Open Source Books

Java and Linux have come a long way since their respective introductions. Java is a serious contender as a platform for application development on the web, while Linux is widely regarded as an excellent platform for developing applications. For those who haven't kept current with Java development since the heady days of applet development, the myriad of Java technologies can look like a morass of car parts, musical genres, and acronyms. Java Application Development on Linux helps make sense of the current Java technologies and developments, while ensuring that the reader uses Open Source technologies as much as possible from start to finish.

Part one of Java Application Development on Linux covers the Linux and Java foundations used in the rest of the book. Chapter one covers the fundamentals of UNIX and Linux by introducing Standard I/O, Pipes, Environment Variables, and rudimentary commands such as ls, find, chmod, tar, and man. Next, the authors introduce the venerable vi editor. The basic moves of vi are explained as well as regular expressions. (Lest other editor afficianados complain, other editors, as well as sed, are introduced, but not fully covered). Chapter 3 is a whirlwind tour of the fundamentals of Java and Object Oriented programming. This chapter is an admirable distillation of the concepts of Java, but by no means will it teach a rank beginner all of the points needed for full Java proficiency. Chapter 4 ties the first three chapters together by creating a simple Java program, compiling it, and reditecting input streams into the compiled program. The latter part of the chapter deals with incorporating environment variables into Java code using getProperties() and getproperty(), and with executing code via the Runtime class. Next, the book looks back at the Sun JDK, providing an overview of the Java Compiler, the Java Runtime, javadoc, JNI, and RMI, the Java Debugger (jdb), and jar. Chapter 6 is a quick look at the IBM Developer kit, and then it's on to chapters covering The GNU Java Compiler (gcj) and CVS. Chapter 9 picks up with Ant, and provides a look at why Ant was created and how to create buildfiles. Chapters 10 rounds out the first part of the book with an unfortunately dated look at Netbeans 3 and Eclipse 2 (both of which have recently released radically updated versions).

Part two of Java Application Development on Linux is entitled "Developing Business Logic". Chapter 11 covers the not-so-fun portions of development: requirements gathering and prototyping. This chapter also introduces a budget analysis project used throughout the rest of the book. Chapter 12 covers Analysis and Design, while chapter 13 covers everybody's favorite part of development: testing! Chapter 13 discusses installing and using JUnit to create automated test cases. The last two chapters in part two cover using a databases and JDBC together.

Part three dips into Graphical interfaces, and gives equal time for both Swing and SWT. Both toolkits are given equal time, and the Budget application introduced in part two is given a stand-alone application front-end using both toolkits.

Java gained lots of traction lately on the web application server, and part four introduces Servelets, JSP Servelts, and Open Source Web Application Servers. All three of these chapters keep using the budgetting application as the basis for their examples. In part five, Enterprise Java Beans (EJBs) are introduced in the context of this same budgeting application. While the authors admit that EJBs may be overkill for the budgeting application, they give ample coverage to clarify the role of EJBs in the enterprise.

Every chapter in Java Application Development on Linux includes a section describing what the authors didn't tell the reader, along with a section on additional reading. I found it extremely helpful to know what the authors didn't cover about each of the presented topics, and where to go for more information. Each topic is presented frankly, with a conversational style that makes the book easy to follow and easy to read. The book's style was so good that I found myself at the end of several chapters reading the "What you don't know" section hoping that there was more for me to digest. The authors had a large task in distilling the whole of Java and Linux development into one small book, but I wish that in future editions of the book they would have more space to delve deeper into these subjects.

Java Application Development on Linux presents a broad picture of the state of Java and how Linux can play a part in developing applications under this framework. While this book did leave me wanting more, it still stands as an excellent introduction to Linux, Java, and the various Open Source tools for Java Development. Readers interested in stepping into the vast ocean of Java Development will find Java Application Development on Linux a handy guide, and a resource which they will refer to along the way.

Yes, another Java book. And this time it is specifically about developing applications on Java to run on Linux.

What, Java is supposedly write once - run many so that it will work on just about any platform.

OK, when you are developing something it often turns out that you do something specific that makes it rather tied to a particular platform. And if you are starting out on the development of a business application today, you're likely to at least think about doing it on Linux. So this book concentrates on combining Linux with Java. That way it can talk about the wide range of libraries, tools, GUIs, and other developmental assistance that really begins to tie the operating system together with the programming language.

Probably some of the purists out there will complain, but this is a good place to start thinking about the application you need to write.

Hi.
This book covers many aspects of Java development under Linux without losing the reader in the details. To achieve that, the authors gave many references throughout the book in order to direct the reader to more in depth coverage of the subject.
My only disappointment is not to find the hyperlink to the book's web site in introduction. Moreover, the site (www.javalinuxbook.com) does not contain much information to complement the book. For example, it would be great to find the list of all the hyperlinks given in reference in the book.

This book is not intended for beginners but initiates in OOP and Linux. An excellent book of reference, well written, strongly recommended for those whishing to begin Java development under Linux and don't know where to start!

When first embarking on a new journey into a programming language, the average traveler might want a map and a compass to show them where they are, where they're going and how to get there. If where you are is Java newbie and where you want to be is programming Java apps on the Linux platform, then _Java Application Development on Linux_ is a map and compass you can use to get from here to there.

This book is another in a long line of great technical reference books from Prentice Hall's Bruce Perens' Open Source Series. While some of the previous books I have revied from the series tended to be more in depth, this one has the benefit of starting out slow and covering all of the bases. You can know little to nothing about Java as a programming language and come out with a solid understanding of the fundamentals after the first few chapters. Anyone who has an object-oriented programming background will zip right through the opening pages, but for those that don't, spending a little more time will bring them into the ranks of the initiated.

All of the programming basics are covered, from constants to strings, from arrays to variables, and all of the fundamentals and not-so-fundamentals of object-oriented programming, like classes, methods, objects, properties and polymorphism. Then the reader is steadily moved along into more involved topics, like putting your Java classes into JAR files, how to use the Java debugger, the software development kit and so on. At the end of each chapter, there is a small section on what the reader still doesn't know. The purpose of this is to keep the reader clued in on their progress, explain what is to come and keep things moving along. All of which makes for a fast-flowing read. Generally this is hard to find in a technical book, many of which tend to be dry and boring for the most part with the index being the most read section.

By the end, the now initiated reader will explore programming applications for various interfaces and APIs, including Swing, SWT and JSP, and will even find out what JavaBeans are and how to use them and what JNDI is and how it can work for you.

With all that said, this is a fundamental resource book for anyone who would want to learn how to program Java applications under Linux. Much of the information can be borrowed to develop applications on other platforms as well. The introduction and first few chapters of this book are extremely informative and give the reader an excellent comprehension of Java as an object-oriented programming language and all of the fundamentals he will need to go further as an application developer. The later chapters tend toward information overload, and while the information is good, some things are skipped over to save time and space. It may have been better to separate this book into two different volumes, giving the second half twice as many pages and more room to breathe. But overall, this is still an excellent technical book and adequately achieves its main goal of making a beginner application developer out of a Java layman.

Java was developed to be a cross-platform language. "Write Once, Run Anywhere" is the slogan, and an admirable ideal to attempt to reach. So when I first saw the title of the book Java Application Development on Linux, I expected to find descriptions of some idiosyncrasies in the Linux environment that affected the "Run Anywhere" part of the equation. What I got was a lot more.

The authors, Carl Albing and Michael Schwarz, chose to create a book that is a complete guide to writing commercial-quality Java programs. They focused on how to use the tools of Linux to assist in the creation of Java programs. The book is broken up into five major parts: Getting Started, Developing Business Logic, Developing Graphical User Interfaces, Developing Web Interfaces, and Developing Enterprise Scale Software. Each chapter is self-contained, and the reader can choose what they read without losing track. Each chapter starts with a summary of what you'll learn, and concludes with a "What You Still Don't Know" section.

Part I provides a 10-chapter overview of Linux, Java, the SDK's (Software Development Kits) from Sun and IBM, version control via CVS, and IDEs. The first two chapters cover a sampling of command-line Linux, plus the Vi editor to create your programs. Chapter 3 gives you a overview of the Java language, and Chapter 4 covers how the program can deal with the context in which it's running. The next two chapters cover Sun's SDK and IBM's development kit (briefly). Chapter 7 describes how to use the GNU Compiler for Java (gcj) to create native-code programs.

Larger programs definitely need some form of source control, so the widely available Concurrent Versioning System (CVS) is clearly described out. For building and deploying the numerous files of a larger project, Ant provides value beyond what the make facility can offer. Finally, Integrated Development Environments (IDEs) are covered. The focus is on NetBeans, but SunONE Studio Community Edition and Eclipse are also covered.

If the book stopped after Part I, you would still have a valuable addition to your bookshelf. However, Part II continues with a five-chapter discussion on how to get requirements, documentation, and buy-in; how to analyze the program and discover the objects to be created; automated testing with JUnit; storing data in databases using Oracle, PostgreSQL, and MySQL; and using the Java Database Connector (JDBC) to access them.

Most users want some form of a graphical user interface (GUI) to access the program and their data. Part III describe how to create a GUI using Swing and the Standard Widget Toolkit (SWT).

By far the most popular way to access programs is via a browser. Part IV describes Java Servlets and JSP (JavaServer Pages), and also talks about two Java-based web application servers (JBoss and Geronimo).

Finally, Part V covers Enterprise JavaBeans (EJBs) in what the authors describe as "an almost criminally brief introduction". While it is definitely an overview, they still cover more than enough about EJBs to get you rolling. They wrap up the book with a plea for help. The book is an Open Content book, and therefore they are requesting comments, suggestions, and patch files to help improve the text and examples.

I have to admit that Java Application Development on Linux is an extremely readable, very informative, and deep without being lengthy book. The tone used by Carl and Michael was very conversational. I found it enjoyable, interesting, and highly informative. The only complaint I have is that they tried to cover a little too much in a single book. EJBs definitely warranted more coverage than they provided. In all, I rate it a 4 out of 5.

I bought this book because I really wanted to learn Mambo. I achieved that goal, somewhat, with the help of this book.

Let's concentrate on the good stuff first. I love the illustrations in this book. They help me a lot because I'm a visual learner.

The book fails on one fundamental point. How to really get started.

When you install Mambo, the Mambo manual is the Mambo site. You need to get rid of the manual and create your own Mambo site.

But how do you do it?! The book doesn't tell you how.

The book is a bit outdated I think. There was info on installing Pony Gallery... Unfortunately Pony Gallery seems to no longer be available.

That is likely due to some sort of split in the Mambo community. It appears Joomla is the result of that split, and it appears Joomla is overshadowing Mambo.

So now it appears I need to forget about Mambo and learn Joomla. I can't afford to keep buying new books.

Unfortunately I'm not able to learn from online forums, or most of the documentation included with these resources.

Most of the people in the community say this stuff is so intuitive that a real manual isn't needed.

I don't find this stuff intuitive at all.

The authors of this book need to seriously study English before they write anything more. While it's easy to say that you should over look poor or unusual grammar and concentrate on the content this is so bad it makes it hard to read. They also need to learn the difference between a proper noun and common noun, this leads to a weird outbreak of capital letters throughout the book making sentences even harder to read; eg section and category are not proper nouns and should not be capitalized.

Using "Search inside this book" helped me decide for myself to purchase in what appeared to be conflicting love/hate reviews.

The screens of the actual product do walk an administrator thru the steps, so that may seem repetitive or a "waste" to some, but the extra tips and explanations about why you'd do something and the alternatives offered make this a worthwhile purchase for me.

Perhaps I could find a lot of the same info on the forums, but I wanted something cohesively packaged that I can follow along with - rather than the hunting expedition style of a forum.

This book easily translates to Joomla! It is very useful if you are just getting started and need help with design.

Brett says, "eg section and category are not proper nouns and should not be capitalized." While those two words aren't ordinarily proper nouns, they certainly are in Mambo and are properly used as such in this excellent book.

My only issue is that it gives no help with installing Mambo under Windows, which is unfortunately the environment I'm forced to use at work.

I have bought several Mambo and Joomla books. This is by far the best for anyone who needs to do day-to-day administration of a Mambo or Joomla site and does not want to make a career out of it.

Open Source Network Adminstration is a collection of open source tools for streamlining and improving virtually every facet of network administration.

Every tool is described in detail, with easy instructions for retrieval, installation from source, configuration and real-world usage.

Coverage includes:

MRTG: Graph bandwidth and other router and network statistics

NEO: Unify the administration of SNMP switches, routers, and other devices

Flow-Tools: Collect and process crucial interface-level Cisco NetFlow traffic data

Oak: Collect and distill syslog messages from servers and network equipment, and automatically send trouble alerts

Sysmon and Nagios: Monitor network hardware and servers and notify administrators of problems

Build your own tools with Bourne Shell and Perl scripting language

In all, this book is a complete guide to monitoring your network and help troubleshoot problems that might occur. Its structure is extremly good and will certainly become any administrator's best friend!

James Kretchmar's book, Open Source Network Administration, published by Prentice Hall, offers upcoming and new Network Administrators a down and dirty overview of common Open Source Network Administration utilities.

I've found the book to be well organized, and driven straight to the point. Kretchmar is efficient with his usage of words which makes for a nice light book, that tends to be a bit of dry reading. Not to say that the material covered isn't valuable, but the author wastes no ink nor paper on extra words for the sake of color or interest. While the first chapter goes into a down to basics approach that any beginner or management type could fathom, including one of the best descriptions of, and arguments for Open Source that I have come accross in a book, he quickly dives into the meat of the matter in Chapter 2. To put it shortly, his descriptions, and examples were, well, too short in many areas, and just right in many more.

Kretchmar's use of first hand experience examples in a mission critical environment, and occasional discussions of real world applications are the gold nuggets that this book has to offer. Prescious and useful. I would ask for the next book on Open Source subjects that the author writes, that he include more real world examples to illustrate how an administrator might make use of, or protect from the subject matter at hand.

If I had to rate this book on a 1 - 10 scale, I would give it a 7, only for the brevity. I would highly reccomend that users working with Open Source Network Administration tools get this book, and use it in conjunction with more detailed texts on the specific software or protocols you are interested in. Then take some time and do the reading, this isn't exactly light stuff to read on a Sunday afternoon.

David B. Hostetler
President. Coastal Area of Texas Linux Users Group.

I am not a Network Administrator, and I took an interest in this book simply to learn the basic tools used to build and maintain an open source network. In my position there were a number of chapters that particularly stood out for me

Chapter 1: Introduction. I felt this was a very well-written and easy to understand introduction to the world of Open Source network administration. It goes through the basic reasons to use Open Source, answers many of the question that many people only familiar with closed-source software may have, including questions of quality and security, as well as smart reasons to use open source software.

Chapter 9: Basic Tools. Need to know what a ping is, how it works, and why it's important? This book takes he time and effort to carefully explain how basic things such as ping. It explores telnet, netcat, traceroute, MTR, and netstat. It's a great chapter for reviewing these basics and exploring what you require.

Chapter 10: Custom Tools. This chapter gets into explaining the basics of bash scripting, bash itself, basic Perl scripts and what they are commonly used for, and how to use cron. Again, these are basics, but vital to anyone looking for basic knowledge of the environment.

The chapters in between cover subjects suh as SNMP, MRTG, Oak, and Tcpdump, all great tooks in network administration. The author gives detailed explainations of all these tools, how to use them, how to set them up, and offers tests and examples of them in action.

I would recommend these to anyone who is new to putting together an open source network. The instructions and descriptions of all the tools are at a level that I feel most moderately computer-literate people can follow.

Open source is the wave of the future, and James Kretchmar's "Open Source Network Administration" (OSNA) catches that wave in fine form. Although the book is only 238 pages, it contains several gems. I read the book specifically for its coverage of the Multi Router Traffic Grapher (MRTG), OSU's Flow Tools, and Sysmon. By following Kretchmar's instructions, I easily installed these three applications.

I was able to accomplish these tasks because OSNA is a "cross platform" book. The author doesn't limit himself to discussing how to run the tool. He gives guidance on how to configure Cisco routers to export NetFlow records or enable SNMP reporting. Sometimes these simple steps are buried in Cisco's Web site, so I appreciated getting straight to business. I literally had these tools running in a matter of minutes thanks to Kretchmar's instructions and the FreeBSD package system (e.g. "pkg_add -r ").

On the down side I thought coverage of old stand-bys like tcpdump, traceroute, and netstat was unnecessary. I would have liked reading about more "niche" tools like MTR. If you like this book, keep an eye out for my "Tao of Network Security Monitoring" in the summer. I'll take a similar approach in several chapters by discussing security-related network monitoring tools.

Any IT administrator worth his salt would try to save money for his company while not denying efficiency. This book helps to use some free yet fully functional UNIX tools that help to achieve that goal. Those of us who have been system and network administrators for a long time are always looking for ways to make our jobs easier. The problem is that efficient solutions almost always cost money. Just ask the stubbornly (and foolishly) Microsoft-centric shops about that!

This book covers a good amount of information regarding network methodologies like SNMP. But since the primary purpose of this book is dedicated to open source tools, the majority of the book focuses on those specific tools that the author thinks will be of value.

Overall, this is a good book. Having a single point of reference for free utilities is always a good thing. Not only does the book cover some genuinely useful tools - there's a caveat on that later, though - but it also lists where to get the software and gives instructions on how to compile each package. For someone who is new to UNIX and doesn't really feel comfortable with the idea of compiling software, this book will help to alleviate those fears.

There are some things with this book, however, that don't make it the open source panacea that network administrators might be looking for.

The book assumes that IT shops have Cisco hardware. Whereas there is no doubt that Cisco is the current big boy, the technology market has proven time and time again that those at the top often do not stay there. Since there is no guarantee that competitors will be Cisco-compatible or will have the same functions, many of the tools in this book that rely on Cisco routers will most likely be incompatible with those environments. In some cases this means that entire chapters in this book might be useless.

There is also an entire chapter dedicated to basic network functions, like telnet, ping, and traceroute. I have been working with Solaris for over seven years. I currently am in a position where I have to deal with AIX and SCO. In some cases the operating system revisions are several years old. With that in mind, I have yet to run into a version of UNIX that doesn't already have these commands available right from the operating system.

The chapter on system automation and notification is very cramped. In a single chapter, the author attempts to cover shell scripting, Perl scripting, sendmail, and even text manipulation via sed and awk-like syntax in Perl. That one chapter alone will be a serious cause of brain explosion for someone who has never worked with these tools before. I have taught each of these topics (sans Perl) in my highly-regarded Solaris administration course, and I can tell you that each of these topics requires its own chapter. Compressing all of these topics into one chapter is like compressing "The Silmarillion", "The Hobbit", and "The Lord of the Rings" plus its appendix to a single 100-page book.

Additionally, there are a number of other, very popular open source network tools that are conspicuously left out of this book. The most glaring omission that I noticed is Ethereal, a very popular GNU-licensed network analyzer. I'm sure that other administrators will be able to mention other tools that have been left out.
The most discouraging thing about this book is that it carries what I consider to be a hefty price tag ($44.99 MSRP) for a book that is less than 250 pages long. In addition, this book is a compilation of information that is already available for free on the Internet and can be found without very extensive searching. Overall, this is still a respectable book. It's a good collection of open source network administration tools (albeit only a relative few). But if you aren't a Cisco shop you might find about one-fourth of the book to be useless, and if you are already an experienced UNIX admin some of the other chapters will be of no additional benefit.

Given its potentially limited amount of usefulness based on your environment, I can't really suggest this book unless you are in a Cisco shop and are relatively new to the UNIX world - not because the information isn't valuable, but because the price tag doesn't necessarily justify its value even though the book itself is rather solid.

I really enjoyed this book - I haven't had to write Perl consistently in years, but programming, ultimately, is programming, and the book shows clear thinking the whole way through. Many of the problems tackled aren't big issues anymore, of course, but it's still a great read.

David Berube
Berube Consulting

Not that useful if you've been around Perl a while. Biggest annoyance - leader blurbs that tell you that what you're about to read is out of date and something better is already out there.

It's amazing how much Perl knowledge is crammed into some people and Randal Schwartz has more than his fair share!

His articles are concise and cogent. You might want to complain about the layout somewhat, but collections rarely fit into neat categories and these columns are no exception.

While quite a bit of this makes use of tools and techniques that I have not found use for yet in my work, it has made me think about implementing a few things for my own personal joy. And by pawing through the examples and the code, I picked up a tidbit or two that I had not thought of or considered before, especially in Section 5, The Webmaster's Toolkit. I can't wait to try some of it out!

If there's to be any complaint, it's that some articles (as the author admits) have had their core ideas superceded by newer additions to Perl. It might have been nice to find addenda to these articles, showing some updated coding, rather than having it left up to the imagination. Still, it's not enough of a complaint to rate this as anything less than a 5-start masterwork.

Randal Schwartz is PERL. He is the PERL man.

I know PERL very well, but even I learned a lot from this great book.

It's not in my nature to like article compilation books and this one seems actually a little worse than usual to me. The content is all over the place and the formatting should have at least gone through some sort of standardization process. I find this kind of book very lazy. At the very least, be sure check the outline to make sure what's being covered matters to you before spending the money on this one.

I am very glad for having bought the book, it is extremely interesting. Chapter 1 is more than a historical introduction, is the best written chronicle of 25 years that changed the world making everyone's life so different. It really is a masterpiece.

In the first five chapters, the book gives valuable historical background on the development of Internet, Unixes, Web, and Internet-related tools; encouragingly uncovers the Open Source philosophy; analyzes Open Source in business terms; explains various license types and legal issues; scrutinizes different organizational types, mainly network organizations. It is of vital importance for any Open Source Project participant to understand the philosophy of the Open Source and be aware of the history of the movement.

However, the book does not reach its goal, Managing Open Source Projects. The book title is misleading. The core two chapters, Managing a Virtual Team and Managing Distributed Open Source Projects aren't practical and not very deep.

The final chapters are a quick glance on tools and technologies for building Open Source Projects.

The information given in this book is not enough to start and manage an Open Source project. This book however may be helpful for anyone wanting to contribute to an existing Open Source project.

This is a most valuable book on Open Source. There is very little serious information around for those who want to use this model in practice. This one fills the gap. There are evidently several kinds of projects that can benefit, both technically and business wise, from using Open Source as a development model. Read this book before you start! It will help.

Awesome book. Relivant and timely. Wish I had written it. It is a hot topic.

A friend got me in the loop to read the book. great stuff. It confirmed a lot of our ideas about where things could be going here.

After reading this book it is clear the author has a problem with Microsoft. This book is extremely unbalanced and the author missed an opportunity to give managers practical and objective information regarding the trade-offs they make when they invest in open source products vice traditional commercial product. Yes, I said invest... this book is a sales pitch for specific open source products targeted to replace parallel Microsoft products. You are often led to believe that you will saves tons of money, which is not the truth... The total cost to implement, support, develop, many of these product is often VERY expensive. I am not saying anyone should not use open source products... I am saying this book is a terribly unbalanced view; even lying at times, and should NOT be considered something from which to base business decisions.

Ms. Winslow's book is a rarity - it contains real case studies from real people, and talks both about where Open Source is a good match, and very practical ways to tell where it may not be as good a match.

The case studies are superb - much better than "analyst reports", because they contain the words, thoughts and motivations of people who've actually put open source software into production in the real world, and it includes their savings according to their own measurements and experience.

Although I've seen a few of these cases before, having them all together in one book with the information on how one goes about seeing what kind of savings one might expect, is quite illuminating.

The concentration on computing total cost of ownership and how to get a reasonable idea if and when a particular change is going to pay for itself is really outstanding.

Given that the topic of the book is open source, it is unsurprising that the author has found it to work well in many of the cases she's examined.

Exactly what the title promises, this is a survey of open source business software solutions from the business manager perspective. Most of the books on the market that laud the merits of open source programs are directed at the technically oriented user. This book provides management with the information they need to determine if they should investigate the use of open source software in their business. It includes actual case studies including the specific software products used and a cost savings analysis as well as how to calculate the Total Cost of Ownership if you are looking at making a change away from Windows products.

The book contains almost no technical jargon. It is a high-level overview of the programs available, what each one does, advantages and disadvantages, and where to find additional information. Ms. Winslow includes information on all the most popular business applications and distributions of Linux. She even includes information on determining when you should and should not make the switch and when a hybrid network is the most appropriate as well as how to get users and management to buy into the change. The Practical Manager's Guide to Open Source is a great non-technical overview of open source business programs and the perfect place to start for management considering Linux in their network.

I don't do a lot of reading yet have really enjoyed "Practical Manager's Guide to Open Source" by Maria Winslow (way to go, Maria!). So many books are filled with technical spew or other superfluous information. Not the case here. It is the straight forward real deal and explains in plain English what open source is and how it is being used. There are real case studies instead of stuff dreamed up from the sales department.

Highly recommended for all those that use open source software or want to learn more about it.

I thought I could just keep silent on this, but I can't. I was disappointed with Ms. Winslow's publication, as much as I really wanted to like the book.
Here's why:

* Too simplified. Although this book makes for an 'easy read', she glosses over the details of important, and often complex, topics, such as the intricacies of the GPL license and how it differs from BSD-style licenses. I implore all readers interested in open source to read at _least_ one more significant publication on this topic.

* Too much opinion. I noticed that Ms. Winslow tended to interject her opinion with the facts such that the two became blurred for this reader.

* Older references. Too many of her critical sources were from 2001 or 2002. Given the subject, this is not useful to the practical manager who wants to stay current. I realize she published in 2004, but "The Success of Open Source" by Steven Weber was also published in 2004 and it is overflowing with useful references.

* Too Linux-centric. The title belies a broad topic of open source to be covered. Only Linux was her open source focus and success story. Perhaps the title should be "The Practical Manager's Guide To Linux Open Source".

* Poor editing. Although a minor distraction, I lost track of the number of typos.

I did appreciate the case studies, however.

Thanks for your time - .

I like this book. It does a good job describing the how to use subversion and many of the industry standard ways subversion is implemented. There are lots of easy to follow examples and good hints of which direction to take when there is an implementation "fork in the road" (i.e. BDB vs FSFS).

The book also does a great job showing you the difference between other version control systems... mostly CVS.

My only gripe with this and other Apress books is that they usually include a section on IDE integration.. This is a good idea but they usually only cover Eclipse and not Netbeans... this book is even more annoying in that it includes Visual Studio(!!!) and not Netbeans... Granted, Subversion integrates pretty easy with Netbeans but geez.. Include the 1/2 a page so all major IDEs are covered.

Done with my rant. Beyond that, I really like this book. I feel this will get you going with Subversion. In a few days of reading, I had enough information to properly setup my own server.

_Practical Subversion_ seems to have a theme that distinguishes it
from "the" Subversion book at [...]
integration. Looking over the table of contents, i see that 5 out of
the 8 chapters focus on integration of one kind or another.

After the requisite chapter on installation, the book moves quickly
through "A Crash Course in Subversion" and "Repository Administration"
and then on to the good stuff. These first three chapters are
thorough and adequate, but are basically the same as such chapters in
other books about Subversion. It's almost a shame such chapters have
to be included, as they're only useful during a short period at the
start of the book's life on your shelf.

_Practical Subversion_ really starts to shine in the chapter on
migration from other systems; it even documents the dump file format!
It goes on to document Apache integration; repository browsers;
integration with the shell, Emacs, and Ant; and closes with an
excellent introduction to the Subversion APIs.

Overall, this is a great book for using Subversion in practice. It
lives up to its title.

--Eric Gillespie

The "practical" in the title must refer to sysadmins, developers, tool integrators, and the like. If you are just someone that wants to become very proficient *using* svn, you, as I have, will find this book most *impractical*. The "crash course" chapter only begins to meet a user's needs, but it stops way short. The book then goes on to treat in detail a host of topics that as a user I could not care less about. Usually, I wind up having google for what I need -- I am currently looking for a better user's svn book.

The version control system known as Subversion is quickly taking over the title of open source leader from the old standby, CVS. If you already have some background knowledge in version control systems and you want to start using Subversion, the book Practical Subversion (Second Edition) by Daniel Berlin and Garrett Rooney would be a good way to transition yourself over...

Contents:
Introducing Subversion; A Crash Course in Subversion; Repository Administration; Migrating from Other Version Control Systems; Advanced Apache Integration; Best Practices; Integrating Subversion with Other Tools; Using the Subversion APIs; Subversion Command Glossary; Subversion Compared to Other Version Control Systems; Index

Unlike some books that cover version control systems (either generally or one in particular), this one doesn't try and take you from ground zero to expert. While there is some background material, the overall tone is one that assumes you are functionally literate on the subject and are particularly interested in Subversion. While that might limit the potential audience a bit, it makes it much more focused and valuable for those who want to bypass entry level material. The chapters cover both administrative and user-based functions, but tend to be a bit more heavy on the setup and administration end. For something that could be a rather dry subject, the authors do a good job in keeping things moving forward and interesting. I also found the chapter on version control system comparison to be valuable. All systems are *not* the same, and there are some underlying structural differences that will have a significant impact on what does and doesn't convert over, should you choose to switch systems.

All in all, a good book on Subversion, and one that will get you started in the right direction.

The second edition of Practical Subversion has been updated, but not substantially changed. The new edition has somewhat higher production quality and editing. The reference material on the various svn subcommands has been updated to be more current. This is very important because the first edition was badly out-of-date in this area.

The book has many good features, such as the "Best Practices" chapter, the comparison of Subversion against other version control systems. and the API documentation. These sections have been cleaned up and, in a few cases, extended to provide a real benefit to the reader.

Unfortunately, I don't think the book went far enough with the practical "guide" content. More information about how to use version control and the special features of Subversion in particular would have been a better use of space than repeating the reference material that can be had freely on-line.

Like the first edition, this book tries to be both a solid reference and a practical guide. Unfortunately, the authors do not separate these two missions in the book. This leads to a kind of split personality, where the practical advice is interrupted by reference material and vice versa. I found this to be a bit distracting, and think it prevents this from being a great book.

That being said, this is a good book that covers Subversion quite well. I have recommended it to people already on the strength of the "Best Practices" chapter alone. If you are using Subversion, the practical usage information in this book should help you make better use of the tool.If you are considering using Subversion, the comparison of Subversion against other tools is a very important resource.

Although I think the structure of the book could be improved, I still don't mind recommending the book.

I found Pro PHP Security a very informative book. I received this book around the same time that I began developing online financial software. This book lived up to the name and answered a lot of my questions.

I found the chapter on encryption and hashing very interesting. I knew what each system of protection accomplished but not how. Next the authors proceeded to discuss Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) and how certificates are created. It was fun to be able to create my own certificate and keys, and gain a better understanding of how the whole process works.

After covering server security and connection security, the authors moved onto secure programming. The first chapter covers user input validation. This is one area that many programmers, myself included, do not devote much time. If you can sanitize the data you get from the user, you have overcome one of the largest hurdles of securing your code.

After that chapter, each following chapter begins with the presentation of an exploit and how it works, followed by discussions of sites affected by these exploits, and concluding with how to prevent it. SQL injection, cross-site scripting, remote execution and session hijacking are some of the exploits discussed. This section of the book gave me plenty to think about and more than enough to work on implementing.

If anyone is a PHP programmer and deals with any kind of sensitive data, then this book is a must read. The authors attempt to provide all the best practices because one method may not work in a given situation, but they also let you know the disadvantages of each method. As Snyder and Southwell discuss in the first chapter, as developers we cannot eliminate risk but we can do our best to mitigate it.

PHP applications written without a concern for security risk cross-site scripting, SQL injection, session hijacking, and a multitude of other potential problems. This book examines how to setup a secure environment including encryption, hashing, SSL and using PHP to connect to SSL servers. The authors also examine how to install and configure OpenSSH and using it with PHP applications. Of course they also deal with the usual concerns of user authentication, permissions, restrictions, validating input, preventing SQL injection, preventing cross-site scripting, preventing remote execution (including PHP code injection and embedding), security for temporary files, and preventing session hijacking. The Pro PHP Security is written specifically for PHP programmers working in the Apache, MySQL, and PHP 5 environment and is highly recommended

Unless you're already very well-versed in the subject matter, ( sql injection, cross-site scripting, session hijacking, remote execution, sanitizing user data/input, ssh, encryption, ssl, dangers of shared-host scenarios, bulletproofing db installations, user verification, captchas, remote procedure calls ) this material is relatively comprehensive and valuable. Well-organized, well thought out, I won't hesitate to recommend this one.

The book is entitled PHP security. But the actual content covers very little PHP at
all: less than 20 percent. It tries to cover everything from UNIX permission,SSH
and all other security issues, but really doesn't have much to do with PHP. So I
think the title is highly misleading. For someone interested in the general
security issues, it might be a fine book. But not for programmers want to know
the security about PHP.

Like the title states this book tells you about a lot of security issues you should be aware of, but doesn't go in depth for many solutions. Especially xss which is the only reason i bought the book. For how much the book costs i figured it would include some really good php solutions. I mean the thing is in black and white, what's with the price tag that doesn't tell me anything that i can't find on the web.

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.

This book is easy to read but is also very basic concerning its information. If one is interested in technical assistance in order to solve problems with Linux, it probably isn't much help. It is more oriented towards an understanding of how the OS works.

The Linux Desktop Pocket Guide has helped me to to have a better understanding Linux.

This is basically a small format pocket reference to five of the most common desktop distributions of Linux. The distributions covered are Fedora, Gentoo, Mandriva, SUSE, and Ubuntu. The author covers the basics of navigating the GNOME and KDE desktop environments and the applications that come with each of the distributions. Deviating from the normal layout of such texts it is organized by the type of application instead of by the Linux distribution. As a result if you want to work with the web browser you go to that section where the author discuses the web browsers Firefox and Konquerer. These are the two that are included because each of the distributions has either one or the other.

The section on how to add, remove, and update programs is particularly good as it discusses the various techniques including how to add a package that it not part of your distribution. Here the author not only discusses the various package managers included with the distribution but also how to go the long way around and work with rpms. This is not an extensive technical reference to any of the Linux distributions discussed but it is a good first resource for common questions and a good introduction to all of them. Linux Desktop Pocket Guide is recommended for the average Linux user and a must have guide for others who need to know the differences between various distribution.

The Linux Desktop Pocket Guide is a valuable resource for new users to the Linux world. Almost everyone has heard of Linux and recognizes it as the "next big thing". However, many people are taken aback at the shear number of Linux distributions. The advantage of Windows is that there is only one company to go to and that provides some simplicity. With Linux, there is no one-stop shopping, and each distribution has different strengths and weaknesses. This book helps the novice user to navigate the most popular distributions to decide which will work best for them.

The book compares Fedora, Gentoo, Mandriva, SUSE, and Ubuntu with a focus on their desktop environments. This book has some value for system administrators, particularly new ones, but will make the biggest impact to the casual home-user to the beginner power-user.

It covers a wide range of desktop issues including Gnome/KDE support, application support, updating the OS, configuration for hardware support, and probably most usefully laptop support. Laptops have traditionally been less than friendly with laptops and this book helps navigate the big issues making Linux a viable option for laptops.

It is a little thick as pocket guides go but that's more of a factor of the breadth of material covered. Like many of the O'Reilly books, it is concise and easy-to-read. It is accessible to the unsophisticated user and presents information in manageable chunks. For those looking to get a handle on Linux and making it work for them, this book is a great resource.

Are you using one or more of the following Linux distributions: Fedora, Gentoo, Mandriva, Novell SUSE, and the desk-top-focused Debian derivative Ubuntu? If you are, then this book is for you! Author David Brickner, has written an outstanding mini guide to help you get the most out of your Linux experience.

Brickner, begins with a valuable introduction to the Linux distributions. Then, he devotes a whole chapter to logging in. The author continues by looking GNOME. In addition, he discusses the KDI desktop. The author also presents at least two application programs for each program type. Then, the author shows you the basics of using each of the preferred package managers of each distribution. Next, he discusses how to configure some types of hardware with regards to Linux. Finally, he presents you with a grounding in the basics of what is needed and how the pieces fit together.

After reading this excellent book, you'll learn all about the graphical programs and desktop environments that run on top of Linux. This book doesn't shy away from difficult topics in Linux; instead, it jumps right in and tells you what you need to know about laptop power management, configuring your graphics card, and setting up sound and networking.