Customer Reviews

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Linux (2nd Edition)

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Great book. It takes you through installation, customization and some troubleshooting, and it even manages to explain kernel recompilation in a simple way! If your computer is a simple, bare bones workstation, great. If it's not (and you know it's not) then the book is still great, but not quite complete: a lot of people out there own soundcards, scanners, joysticks and gamepads, and the book says little or nothing about those relevant pieces of hardware. So, it gets 4 stars.

Way into late nineties, most books on Linux still read like this: Here is Linux, which is zillion times better than MS-DOS, and here is the command shell, which is so much more powerful than COMMAND.COM in MS-DOS, then here are X Windows, which are like MS Windows in DOS, only better... A reader less acquainted with the history of computing might have asked "Wow, that's cool, but what is this MS-DOS thing you keep mentioning?"

When the first edition of this book appeared in late 1998, Manuel Alberto Ricart was among the first authors to admit that Windows 95 and 98 actually *did* happen. Rather than comparing bare-bones Linux with a historic relic, he chose a decent peer for a modern Windows environment: Linux with a desktop environment KDE.

Mr. Ricart starts with the elements of the KDE desktop, spends considerable time explaining basic operations with it, then proceeds to the programs of KDE base suite: file manager, text editor etc. The inevitable command line only comes in in part two. After explaining the basic commands -- file utilities -- some Unix concepts like pipes and regular expressions are discussed, while the programming in command shell is omitted. The section on programming editors Vi and Emacs is probably too short to be useful. The last part, part three, deals with the system administration tasks. Installation of Linux is added as an appendix.

What is the advantage of using command shell despite the existance of graphical interface? Mr. Ricart unfortunately cannot give a convincing answer, although it is probably clear to every second reader -- command shell contains a powerful macro language, which is superb for performing repetitive tasks. This is a pity -- spending 30-40 more pages on the Bash programming would actually give a meaning for including the complete Part 2. But I guess there has to be something idiotic in each of the books of Complete Idiot's series, right?

Leaving this aside, the book is perhaps the best introduction to Linux for beginners. Of all the distributions, Caldera Open Linux that comes with the book allegedly has the most user-friendly installation program -- unless you have some unfortunate exotic hardware, with which it won't work. Bear in mind though that every Linux CD included in a book is likely to be one year old or more when it arrives in your hands, and one year is a long time in Linux development. So the system you have just installed is already outdated... Watch the Web to find out what is really going on.

I have several books on UNIX/Linux, but this is the one that helped me get up to speed! With the other books I got stuck several times, but this book is very easy to understand, and gives you all the necessary information to get started. If you are totally new to UNIX/Linux this book is a good place to start!

If you don't know anything about Linux this is the book to buy. Most Linux writers can't resist the urge to dump on the less knowledable computer user, to snub you with snide comments,"read the fine manual." The ulitmate Linux cult put down. But Manuel Ricart doesn't do that! In fact, Manuel leads you through the valley of the shadow of the command line to lay you down in the still waters of the KDE desktop, the best place for Windows 3.x and 9x user to start in Linux. Plus, at under $20 for software and user guides this is the best buy I've found. Don't torture yourself, start with Mr Ricart's able guidance and Caldera's easy to install software.

This is the best book that I've found for getting started with Linux coming from the Win95/98 world. I bought TurboLinux 3.0.1 at LinuxWorld and never could get it to install. I succeeded in installing Red Hat Linux 5.0 from "Linux for Dummies", but couldn't figure out how to do anything useful with it because of the orientation of the Dummies book towards the characer-based shells. I guess I'm more of an "Idiot" than a "Dummy" because the former approaches Linux from the graphical K Desktop Environment first, then moves to the shell. The reference material is MUCH more usable than that in the Dummies book. I can actually USE linux now rather than playing around with configurations and the such. In net, if you want to use Linux as a Windows alternative, this is a great book to get started.

PENGUIN POWER!!!

I liked the book. The author does take you from basic PC 101 thru Linux.

I am an IT pro, and wanted to get a feel for Linux before all of our users started using it. I knew nothing about it, but with the help of this book loaded and configured Linux on a spare pc. I feel prepared thanks to Ricart's book.

Ok, If you are a windoze user and you want to upgrade to Linux, START here. Buy a copy of Red Hat 6.2, this book, and a more advanced book, like Learning Red Hat Visually (Includes a copy of Red Hat 6.2).

Read the idiots guide so you can start to4 move around and THEN use the Visual book that will show you screen shots of what you need to do for more advanced use. When you've mastered the visual book, get a book on hard core programming.

You will not find one book for newbies and old pro's. Stop looking for one. I started with the Visual book, big mistake. I got stuck and droped it for a few months. Do things in order and be patient. You won't learn how to edit your x11 files overnight, but if you can't seem to get your screen out of 648x480 at 60Hz eventually you will need to look there...Today, however, learn what PDW and LS really do before you start playing.

This book is good for someone who just wants the basics. If you really want to get into detail get "Special Edition Using Linux," it is published by Que.

Any book that is titled "The Complete Idiots Guide" will certainly not be exhaustive in all that can be known on the given topic. However, this book is a great beginner's guide. The author is well aware that his audience may not be experts' in Linux or Unix and caters to them just fine. I certainly do not know Unix, yet I found myself up and running productively in a reasonably short period of time. Caldera's 1.3 version of Linux which comes with the book installed with little trouble and the KDE GUI interface will be no problem to anybody familiar with Windows. This book and Caldera's version of Linux gets two thumbs up!

This is by far the most helpful beginning book on Linux I have read. Most of them either assume you are already familiar with Unix and bury you in pages of technical jargon. Or they do not really contain enough explanation to be helpful.

I found this book to be very readable. The writer can expain the how and why of running linux without burying you in details. This is an excellent book for converting a Windows user to Linux.