Customer Reviews

Building Applications with the Linux Standard Base

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A strong claim about linux is that an application developed under one implementation [like Red Hat] will run unchanged on another [like SuSE]. This is seen as a big improvement over the fragmentation of the unix market.

Well, in linux, we are not quite at this wonderful destination. The intent of this book is to help move us along. It describes what constitutes the LSB. If you are a linux developer, you can see how to code to a layer that is portable. Plus, the LSB sets out certain good coding practices in C, C++ and Java. Undoubtedly, similar such will eventually be added for other languages. Also, you are shown how to standardise on using RPM to package your application.

The LSB also offers a vital certification process that is vendor independent. With a series of test suites for more robust coding.

A reassuring aspect of the book is that several authors hail from 3 companies - IBM, HP and Intel. The authors are striving to avoid a rerun of the unix balkanisation, and the book speaks well to that goal.

Just because Linux is under the GPL, some people believe that it's pretty standardized. Actually, each distro has its own little additions and, consequently, quirks. Writing an application to work reliably under all variations is not a slam-dunk. The book Building Applications with the Linux Standard Base is a reference manual for application developers to make sure their programs will work across the Linux map.
I've been involved with IBM products and documentation since the late 70's, and their documentation has traditionally come in two flavors: user's guides, and reference manuals. This book falls more to the reference manual side of the spectrum. Consequently, reading it cover-to-cover was a little dry, but the information needed to get an application certified with the Linux Standard Base (LSB) was clearly laid out.
Building Applications with the Linux Standard Base is laid out in five large parts: Introduction, Developing LSB Applications, Certifying for the LSB, Contributing to the LSB Project, and Using LSB Resources. Except for the first part (Introduction), the book gives specific examples, and many, many references to the opengroup.org website's sections on the LSB.
It becomes obvious as you go through the book that the Linux Standard Base is still evolving. The authors (13 core members of the LSB team) frequently allude to how the project can (and should) be extended to increase its scope and sophistication. Two chapters (Adding New Interfaces... and Adding New Architectures...) cover (albeit skimpily) what's needed to update the specification.
First, you're given, in detail, the do's and don'ts of coding practices. Then it explains carefully how the application should be packaged for distribution (RPM), and next provides a section on porting Solaris apps to the LSB. Another part goes over the LSB Certification process. Both runtime environments (distros) and applications are covered. The last part in the book talks about the various resources available: the written spec, the test suites, and various usage guides.
In each chapter, step-by-step instructions are given when appropriate. Differences in filesystem hierarchy, signal handling, and program options are all laid out to help you through. This step-by-step approach shows a lot of thought went into making sure you will have a certifiable (in a good way) application.
All in all, Building Applications with the Linux Standard Base has what you need if you're developing a commercial-grade Linux distribution or application. Once your product has passed the testing described inside, you can be confidant that it will work on almost anything Linux. Very dry reading, but a lot of useful information packed into a slim 246 pages. I'd give it a 3 for writing style, but a 4 for content: total=4/5 stars.

Well this is based on 2.0 and not the current 3.2 but it doesn't really matter because the procedure to get an applicatino LSB conformant is almost the same. Just that you can use a few more tools and libraries.

There are absolutely no hints on how to turn a non LSB program into a conforming one. No listing of libs that you can use to statically link to. All this is left to you. Instead of giving a application programmer tips, they describe how the comittee voting is done, how you can send a huge cheque (1000US$) to them to get a formal certificate and how Linux distribution vendors can get some help. The only intersting information are the 50 pages about how to use the test suite and the sample implementation. But again it is just the information from the (not very well designed) website.

It's just a dry read and it's just the same information you get from the LSB website.

LSB is a good standard and i hope that it is successfull. With 3.2 it's the first time i was able to create a good desktop application that almost conforms to it. The book is just a good buy if you don't know anything and don't care about 30$ for a better offline reading in you bed or a good restaurant.

This is definitely not a fun book. The topic is pretty dry all on it's own but the authors here didn't help matters much. It's a clinical work on the fundamentals of the LSB at the code level. There is some information on the organization of the committee and the current status of the standards.

The information is well organized and the coverage is thorough and timely. I can only fault the book for it's tone. So I'm going to give it a reasonable ranking. I wouldn't buy this book unless you need to. It's not a fun weekend read.