Customer Reviews

Build your own LINUX C Toolbox (Two Moon Press software series)

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This book is great. By working through the examples of the book, you build your own file browser, and ultimately your own text editor. This book is good for anybody who wants an understanding of what Linux is all about in a non intimidating way. The book is packed with everything you need. It is my opinion that you not only get a grounding in programming in C, but an indoctrination to the way of Linux. The most important thing about this book is it gives you a chance to dabble with source code and find out it's easy and fun. Don't be fooled by the size of this book. Great things do come in small packages.

The description on this page states the book is
intended for readers who are Linux beginners, states
a major goal of the book is to present a recipe useful
for creating a text editor of one's own, and details
supporting reasons for doing so; remarking the
reality that the best place for a beginner to begin
is at the beginning, preferably the beginning that was;
where text mode was the norm, where for example
Linus Torvalds began.

Focused exercises using portions of the curses
library directly supporting the stated goal are
the subject of a chapter. Those wishing to use
curses in other applications will find the
exercizes serve to introduce the Linux beginner
to the readily available more comprehensive curses
treatment by Neil Matthew and Richard Stones.

Although Linux appears to have been designed from
the ground up to replicate the functionality of
Unix, fortunately for all of us, Linus Torvalds
ignored experts who declared society held no
requirement for "yet another" Unix.

Criticism meaningfully remarks mismatched goals
versus achievements, advertised versus delivered
product; such as a title promising "Linux Device
Drivers" exhibiting invisible device drivers.
Disparaging intended goals achieved, however,
is like criticising Corrigan for reaching Ireland.
Although experts told him to fly the other way,
that's not the way he went.

Hi all!

This book isn't neceserily a "Linux Programing" book because other than commands to mount the diskette or CD-ROM or DOS partition it really doesn't have anything with Linux but with curses and UNIXoids in general. It creates an editor using curses library under console

Creating yet another editor under Linux is not what Linux society now needs. It would be better that the writer has concentrated on advanced concepts of GNU make, automake, autoconf, gdb, i18n libraries calls, and the linux system programming overall, or at least to describe curses functions as a reference so that the book can be usefull even after one has read it.

The book is perfect for a UNIX/C beggining programer, but considering usability, it has come out 5-7 years to late for any Linux user.

And last, I would reccomend "Programming with GNU Software" from O'Reilly instead.