| OverviewThe fourth edition of Running Linux
delves deeper into installation, configuring the windowing
system, system administration, and networking. A solid
foundation text for any Linux user, the book also includes
additional resources for dealing with special requirements
imposed by hardware, advanced applications, and emerging
technologies. Whether you are using Linux on a home
workstation or maintaining a network server,
Running Linux will provide expert
advice just when you need it. Editorial ReviewsAmazon.comThe Linux operating system has made a lot of progress in the past few years, and Running Linux has progressed right along with it to remain the single best general-purpose book for curious computer users who want to install, use, and enjoy Linux. The team of authors present a text that's simultaneously detailed and readable. Coupled with an inquisitive and capable reader, that's a recipe for success with the world's most popular open-source operating system. This new edition adds coverage of the GNOME desktop environment, the Apache/MySQL/PHP server suite, and the Postfix mail transfer daemon. It also covers core capabilities and behaviors of Linux through kernel version 2.4. There's better coverage of network security (including firewalling and ADSL link configuration), and coverage of how to set up audio-related hardware and software. Perhaps best of all, this book conveys a sense of the "Linux attitude" as the authors see it. Linux, they say, is largely about experimentation, research, trial and error, and participation in a community. This comes in welcome contrast to books that focus on recipes (follow these steps to accomplish A; do these things to make your system do B). Though the authors of this book provide lots of how-to information, it's always presented with an eye toward further exploration. In explaining how to build the kernel, for example, the authors provide six concise steps as a reference, but then go on for several pages about designing makefiles and how to deal with error messages. This book's a treat. --David Wall Topics covered: Assuming you know next to nothing about Linux, socially and historically as well as technically, this book teaches you what you need to know to make the operating system meet your desktop and server computing requirements. Coverage takes you from preparing to install Linux (in a multi-OS environment if you wish), continues through system administration and the most useful applications (like TeX and Internet clients), and proceeds to cover programming tools and server daemons (notably Apache, MySQL, and PHP). The coverage is mostly generic, but peculiarities of Red Hat, SuSE, and Debian get attention, too. | Book DescriptionYou're about to begin your first Linux installation. Or, you may have been using Linux for years and need to know more about adding a network printer or configuring for ADSL. Running Linux, now in its fourth edition, is the book you'll want to reach for. Widely recognized in the Linux community as the getting-started book that people need, it answers the questions and tackles configuration issues that frequently plague users, but are seldom addressed in other books. Running Linux has everything you'll need to understand, install, and start using Linux. The book doesn't draw the line at the OS, or the shell, or the GUI, or even at the point of essential applications. Rather, the authors, experienced Linux enthusiasts, have anticipated problem areas, selected stable and popular solutions, and provided clear discussions and instructions to ensure that you'll have a satisfying experience using Linux. The discussion is direct and complete enough to guide novice users while still providing the additional information experienced users will need to progress in their mastery of Linux. The fourth edition of Running Linux delves deeper into installation, configuring the windowing system, system administration, and networking. New topics include applications ready for prime time, basic security and firewalling, package management on Debian, sound configuration, ADSL, the GNOME desktop, the Postfix mail transfer agent, and the popular LAMP configuration that combines Apache, MySQL, and PHP. A solid foundation text for any Linux user, the book also includes additional resources for dealing with special requirements imposed by hardware, advanced applications, and emerging technologies. Whether you are using Linux on a home workstation or maintaining a network server, Running Linux will provide expert advice just when you need it. |
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Reader Reviews From Amazon (Ranked by 'Helpfulness') Average Customer Rating: based on 131 reviews. Not helpful, 2007-12-17 Reviewer rating: The back of the book says "widely recognized in the linux community as the ultimate getting started and problem-solving book", "will provide expert advice when you need it" and "one of the ultimate linux manuals". I haven't yet had a problem that this book helped me solve. I understand that it can't and isn't meant to cover everything. But I was annoyed that it's "in case of an emergency" section basically said that users should have a rescue cd with enough tools to recover -- but not much on how to recover. Now, whenever I break something, my recovery is 1) check Running Linux and find nothing helpful, then 2) throw the book into a corner and search the web for people with similar problems. | A truly wonderful intro to Linux all around., 2007-08-31 Reviewer rating: I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who is new to Linux and attempting to figure their way around. It's not a great book for those who just want the how-do-I-do-this-without-having-to-understand-anything-under-the-covers approach. If you want that I would recommend going with a book like Spring Into Linux (Valade), which is much more of a get you up to speed as fast as possible without teaching you much.
I like so far how much detail this book gives you, though the reason I haven't given it 5 out of 5 is simply because I feel like it's lacking detail in some key areas (most notably so far for me would be its sparse offerings in the NFS section). However, the book itself does not claim to be exhaustive. In fact, it claims to be just the opposite and admits early on that its goal is only to give you enough information to be dangerous and then point you towards better maps if you so choose. That in itself is one of the reasons I like the book. They really do, for the most part, give you tremendous little intros to topics that help you understand not only how to do something, but also why you're doing it that way, why linux may have been designed in that way, etc. etc.
So, in short, great book for an in-depth intro to linux. However, if you're looking to spend your money for a book that treats any topic very in depth, I would recommend going with any of the other books in this series from O'Reilly, because this book was not designed for that. Good luck with Linux! | Excellent, 2007-07-16 Reviewer rating: I was in a urgent need of some fairly serious Linux bootcamp. This book worked, and this is how:
I hadn't had any significant Linux experience prior to buying this book. Sure, I knew a few basic UNIX commands, who doesn't?
After installing Ubuntu it became clear that I simply will have to spend too much time googling solutions for every problem. I went ahead and bought this book, read it cover to cover in about two days, and my fluentness in Linux administration/programming has increased dramatically. I still have to google some specifics (like Postfix/MySQL integration issues), but most of what I needed for my work, was in this fairly thin book.
Note that it is not focused on any particular distribution, and most of the tasks are explained with several major distros in mind. I kind of appreciated that also, since it only reassured my decision to go with a Debian-based Ubuntu.
| Failed to answer a simple question, 2007-01-15 Reviewer rating: I haven't used Unix/Linux for about ten years. I know there is a command that will tell me how full the disk drives are. I tried to find the answer in this book. I looked up every possibility I could think of in the index (no entries for disk, or drive by the way--you need to look for "hard drive"), and waded through the section of filesystems with no luck.
When I found elsewhere that I was looking for the DU command. I looked that up. It's in the book but as a digression in a section explaining redirection on the command line. The related DF command is not mentioned at all, at least in the index.
These are basic commands that should be well referenced.
| Not Extremely Helpful, 2007-01-13 Reviewer rating: I bought this book because I am switching from Windows to Linux on my home network. I thought it might be quicker to learn the ins and outs with the book vs. surfing from place-to-place on the web. My experience with the book is not that great--it never provides enough information on any subject to answer the question I have. I always have to resort to the internet for enough information to solve the problem of the day. It might be o-k for general Linux information, but it won't get you up and running as a system administrator on a home network. |
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