[jeremy1701]

Title: Running Linux
Authors: Matt Welsh, Matthias Kalle Dalheimer, Terry Dawson, Lar Kaufman
Publisher: O'Reilly
Book Specifications: Soft Cover, 672 pages
ISBN: 0-596-00272-6
RRP: $44.95 US, $69.95 CA, £31.95 UK
Rating: 5/5 Pengiuns



Summary: 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.

linuxfourms.org would like to thank O'Reilly for providing the book, Running Linux, for review.

Running Linux provides an excellent, medium-depth coverage of the entire Linux Operating System. I say medium-depth because while the book covers a broad spectrum of material, it tends to shy away from the arcane, little known details that typically accompany other topic specific Linux books. From the basics of what a Terminal is to programming LISP in Emacs, the book manages to stay on a level that's easy for Linux new comers to understand, while not being so simple as to seem useless to a long time Linux user. The authors take the reader through the entire Linux experience in an easy to understand, concise manner, showing that a degree in Computer Science is not required to use or understand the book or, for that matter, Linux itself. They also try to maintain a decent level of readability, citing plenty of examples and using various charts and tables to highlight some of the more detailed points, rather then dragging the reader through an endless and boring sentence by sentence account.

The book starts out by giving a basic introduction to Linux; from it's first inception by creator Linus Torvalds to it's current state as a major desktop environment. The authors briefly describe Open Source principles and give an excellent explanation of the Gnu Public License (GPL). In fact, it's the most clear and concise description of the GPL I've ever read.

Both new comers to Linux and those considering switching will benefit greatly from the pace of the book. Long time Linux users will appreciate the books comprehensive coverage of a wide range of topics and it's in-depth, albeit curt, discussions on advanced topics. The order of the material is perfect and the flow of each individual topic is well thought out. Each new concept starts out with a brief introduction, moves into a more in-depth discussion such as basic features and usability, and finishes with more complicated topics such as advanced configuration and customization.

After the introduction to what Linux and the Open Source community are, the book walks the reader through a basic installation and setup. The authors cover not only the standard installation methods that are popular with many distributions today, but also manual installations, creating file systems and managing partitions. They then discuss the various methods that specific distributions use to install software, including rpm, apt-get and installing from source.

After a chapter dedicated to familiarizing new comers with the terminal and basic Linux commands, the next few chapters of the book deal with system administration and managing tasks. Topics include managing user accounts, making backups, a more in-depth look at upgrading software, scheduling cron jobs and general system maintenance. There's a more comprehensive look at managing file systems and there's an excellent section dedicated to kernel compiling and upgrades. Following this, there is an entire chapter dedicated to learning both Vi and Emacs, the two most popular editors for Linux.

The next section of the book covers the basics of installing and configuring the X Windows System. This is an area of the book that needs a little updating, as it goes through a basic installation and setup of Xfree86. Most distributions are beginning to move or already have moved to X.org. The good news is, most of the concepts and file locations are the same in both. Following the installation of X Windows, it goes on to discuss the two most popular desktops, KDE and Gnome, along with a look at their respective productivity applications. There's also an entire chapter on Microsoft Windows compatibly and the tools used to access Windows drives and shares, including Mtools and thorough discussion of Samba.

After the discussion of the X Windows System, the authors move on to a topic Linux was designed for, programming. They cover compiling programs with gcc, using automake and makefiles, and even give a brief tutorial on two scripting languages, Bash and Perl. They even touch on installing and using the various implementations of Java. Although none of these topics are covered as thoroughly as they could be, they are excellent introductions to the basics and are invaluable reference resource.

The last major section of the book deals with networking. The authors provide a fantastic lesson on the TCP/IP Protocol and show how to setup a network step by step using all sorts of hardware, including modems, PPP, ADSL and NICs. The lesson includes a discussion of some of the more popular GUI networking tools, such as Kmail, Evolution and Mozilla. This section also comprehensively covers creating and maintaining both web-servers and e-mail servers, as well as several tools to assist in those tasks. Following the chapters on networking is an entire chapter dedicated to securing your system against network attacks. In this section is one of the most concise explanations of iptables I've come across.

Running Linux is one of the best books on Linux I've ever read. The book tends to take the best of many other books and combine them into this one, all-inclusive and comprehensive collection. It's never so simple as to bore an expert, but also not so complex as to scare away new comers. There are some areas of the book that could use an update but as Linux is in a constant state of development, I believe any book on the subject would be out dated almost immediately after it's publication. That being said, the material covered in this book is mostly conceptual or at the core of Linux, meaning that it will stand the test of time. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in Linux. Both new and advanced users will find this a worth while investment, as it's an excellent learning guide and an even better reference book.