How Linux Works: What Every Superuser Should Know [Paperback]

Brian Ward (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 14, 2004

How Linux Works describes the inside of the Linux system for systems administrators, whether they maintain an extensive network in the office or one Linux box at home. Some books try to give you copy-and-paste instructions for how to deal with every single system issue that may arise, but How Linux Works actually shows you how the Linux system functions so that you can come up with your own solutions. After a guided tour of filesystems, the boot sequence, system management basics, and networking, author Brian Ward delves into open-ended topics such as development tools, custom kernels, and buying hardware, all from an administrator's point of view. With a mixture of background theory and real-world examples, this book shows both "how" to administer Linux, and "why" each particular technique works, so that you will know how to make Linux work for you.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"If I were to recommend a single user's manual for a Linux desktop, I would pick How Linux Works." -- blogcritics.org, August 2004

"does a great job of taking the reader through the more advanced parts of Linux ... a very informative read" -- SA Computer Magazine, September 2004

"the book covers all the basics, starting with the shell and ending with a great chapter about buying hardware." -- eWeek, June 2004

5 stars, "One of the best basic books on learning Linux, written with the power user in mind." -- OpenSource-Book-Reviews.com http://www.opensource-book-reviews.com/book_reviews/by_publisher/No_Starch_Press/

About the Author

Brian Ward has been working with Linux since 1993, when he scraped together enough pennies for a secondhand 386. He has a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Chicago, and currently works in San Francisco as a consultant and instructor. He is author of the Linux Kernel-HOWTO, The Book of VMware and The Linux Problem Solver.

Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: No Starch Press; 1 edition (May 14, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1593270356
• ISBN-13: 978-1593270353
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #258,594 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

73 of 75 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent teaching guide, June 6, 2004

By 

Harold McFarland (Florida) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: How Linux Works: What Every Superuser Should Know (Paperback)

This is one of the best basic books on learning Linux and is written with the power user in mind. It takes a different approach to learning Linux than most other books. Other books typically focus on a section of Linux and go over it in detail. For example, it may cover the file system from selecting an appropriate one to how to mount disks, security, directories, links, and similar information until it has presented all the information on the file system. Instead this one divides the learning task up into basic stuff you need to know, intermediate knowledge, and more advanced levels. This is actually more consistent with the knowledge expected in the real world. While I would expect even a basic administrator to understand how to mount and unmount a drive I would not necessarily expect them to know how to interpret and change an fstab configuration file. To go over the whole file system from beginning to advanced levels leaving the student unknowledgeable in other basic tasks doesn't make as much senses. I would rather hire someone who knows the basics of the system including adding users and other administration than one who knows everything about one area. So, I really like the way it teaches basic knowledge in all areas, then intermediate knowledge in all areas, then advanced.

The focus is on the user or the person who has been assigned to administer an existing Linux system. If you need to add a peripheral device, setup or change printing, mount a CD for access by Windows based machines, or pretty much anything else that an administrator of a Linux file server needs to know its covered. There are better books for other type of servers like setting up a web server, MySQL, or other items. However, if you are completely new to Linux or a fairly novice Linux user and need to be able to administer a file server type system you will enjoy this book. Designed for the person who wants to really learn about Linux from the ground up "How Linux Works" is a recommended read.

73 of 76 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Tech Oriented Guide to Linux, June 5, 2004

By 

Anthony Lawrence "Unix, Linux and Mac OS X" (Middleboro, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: How Linux Works: What Every Superuser Should Know (Paperback)

This is a good techie overview of Linux. This is not the book you hand to Grandma (unless Grandma is a system admin), but it is a very well done Linux guide/introduction.

The first couple of chapters are old hat to any Unix user, being just basic overviews of how Unix in gneral works, but Brian quickly gets into the real meat of Linux with chapter 3 "How Linux Boots" and goes on from there with coverage of networking, printing and everything else you'd expect. If that were all there was, I'd be impressed and would recommend this book, but there is more. There are two excellent chapters on programming tools and compiling source code. These include troubleshooting compilation problems, an often ignored aspect of our Open Source world. A third related chapter covers kernel compilation specifically and again goes beyond the usual treatment.

Throughout the book, Brian gives useful hints and suggestions. He has obviously used and administered real Linux systems and has good experience and advice to share.

I like Brian's writing style and the definite techie orientation. If you are a tech person investigating Linux, this is a good book to read.

38 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A good book for curious minds, June 24, 2005

By 

Akbar Pasha (Oakland, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: How Linux Works: What Every Superuser Should Know (Paperback)

This book is about the inner workings of Linux. Whether you are a novice (suits perfectly), programmer, Sys Admin, home user or a researcher - if you are one of a kind who is always curious about the inner workings of the things, then this book is for you. Me being a programmer, I was drawn towards it as to better my understanding of Linux which I learned basically by reading online tutorials. The book is divided in three parts. 1. Part 1: Explains the basic layout & workings of Linux. 2. Part 2: Explains the programming tools available in Linux. 3. Part 3: Explains specialized information, such as Kernel, printing etc.


Part 1: The basics are covered in pretty much detailed. Even though I found that at some places I could use a man or info command to get a more detailed information about certain command, I can understand that this book has no intention of doing it. But for the reference, the author explores all the basic commands of Linux and gives a brief intro about them. The book explains a in a lot simple way of why and how of Linux file systems. I have always had some confusion about them. But this book clearly explained them for me. Along the path of explaining of basics of Linux, we venture into Linux boot loaders -- LILO & GRUB. The book also has some excellent writeup on Networking in Linux. I couldn't verify the ppp part of it, but the parts on Ethernet, iptables & NAT are dealt well. What more, you also get a stern warning about how to manage your wireless network security.


Part 2: The second part starts with a priemer on Shell scripting. I would suggest any other Oreilly's book on Shell scripting for this. But again, looking at the target audience of the book -- not everything in shell scripting can be taught in such a small book. The explanation on GCC, Make (I never got this till I read this book) are explained well. What more, Python gets a nod as scripting language! The most interesting part or could also be most annonying part of any linux system is compiling of the Kernel. A wholesome chapter is devoted to it and now I feel pretty confident about how I can recompile my system.


Part 3: This part can be read independent of the book order. It has all the special topics which can be dealt independently. Like how do you setup network printer? How can I run CUPSd? How do I use Ghostscript to convert from Postscript to PDF? All these questions are answered here. I had a perfect need to read and study SAMBA. My home network consists of windows machines and I used to use them when I need to access specific files on those windows machines. Now no more! I can very nicely browse all my files right here from my laptop with wireless connection. One constant complain about people who use Linux is about buggy hardware. This book has a whole chapter devoted on how to buy linux compatible hardware. It will come to you of immense help especially if you are trying to build your own machine with all the latest technologies. I can also see how it can be of immensely helpful to System admins in corporate environments. Overall, I would recommend this book to anyone who is curious enough to learn the inner workings of Linux. If you can maintain that curiosity for 330+ pages, you can get accustomed to inner workings of Linux. This book will not make you an Linux expert. It will give you a meaning as to how things work in Linux. You would have to gain the mastery built on top of that foundation though.