Unix Systems Books

I've come to expect a lot from O'Reilly guides, and this one didn't let me down. It really helped me past some areas of confusion I had with Eclipse, although I think I may want a larger book eventually that gets into more detail on some of the add-ins.

I found the book to contain several tips and tricks that were new to me and I have been using Eclipse for over two years now. I would highly recommend this book to new Eclipse IDE users to help you get a leg up on learning the Eclipse IDE. I found this book well worth the price and will be looking for more pocket guide books by O'Reilly to add to my bookshelf.

I thought this would be a handy little "tips and tricks" reference. It basically just tells you all the obvious stuff you already figured out on your own. Save your money and just use the doc from the internet.

The most common comment from the people I showed this book to was "I wish I had it when I started using Eclipse".

While this is a very small book, the contents have been selected to give you a best start with the main features of the Eclipse IDE. The topics are short but concise and include scattered tips for the points of interest.

If you're just starting with this IDE, the Eclipse IDE Pocket Guide will give you a great head start and will continue helping you as a lovely reference to refer back to as the features become familiar. Having all of these critical features pointed out earlier will save you a lot of bother in the future, since you'll be annoyed if you only find out about them much later by accident or experimentation!

Experienced users are less likely to get much from it though. The authors made a decision between content and size, and I feel they chose to stick with a smaller, simpler book than I would have expected. There is a final section on places to go for more information, but it just refers to various community sites.

I wish I had this book when I started using Eclipse.

I expected a little more from this book than creating a simple java file and compiling it. This book is for someone who is new to IDEs. This is *NOT* for someone trying for a quick reference to migrate from another IDE to Eclipse - which was my purpose.

I liked it and it is easy to understand.

For a Windows 95 user like myself, Unix looked liked a dark and mysterious night, unpenetrable and unfathomable. This book came like a guiding light and saw me through.

I think this must be one of the best UNIX-manuals ever written. Mr. Hahn shows skills and knows how to teach even a beginner everything from basics to the more advanced. I would highly recommend this book to everybody who would like to learn a bit or eight about Unix- The most interesting and powerful MUOS there is!

Having been using the UNIX system for six years, I'm still referencing from this absolute beginner book from time to time because the language is so non-technical, yet the information contained within is more than enough to get you started on using UNIX operating system and learn to love it.

The author did a very good job particularly in describing and tutoring the reader how to do common tasks such as using email systems, doing text editing, issuing commands from the CLI, etc. Not very in-depth but the point is, it is enough to get you interested to look for MORE, which is the most important thing. There is no point in explaining something in-depth only to discourage the reader to look for more information, and only to leave the subject untouched because it looks "hard". If you are a UNIX veteran/advanced user/system administrator, this book is not for you, as you have probably known way more than what this book contains.

I highly recommend this book as the very first book on UNIX to read on, if you have never even heard of UNIX before, and only experienced in Windows/MacOS environments.

I found this book to be excellent. I feel it teaches you all that you need to be a comfortable UNIX user. This may not be the ideal book if you are looking for a quick reference for commands etc. Great job by the author.

The current version of Caldera OpenLinux is 2.3 (The book includes ver 1.3.) which is freely available for download at their web site. You can also download the Getting Started Guide which tells you how to install ver 2.3 with screen shots. After you install Caldera OpenLinux you will automatically boot into KDE. Which means you can start with Chapter 3 in this book. Most of the information in the book is still true and it can be applied to any Linux distribution. This is still a good introdction to Linux. A revised edition reflecting ver 2.3 would be nice.

I want to know more about redhat linu

A great visual introduction to Linux applications and seems to track my use of StarSuite and other key applications. As stated in an earlier review, if you want the older Linux command-line only "zen approach", this is not the book for you.

If however, you want to see how to move your corporate mission-critical desktop MS Office applications to Linux, this book is a real eye-opener. Most people do not realize you can get just-as-visual AND heavy duty apps in Linux...

If you want Linux to work like Windows, and you are interested in apps, and you are not a C++ code guru, this is a great book for you (and me.) This book goes step by step and made install and configuration a snap! I was up and running in an hour.

The only drawback is that there is not much troubleshooting info. The author assumes everything works right. (I cannot get my PS/2 mouse to work in KDE/XWindows. I had to go online, on a different PC obviously, to usenet to find potential solutions.)

I would definitely recommend this book to "mere mortal" first time Linux users!

This is not a very bad book but it is extremely outdated. Caldera v2.3 is the newest version and as the reviewer below stated...download that version to use.

I find this a nice guide for those of you that would like to try Linux for the first time and are either wanting to get away from Windows products or are even trying out a OS for the first time ever.

It is a visual guide as stated, in color, yet the newer Caldera will allow you to skip all the X terminal and command line prompt garbage in the first few chapters, so you can jump straight to KDE pretty much.

Caldera is not the most popular distro of Linux available, but it is a nice start for the beginner and this book will tell you enough to give you a working knowledge of the GUI functions it has using the KDE interface.

...Even still, this a decent price for a starter kit.

Not that great...but definitely serviceable.

I found this book to be very readable and a good way of getting up to speed on Linux. The book: (i) guides you how to load Fedora onto your computer, (ii) describes how Linux works, and (iii) discusses Linux applications, networking and scripts. The author also touches on the Red Hat Enterprise version of Linux throughout the text. The Linux installation section is well written with plenty of screen shots showing the various screens during installation. The other sections are also very readable. The book comes with a couple of CDs containing Fedora Core1. A reader may wish to download a more recent version (Fedora 4 is available at the time this review was written). This book is a good springboard in getting into the Linux world with Fedora; however I think that a person will want to supplement this book with a reference on Linux (such as Linux in a Nutshell) in order to get a more detailed coverage on topics.

My recommendation is, this is a good book for a Linux novice or someone starting with Fedora for the first time.
Those with experience, will probably want to pass on this book. Its not likely you'll pick up anything new
(I didn't). (For those unfamiliar with what Red Hat has done with the split out of Fedora; think of
Fedora Core 1 as Red Hat Linux 9.1 or 10; if Red Hat had continued the product line.)

This book focuses on the "NEW" Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Fedora Core 1 Linux user. The book is a relatively
easy read. Bill McCarty writes a clear and well organized book. From a novice's perspective, the author gives
you, what you need to get Fedora installed, running and usable. The author does a good job of pointing
the reader at additional information sources on each topic. The book is short, less than 300 pages.
This is nice compared to some of the other 1,000 page plus Linux novice tomes; which try to be a "how to get
started" book and a "general reference" all at they same time; except they don't do either well. Linux should
be friendly, not scary. First timers shouldn't have to read a Encyclopedia to get started in Linux. I agree
with the author's choice of brevity for his book.

One suggestion to the author, would be to include output examples with the CLI (Command Line Interface) examples.
He does it with the GUIs, so why not with the CLIs???

I bought the book because "Red Hat Enterprise" (RHE) was in the title. I was disappointed in the fact there wasn't
more detail about RHE. In retrospect, anyone doing RHE, is probably an experienced Linux person working for a
company, where RHE is deployed and may even have had formal training on RHE. So why would they need this book?

My bona fides; I've been using been using various flavors of Unix for an embarrassing long time, Red Hat Linux
for 8 yrs (from release RH 3.0.3 to 9) and I have been running Fedora Core for about 5 months now.

From the title I would have suspected something about building scalable Linux servers for web applications. Turns out the book is nothing like that. It's a ground up introduction to Linux from the end-user perspective. It starts in Windows with prepping a system for Linux installation, works through the installation (replete with lots of screenshots), then goes into the basics of window managers and Linux Office-style applications. The last few chapters go into some depth on working in the shell and shell scripting, but it's pretty light.

This is a solid introduction to end-user level Linux that should be suitable for anyone who is reasonably technical (no need to be a programmer). The only reason I give it four stars instead of five is because of the reliance on numerous screenshots, which isn't the best way to explain things, and is not the quality that I expect from O'Reilly.

I wanted a book that could help me with fedora in TEXT MODE. This book looked great and obviously, books from Oreilly are always good so I bought it.

This book is absolutely NOT a good book to learn Fedora in TEXT MODE because the book is about graphic mode and it wasn't said somewhere. It's all about GNOME and KDE.

Be sure you use the graphic mode before buying!

In my quest to learn Linux, I've been working through the book Learning Red Hat Enterprise Linux & Fedora by Bill McCarty (O'Reilly). This is exactly what I was looking for in a learning guide.

Chapter list: Why Run Linux?; Preparing to Install Linux; Installing Linux; How Linux Works; Using the GNOME and KDE Desktops; Using Linux Applications; Conquering the bash Shell; Installing Software Using the RPM Package Manager; Configuring and Administering Linux; Connecting to the Internet; Setting Up Network Services; Advanced Shell Usage and Shell Scripts; Linux Directory Tree; Principal Linux Files; Managing the Boot Process; Linux Command Quick Reference; Index

This book concentrates more on the desktop and graphical interface aspect of running Linux, which is exactly what I was looking for. While this book won't tell you everything you need to know about any specific subject (like shell programming or networking), it covers more than enough to get you up and running with a complete Linux setup. Using this volume, I've been able to get a full desktop and server setup going with little effort or trouble. By following the rest of the book, I'll gain a solid base of knowledge of Linux, and then I'll be ready to move on to more detailed learning.

Perfect level of coverage for where I'm at, and enough detail to get me up and running quickly... I like it.

My book DOES contain information that every sysadmin knows, and it ALSO contains information that every C programmer knows. My POINT in including this material is that a sysadmin doesn't know much about C; nor does a C programmer know much about networking; I included both so that both types of readers can expand their knowledge enough to actually build a working cluster computer!

I should also note that the older kernel was used to TEST the software. That means you can run it on a bunch of cheap computers, and not have to spend thousands of dollars on high performance processors. That old kernel is NOT a requirement, as some readers might believe.

One final note: if you have a bunch of PCs on a network, that's ALL you've got. It's the software that makes them work together as a "team" of individual processors, toward some common goal. That's about the clearest definition of a "cluster" that I've come across.

The (debugged) software described in my book is available from the Sams Publishing web site for free download. It works just fine on my current cluster running CentOS 4, which is the free OS version of Red Hat's Enterprise Linux 4. (That's just one generation ago. It's like running XP instead of Vista, like most of us do at home and at work.)

There are some issues related to the (then) R-commands: rsh and rcp, for example are suggested as a test for network connectivity. Shortly after the book came out, Linux dropped these in favor of the secure S-commands, like ssh and scp. A few minutes of your time reading the latest MAN (help manual) pages should bring you up to date.

Doesn't really tell you anything you don't already know. Seems very outdated also.

I found this book by shelf-shopping at MicroCenter in Dallas. My brother, who is a mechanical engineer, mentioned needing a cluster computer for his work. It was the first I'd ever heard about this sort of contraption, although I've been a hardware-hacker for years, and have played around with Slackware and RedHat since 1996.

"Linux Cluster Architecture" is an excellent place to start. It has a lot of basic hardware background, including a compelling argument for using the obsolete "digital doorstop" computers that clutter your guest room floor. (There's also a lot of C code in the book, which I skipped over, because I don't do programming.)

Following successful hardware configuration on three junkers, I bought "The Red Hat Bible" and continued with the setup. The newest computer became the Master and the identical-twins became Nodes, using RedHat 9.

That done, I gave the Homemade Cray and "Linux Cluster Architecture" to my brother, and he's using the book to learn about distributed loads. He is well-versed in C++ and in FORTRAN, and says that the programs are just what he needs to get started.

I've been dealing with Linux clustering for a while. I found the basic and difficult concepts are well explained and useful for newbies and more experienced. The book makes you want to read more with interesting, practical sample codes. The author is very knowledgeble and hits a nail right on the head.

Although, some topics seem outdated, the underlying concepts holds through time. You're gonna enjoy tuning and adjusting it to fit your system environment. There is no abusolte solution for every system. As long as you understand what the book explains and many useful examples, you'll never get lost with lastest technologies and be equied with some solutions in mind. The rest is up to you to work on your cluster piece by piece. That's the beaty of clustering.

I love the sections of Distributed Server Process in action, external performance measurement and analysis - estimating and displaying network utilization, inter-process commincation - messaging and more. I think most information in this book could not be found anywhere, even on the web.

This is the first book I have found that actually tells you how to build up your cluster. Yes, it is technical. But it actually talks about everyman-hardware not just the high-end unobtainable. I came at this project from a power-user perspective in the *nix world. I can build up a Novell or MS network in a snap but some of the *nix topics are new to me, like shared memory across the network. When I built up my cluster I ran into a few problems. I contacted the published and within a couple of days Alex wrote back. Together we spent the next 3 weeks emailing back and forth. I would make a change, reinstall the OS, etc. Alex hung in there and helped me get everything running. That was a first for me, an author that actually cares.

in a word this book is at best confusing. it tries really hard to be a good book that combines the theory behind how everthing works and how to become a competent linux user. unfortunatly, i'm not sure what these guys were smoking when they wrote this ( maybe some ground up windows cd's, since they're so good at linux they didn't need to buy any more windows products) anyways I suspect that the writers are much bettr linux users then they are writers. If you buy this book and it works out for you, thats great but I think the odds are against you.

I have used and taught UNIX and LINUX for over a decade and this is arguably the bext LINUX textbook for entry- and intermediate-level users. The writing style is lucid and examples that work. For a change, this book contains shell scripts that actually work! One of the rare books that elegantly combines operating system concepts with LINUX examples. Simply a first-rate book. I give it two thumbs up and look forward to more books by the author team.

You don't even need to know much about computers. They assume nothing and you never get lost. It is a pleasure to read.
A bonus is that, if you like books, you will appreciate the quality of the printing and the material used.

Author: Computer Science/Math double major at Cameron University. Junior.

After reading four five-star reviews, I think I need to speak up. Our school used this book for a freshman-level Operating System Utilities class and I was not fully pleased. As far as positives go, I will give that this book is extremely comprehensive. Most important commands are explained and the more obscure commands and options are included in the back. Even though I disliked the book, I still keep it as a reference due to its scope. Issues regarding differences between different versions of Linux are not covered well, but that's really too much to cover in one book. Just make sure to get a book specific to your version in addition (or possible exclusion) of this one. I have Red Hat and fortunately most of the code in here is portable to Red Hat. Also Mandrake is included on the disk (at least in my version), which is the version the book is catered to. Maybe it's just bad luck but I found the version of Mandrake included to be quite buggy, but that's a separate rant.
The main reason I didn't like the book is the usual flaw in technical computer books: unclarity. The explanations are not well-written and are short of examples in some areas. Also, the explanations that are given tend to be just as dry and boring as unclear. In addition to the constant vagueness and unreadability, there isn't enough attention given onto the traditional privileges and restrictions of the typical user. The examples and explanations don't give the reader a good feel as to what they can do on a Linux system, unless they happen to have full root access. Given an experienced programmer knows there restrictions and they may vary, but the introductory Linux programmer is not clear on the kind of programming environment they will be working in.

Impressive book, well written, self explaining and covering almost all aspects required by the linux "not-so-expert", as I am. But:
One really important part is missing! Almost no discussion is provided on the user profile definition. How the user is related to the group, how can a user be part of several groups, etc...
Really, is a good book, but the writers suppose that everybody will use "root"? I hope not. To be useful for the IT Professional, a little more has to be spent on this area.

I primarly use *BSD and was hoping to learn about NFS/NIS from this book, more than what I had already gleaned from the man pages. However this book is very heavily geared towards the Solaris OS. It does give exlamples of where the filename(s) or folder structures under a different flavor of Unix would be, but exept for these small tables, the rest of the text uses only the Solaris names/folders.

This book is quite outdated. For example, it predates NFS version 3, NFS over TCP (mostly the default these days), or autofs.

If you are a beginner and are looking for fundamental information this book might be useful if you remain aware of its shortcomings. It covers the fundamentals of NFS V2 over UDP, and NIS quite well, and has a good troubleshooting section, which might help beginners negotiate the interoperability and tuning issues that are common in today's multivendor environments. It covers automounting issues quite well, from an "automount" (SunOS 4) perspective.

Hello, My name is Mike Eisler, and I am one of the
co-authors of Managing NFS and NIS, Second Edition.
I'm writing this note to offer additional information
to potential readers.

At the time I submitted this note, most of the
customer reviews for this book referred to the first edition.
One of the reviews states that the book is focused on NFS
version 2 over UDP and the old style automounter.
Actually, you'll find the second edition of our book
is more modern. New topics in the second edition
include NFS version 3, NFS over TCP, modern autofs-based
automounters, Kerberos V5 authentication for NFS, NFS Access
Control Lists (ACLs), and client side fail over.

Another difference is that first edition of this book
used SunOS 4.x as a reference for examples. The second
edition uses Solaris 8.

The second edition provides information you won't find
in NFS product documentation, such as using tools like ethereal
to debug NFS problems. This book will give you the benefit of
insights from people who probably wrote some of the code for
your clients and servers. You may find (and I hope) that
it will save you the trouble reporting a problem to
your vendor's customer support line.

Thank you for considering our book.

Anyone who has ever administered a network of at least 3-4 servers (if not more) will find individually updating accounts, software and such to be a burden. I found myself in this situation not too long ago, and then I picked up this book, and found the answers I was looking for.

Most Unix admins have heard of NFS and NIS but might not have considered using them together. This book gives a very thorough discussion each topic, how to set it up, how to deal with advanced issues, and how to troubleshoot. Admins will really develop an appreciation for how useful these tools can be, especially when used together.

Though LDAP is gaining prominence, a network utilizing NIS, NFS, and automounter is still a very nice network to administer. Even just learning NFS/automounter is time well spent because it is a service not likely to go away. I really felt this this book was worth the time and money because it really helps the intermediate to advanced admin better gain control of the network (instead of the network controlling him :). Definintely give this book a try. Enjoy!

O'Reilly puts out so many well written books and the quality of the authors is usually the highest, and this book is no exception. Both of these subjects are covered in more than enough detail for anyone need to setup NFS, NIS, or both. It is written in such a way that you son't have to read straight through, but can use it as a reference for the information you need. I would recommend this book for anyone neededing a decent to thorough understanding of this topic.

My one pedantic complaint: The overwhelming majority of the examples in this book are done on linux and there is some coverage of bsd. Putting UNIX in the title is a bit misleading.

This book is full of errors (spelling, syntax, jargon). The content is what you would expect from an entry level UNIX book. They do a fair job of covering the basics although a high percentage of their syntax examples are amazingly wrong. It almost looks like an artist reviewed the book at the last minute and decided that all the '-' characters were too boring and decided to replace some of them with '+' characters instead. I cannot imagine how confusing and frustrating this would be to a beginner.

I was also sad to see that they spent 7 pages on telnet and only 2 on ssh. Never once did they mention the security implications of using telnet. Given that this book was published in 2005 there is no good reason to perpetuate the use of that wildly insecure connection method.

If you have to purchase this book for a class, I feel for you.

If you are trying to learn UNIX on your own, I'd advise you to keep looking.

This book will waste your time. The author can't explain basic staff.

Not even one script worked!! Here is exactly in the book on page 417:" We do not show the program headers...for the sake of saving space." If I can get it myself, why should I read your book?! There are a lots of similar non-sense stuff!

If you want to have headache, then buy this book. I will never buy any book from this author anymore.

I wish other people had written this before I bought it.

Another excellent book by the author team. I have used and taught UNIX and LINUX for over a decade and this is arguably the bext UNIX textbook for entry- and intermediate-level users. A lot of new material has been added in the second edition that makes the book current and much more interesting. The writing style is lucid and examples that work. For a change, this book contains shell scripts that actually work! One of the rare books that elegantly combines operating system concepts with UNIX examples. Simply a first-rate book. I give it two thumbs up and look forward to more books by the author team.

I have been teaching UNIX for over 15 years. I have used many introductory books but this is by far the best. The authors seem gifted with the ability to explain difficult topics with ease.

Some of the salient features of the book that I particularly like are:
a. Topics are arranged in a very nice, ascending order of difficulty
b. The book is very comprehensive and I often use it
c. The book discusses important OS concepts not found in any other introductory book on UNIX
d. Shell scripting is explained very well and, unlike many other books in programming, ALL of the programs in the book actually work!
e. Nice intorductory chapter on X Window System

I look forward to more introductory books on computer science by the author team.

This book is wonderful, it is a very usefull text/reference book. I never had any experience before with Unix. After reading this book, I found it to be very educational and entertaining. I give it two thumbs up. A++

In this listing, Amazon has listed two separate publications under a single ISBN. 0937175269 is the ISBN of Volume One - The Xlib Programming Manual.
Volume Two is the Xlib Reference Manual, and the ISBN of that book is 0937175277.
At this time, Amazon does not have a listing under the ISBN of Volume Two, but simply lists both titles under a single ISBN. But, since O'Reilly sold the two volumes separately, and Amazon lists the ISBN of only the Programming Manual, it's unclear what you would get if you were to order from this listing. Since books are uniquely identified only by the ISBN (and not by title), the buyer should probably expect to get the volume that is identified by the specified ISBN (The Programming Manual).

Unfortunately, X11 programming is extremely complex. This book is not perfect, but does guide you through the labyrinth. If you are going to program in X11, you need to get this book.

O'Reilly and Associates was born as a publisher of technical books when Tim O'Reilly printed out copies of the first edition of this manual and was practically mobbed at a technical convention by eager customers in 1988. This is an extremely well written book on programming with Xlib, an X Window System protocol client library in the C programming language. Xlib contains functions for interacting with an X server that allow programmers to write programs without knowing the details of the protocol. Few applications use Xlib directly anymore. Instead, they employ other libraries that use Xlib functions to provide widget toolkits such as Xt, Xaw, Motif, GTK+, and Qt. However, if you are going to need to program in Xlib directly, this is an essential book. The table of contents is as follows:

Chapter 1 Introduction - This chapter gives the big picture: what X is all about and some fundamentals of how it works.

Chapter 2 X Concepts - This chapter introduces the concepts that underlie X programming. You should read this chapter even if you are the type of person who likes to jump right into coding.

Chapter 3 Basic Window Program - Every Xlib program has a similar structure. This chapter shows a simple calculator program that puts up a window and handles events in that window. You can use this simple application as a template for your own more complex applications. All clients will use the techniques described and demonstrated here.

Chapter 4 Window Attributes - The window attributes control a window's background and border pattern or color, the events that should be queued for it, and so on. This chapter describes how to set and get window attributes and provides a detailed description of each attribute.

Chapter 5 The Graphics Context - The graphics primitives supplied with X are quite simple. Most of the details about how graphics are to be drawn are stored in a resource called a graphics context (GC). GCs are stored in the server, thus reducing the amount of information that needs to be transmitted for each graphics request. This chapter describes how to use GCs and provides details on each member of the XGCValues structure.

Chapter 6 Drawing Graphics and Text - This chapter describes the routines used to draw lines, geometrical figures, and text. It also discusses the use of the pixmaps, images, and regions.

Chapter 7 Color - This chapter describes how to use color in your programs. Color handling in X can be more complex than in other graphics systems because of the need for portability to many different types of displays. This chapter starts with the basics, and gradually moves to more advanced topics, including R5 device-independent color.

Chapter 8 Events - Events are central to X. The fundamental framework for handling events was given in Chapter 3, but this chapter gives much more detail, both on selecting events for a window and on handling them when they arrive. It discusses each of the masks used to select events; for a description of the event structures themselves, see Appendix E.

Chapter 9 The Keyboard and Pointer - This chapter not only describes how to handle keyboard and pointer events but also describes many other topics related to these two input devices. In particular, it discusses X's use of keysyms as portable symbols for character encoding, keyboard remapping, keyboard and pointer "grabs," and keyboard and pointer preferences.

Chapter 10 Internationalization - This chapter begins with a detailed overview of the goals, concepts, and techniques of internationalization, starting with ANSI-C internationalization and progressing to the R5 internationalization features. After the overview, each section covers an individual topic in X internationalization.

Chapter 11 Internationalized Text Input - The first two sections provide an overview of the internationalized text input model used by R5, and are valuable to any programmer writing internationalized applications. The remaining sections describe the Xlib functions and datatypes for internationalized text input, and are quite detailed.

Chapter 12 Interclient Communication - As a multi-window environment, X must support a mechanism for communication between applications. There are three: properties, selections, and cut buffers, all of which are described in this chapter. The special case of communication between an application and the window manager is also covered here.

Chapter 13 Managing User Preferences - It is a fundamental part of the X philosophy that the user, not the application, should be in control of the way things work. For this reason, applications should allow the user to specify window geometry and many other characteristics both via command line options and in a file that specifies default preferences. This chapter discusses the use of the resource manager, which helps an application to evaluate and merge its own default with user preferences.

Chapter 14 A Complete Application - This chapter describes and demonstrates these techniques with a real application, basecalc. The basecalc application is a programmer's calculator that allows integer calculations in binary, octal, decimal, and hexadecimal and conversions between these bases.

Chapter 15 Other Programming Techniques - This chapter discusses a few orphaned techniques that didn't quite fit in anywhere else. The routines and techniques described here will not be needed in most programs. The end of the chapter contains information about porting and portability.

Chapter 16 Window Management - This chapter discusses the design of a simple window manager, not so you will be able to write one, but so you will know what to expect from one. A window manager is a program implemented with Xlib to control the layout of windows on the screen, responding to user requests to move, resize, raise, lower, or iconify windows.

Appendix A Specifying Fonts
Appendix B X10 Compatibility
Appendix C Writing Extensions to X
Appendix D The basecalc Application
Appendix E Event Reference
Appendix F The Xmu Library
Appendix G Sources of Additional Information
Appendix H Release Notes

This book is a basic introduction to programming X11 directly with Xlib. It is not obvious that Adrian Nye is the best expert to learn from. Often it seems like he wrote the book in an attempt to try to make sense of the X11 system himself. Parts of it are extremely unclear, but at least we should give him credit for trying to explain everything, even those parts he wasn't entirely sure about.

It would probably be a good idea if O'Reilly made a revised edition, rewriting some of the bad parts (which should probably be clear in Adrians head by now), and updating some material for X11R6.

On the good side, there are plenty of code-examples, and while they aren't exactly showing good style, at least they are complete, you can type them in and run them. And they are all small enough to understand without further refactoring. And while not every explanation Adrian makes is crystal clear, it is definitely necessary to have some understanding of basic X11 concepts before you move on to the reference manuals.

If you want a programming manual, and not simply a reference for Xlib, this is the only book available. And while it is far from perfect, it will be much better to learn from than e.g. Scheifler & Gettys. But you'd better order that one as well.

you'll never get past page 100. this book is simply unreadable. after reading a few chapters, you'll find that you've learned a lot, but understand very little. and certainly won't be able to DO anything with it. the book is guilty (amoung other things) of giving VERY technical definitions which is fine, but no attempt is made to give a better understanding of the term in basic, frank language that everyone can understand. in addition, the book is way too long. it attempts to be a treatiste on the subject of xlib. if you want to learn xlib (or anything, for that matter), you want a basic book, not a treatiste.

This book lacks depth badly. It might look nice from the cover and is actually interesting in the first 40 pages, but once you get the idea why open source is good - better code is produced, better philosophy etc - it gets very boring to read this idea again and again for 200 pages.

It feels like the author didn't have much to say after chapter 3 and tried to write some stuff such as comparing hackers to superheroes ("both have 'exceptional powers', but are not understood by society") or explaining the "importance of beer for the community" (no kidding!), just to fill the number of pages agreed with the editor. So for the second half of the book he spends pages and pages listing "useful sites" like freshmeat and sourceforge, some "important people" such as Linus Torvalds and Alan Cox, and, well, repeating how Linux is cool and "the community" is ultra-cool.

The author is an open-source evangelist so I expected some bias, but the fact he doesn't enumerate one single flaw on open-source development model is suspect. No methodology/philosophy is perfect.

Another point to ponder is that lots of "advantages" of open-source development he enlists also applies for any good software, no matter how it's produced, and some of the most common questions, such as "how do I get support?" are answered with "you have usenet and IRC for that" which is not exactly what people expect to hear (not to mention it also applies for traditional "closed" software)

Open source adepts won't have anything new to read on this book and people who don't believe on it won't be convinced after such a biased and superficial read. Those could actually misuse this book _against_ open source.

...

Russ' understanding of the do's and don'ts when trying to do business in the Open Source arena and his ability to explain them are excellent. This book touches on the reasons why Linux and Open Source are not fads, but rather true Paradigm shifts and explains away the FUD (Fear Uncertainty and Doubt).

Anyone considering doing business within the Open Source community or relating to it should read this book.

I thought so much of "Embracing Insanity" that I obtained a copy for our CEO, and suggested that it be assigned reading for all our executives, as well as recommend it for new hires.

I've been waiting for this book to come along.

On the contrary to a review above I find the book amusing and full of humor, even though not intended by the author.

It is as good as any religion. The arguments are equally deep.

Only one question remains: where are the source for the book so I can correct the errors in it?

So go out and cooperate with your competitors and jointly develop one single product. Then the users wont have to chose which product to use because there will be only one available.

This book explains what the geek culture is, what are open-source software (o-s) and free software (free-sw) and their communities' values.
The book is divided in three parts. The first one `talks' about the origins of o-s and why is it better than proprietary software. The second explains what the geek culture is and what is the o-s/free-sw community and how it works. It presents some mistakes that people make regarding o-s/free-sw. The third part of the book explains how we can participate in this community, how to make business and what are the main players (persons, institutions, companies). At the end the author presents a resume of the principal o-s/free-sw licenses.
This book is an easy reading, interesting and well written. The problem is that the subjects aren't presented with sufficient depth, especially when related to how to make business with this software.

For starters - this book is highly recommendable! Well written and a good introduction to OpenSource development.

I you decide to buy this book you might also consider the book "Open Source Development With CVS" by Karl Franz Fogel. In one of it's less technical chapters it accomplishes something this book does not.

I guess the lack of humour is one of the things I miss. I miss the fun! But to get the bare bone facts - this is definitively the bok for introduction to OpenSource-development.