15-20%, enought to allow me some comfort...!

Top marks for a simple read, good structure and sensible advice. it's nice to know what the experts think..!

this is the only book I used the pass my SCNA. everything is in there but you have to read very carefully. It's a small book so you tend to read it fast but take your time and be patient.

again, I passed the exam only by using this book!

This is an excellent book on how to use Linux or Unix. I recommend it as "The Book" for people starting with them.

While there are lots of books configuring and securing Linux, they do not tell how to USE Linux easily and efficiently after it is installed and configured. Stan's book does this wonderfully.

This book is great for novice users or occasional users of the Unix system. I have used this book for both purposes. The index makes it easy to find what exactly you need help with, the script writing clears up any ambiguity, and the highlighted warnings are absolute lifesavers. I would recommend this book to be in any office where Unix is used or any curriculum where Unix is thaught.

If you know nothing about UNIX OS, then this is the book for you. It's your easy way to become a Unix advanced user.

It's not one of those books that spend 25% of the book teaching you how to install it. If you have a shell account some where, this book is for you.

I've tried many times to find a book that clearly explains Unix in a friendly manner. I should have realized that the Apple ethos was the missing element in all the terse, disjointed treatments I found elsewhere. This book is a dream come true: a book about Unix that is as close to being enjoyable to read as the subject allows. It may not have everything there is to say about unix (I found a few things missing or covered too briefly for my tastes), but the book walks the reader through Unix so gently that I never once felt the blinding frustration that quickly overwhelms me during previous attempts. After this introduction other books (more comprehensive, less humane) can be read as references. Well done!

I have a working understanding of UNIX and am a Mac user. In my experience, this book is ideally targeted for someone like me that wants to improve UNIX skills and prefers to do so on a Mac. Other texts I've consulted seem to jump too fast between really elementary subjects to needs of a system admin. The depth here is still rich, but the reader has time to digest the information before getting to more complex constructs.

For those who are new to Unix, never fear, you won't find a better way to start. This book is very clearly written, easy to understand, and covers more than enough of the shell environment to give the user plenty to work with. Buy it! Get the most out of your Mac.

I loved the first edition of this book, but was thrilled when the updated version was released. (The original book was written before Mac OS X adopted the bash shell by default, so many of the examples were out of whack with later releases of the OS).
I use this as my primary Unix reference at work - where we do not use Macs! It is a comprehensive and easy reference.

I recommend this and O'Reilly's Learning Perl as the two best books (especially if you have a Mac at home) to build your professional Unix chops quickly.

I've been using various shell commands I picked up here and there over the past couple years. I decided it was time to buckle down and gain a deeper understanding of the what and the why. After spending a couple of hours with this book, I have the basics solidly under my belt. The writing is clear, concise, and entertaining. I only wish I would have started here instead of picking it up piecemeal (and painfully) via various websites.

I don't know if an experienced user would find it as compelling, but for a newbie, it's a godsend.

UNIX,(3rd Edition) by Deborah & Eric Ray is the best book I've come across for learning the fundamentals of this operating system and for using a Linix distribution for the first time. This book is accessible to beginners and experienced users alike. Its format and examples lend themselves to self-study and encourage experimentation. I used it as my companion reference for learning the Linix MEPIS distribution and it worked perfectly. I highly recommend it for every user of the UNIX OS who wants a handy and easy-to-follow guide.

I was wondering through the Unix maze, untill this small title cleared everything up. A little delight to have. If only I had known it existed, I would not have had my butt kicked from title to title, on craps, who called themselves Unix learning guides.

I have been looking for good Unix book for beginer. I am in computer industry for 10 years, mostly in web applications. My unix knowledge is minimal (first 5 chapters of this book). Recently I decided to improve my skills to get ready for shell scripts. I found this book in my local library.

Book was organized very well, simple and visual approach ensures you like a teacher. Straight to the point and simple. I highly recommand this book to beginers and intermediate levels. If you planning to jump into shell script, first refresh your basics from this book.

This book is here to help the beginner in Apache, PHP, Perl and MySQL. If you have always fancy in setting up your own web server but have no idea of how to do it, this book is for you.

The author teaches you step-by-step from installing Apache web server, PHP and Perl to writing applications like database-enabled web applications using Perl, PHP and MySQL. He also touches a small portion of SSI (Server-sise Includes).

This book is indeed very good for beginners. However, please be warned that you may get frustrated by the typos and mistakes found in this book. Refer to the previous post, he mentioned some configuration issues which are helpful. Other than that, this book is definitely worth reading as you may learn a lot especially when you have no idea of what and how to use Apache, PHP, Perl, and MySQL.

For advanced readers, you may want to look into other books :)

I want to congratulate the author for writing such an excellent book for beginners to open-source software like Apache, PHP and mySQL. On windows platform does not bother me as it is the predominant operating system platform and easier to relate to, although I do hope the second version of this book might include a Linux-version.

The CD software includes the latest version of PHP, MySQL, Apache and Perl, although personally I think Perl should be less covered since PHP is much better. Also the section of IIS installation with PHP kind of distract the attention from Apache in the whole book.

Some typo errors in the book's codes, as well as installation errors not mentioned in the book could frustrate non-technical people: e.g. Not able to set up on my Windows XP (Home) for virtual host / Server Side Include / OpenSSL / Preventing Directory listing...also on PHPMyadmin (Chap 8), the book missed out a step to uncomment in PHP.INI the line extension=php_mysql.dll in order to get the nice result of Fig 8.30, otherwise you would contantly get this error "cannot load mysql extension'.

Overall the book is recommended to read through in one session (I spent 3 hours in one single night), then follow by practices in few other sessions on Apache, PHP and MySQL in sequence.

It has been an enriching and enjoyment experience for me. I highly recommend to all new commers in web-database application developers.

Eric Hunley's USING OPEN SOURCE WEB SOFTWARE WITH WINDOWS addresses some common issues with open source documentation, from Linux/UNIX focuses not easily accessible to Widows users to adapting these focuses to Windows environments. Chapters tell exactly how to adapt open source software to Windows environments, using four of the most popular Internet programs as examples. The focus on how to reduce costs in the process is also a welcome one.

While there is an awful lot of software available on the net, this book concentrates on software related to setting up web sites on systems running the Windows operating system. This includes the Apache web server, PHP to provide web/database interconnectivity, MySQL database, and Perl to provide more flexibility to your web sites. The CD-ROM included with the book includes copies of all of this software, so here is really all that you need to put up dynamic web sites.

I gues the question I would have to ask is that if you are using a system for a single application such as being a web server, why wouldn't you go all the way and use a Linux operating system under it, it would be faster, more reliable and less expensive. But if you gotta use Windows, here's all you need.

Linux has always had one nagging criticism: the lack of decent office software. That changed when Corel kicked WordPerfect (and later an entire office suite) into the Linux mainstream. It is a great product you get for free, and a book that tells you how to use it effectively, from multi-part documents to mathematical equations to mail merges.

Highly recommended for hardcore Linux users and for those like me, who jump back and forth, alike.

Steve and Erwin's book is arguably the best reference book for newbie and intermediate Penguinistas who want to learn all they can about WPLINUX 8,x This book, like Steve and Erwin's other titles for the Windows versions of 8 & 9, is well written, the explanations are clear, concise and jargon free. Better yet, you can tell that both authours had a lot of fun learning about WPLINUX 8. I've learnt so much that when I installed COLOS 1,1, I was able to configure WPLINUX 8,1 to my needs and begin writing within a half hour follwing Steve and Erwin's book. If there's one minor quibble it,s the the book doesn't cover printing and printer configuration- a perennial headache for all Penguinistas. But that absence is complemented by Roderick Smith's book on WPLINUX 8. I wouldn't be surprised if some users refer both to Steve and Erwin's WPWIN 9 bible book for the specific feature of WPLINUX 9 and the WPLINUX 8 bible for the specifically LINUX aspect of 9. What I greatly appreciate about the WPLINUX 8 bible is that it offers the commercial version of WPLINUX 8, 150 fonts and the KDE desktop for Redhat 5,1/2. So for some 30$ you get a program that normally costs 74,00$ plus some free goodies. I highly recommend the WPLINUX 8 bible as simply the best reference/rescource on WPLINUX 8,x

WordPerfect 8 for Linux itself has a very interesting history. It is actually a repackaged "WordPerfect 8 for Unix", which is still being sold for around $800 per copy. When Corel's CEO Mike Cowpland decided to move his company into the Linux world, he essentially donated this used-to-be-unreachable product to the public.

Because the downloaded version does not come with a manual, the overwhelming majority of its users probably failed to appreciate the beauty and the power of this classic product. For example, it has more than 100 mathmatical/financial/logical/string functions (plse see Chap. 21 of "WP8 for Linux Bible"), and its speed-table-format feature (pp. 83-84) will make even Microsoft Word (for Windows) users salivating. It also comes with a very powerful database engine for table sorting. Its text search feature, including the ability to build a quick search data base, is also unparallelled (pp. 127-131).

I often found it very difficult as to where to begin when I was asked about what WordPerfect can do but not Star Office. These two products are in two totally different leagues. Unfortunately, Corel seems to be only interested in giving it away, and has failed miserably to educate the public about its merits. I bet even Corel's sales don't know what a gem they have.

I was a technical editor of this book, and have read every word and tested every example in at least half of its chapters. Let me tell you, this is an excellent book of a great productivity program. Mr. Steve Harris is also the author for the Windows versions of WordPerfect 7, 8, and 9.

For about $40, you get a product which used to cost $800, plus an excellent manual/guide book. I will not hesitate to recommend it to anyone who is serious about using Linux for productive work.

Mahalo.

WordPerfect for Linux Bible is a great book. It includes the full version of Corel WordPerfect 8 for Linux Personal Edition. Both the book and the software are excellent and easy to use. The books detailed instructions will have you creating documents in WordPerfect minutes after you open it up.

The WordPerfect for Linux Bible gives detailed instructions for almost every WordPerfect feature. I definately recommend this book to any Linux user. Considering that this book also includes the full version of WordPerfect 8 for Linux Personal Edition included in the book's low price, it is definately a bargain.

This book is written in a very approachable style that starts off with a very simple software-only character driver and builds up to more complicated hardware combinations. The code fragments are C code of course, but are preceded where necessary by pseudocode to give a better idea of the underlying algorithm. Complete code is given for the drivers, but this book is not really about programming as such. It probably tells you more about hardware than most programmers ever wanted to know, unless they were asked to write a device driver- which this book presumes you are. The book is biased towards IBM PC interfacing (8250 UART, LPT1, etc) but not exclusively. More importantly the principles remain the same and the author always seeks to explain things and make you think about what is happening. Furthermore the book is based on Unix version 3 (SVR3) with particular reference to SCO Unix, with only the last chapter introducing the principles of SVR4. However streams are treated more thoroughly with separate chapters on a loop-back driver and a rewrite of the terminal driver for COM1. After a general explanation, the book is divided into chapters covering individual drivers in increasing levels of complexity. There are character drivers for a test data generator, an A/D converter, a line printer, a more complicated test data generator, a raw disk driver, and a tape driver. Block drivers cover a test data generator, RAM disk, and SCSI disk. There is a terminal driver for COM1 and streams drivers for a loop-back driver and COM1. Finally, there is a chapter on installation and one on Zen and Driver Writing. The installation chapter refers you to your system manual for specific details, but explains how device installation is meant to work. The Zen chapter is general philosophy on when to write a driver and problems in debugging. Of particular note is the assertion that it is easy to write drivers provided that you have "..a mind unbound to conventional hang-ups about determinism, causal theory, logic, and the expectation that any piece of hardware will work the way its designers described." There have been more recent books on writing device drivers for various flavors of Unix, but none is as instructive and detailed as this book. You may need an additional text on device drivers for the particular flavor of Unix you are working with, but this book is still essential.

If nothing else, the thoroughness of the example code makes this book worth the cost. The variety of exampe types (nic, ram-based fs, etc) make it all the better.

What I'm appreciating about this book is the simplicity and the vigor of the writing. It's *really* easy to make this topic sound really complicated. Pajari's approach lays out as few issues at one time as possible, then adds gradually to the mix. The early parts are not taxing, but the pace does pick up.

In teaching the subject, I often find it difficult to slow students down, and get them to confine their questions to one problem domain at a time. Device drivers have to fit into the kernel subsystem and communicate with a device through interrupts; there are LOTS of side questions people can dream up.

This book gave me a few insights into containing the discussions and forestall all that anxiety. Well worth the wait to get the book.

This book is a priceless collection in the shelf of a Device Driver writer. Whether you are writing device drivers or just want to know more about them this is the book to read. The easy-to-understand language and style adopted by the author is also an added benefit to the reader.