Customer Reviews

LINUX Start-up Guide: A self-contained introduction

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

 

 

This is the type of book that I've been trying to find for a long time. Most Linux books that I have been able to find in the local bookstores have been mostly command references. While this title does includes brief summaries of commands, it also contains a basic overview of file systems, the kernel and its functions, and a brief history of Linux. I am glad I purchased this book, it has demystified some of the under-the-hood topics that I had questions about. This book is probably best for people who are interested in learning more about what's happening behind the command shell, although it is not a completely exhaustive technical review of Linux. This book suited me well, since my background was in PC hardware,networking and PC-DOS, and since I needed(wanted) to know more than just the command syntax that's reviewed in many other titles.

That's the first book I bought about Linux. It's not a bad book but, once you've read it, you'll realize there's nothing more to it than what you can find in howtos and tutorials. The X Windows sections is very brief and not so well organized and you'll end up wondering what olwm and fvwm have in common. The rest of the book is good. The editors sections takes up much space and Emacs isn't the best thing for an amateur to start getting involved with. The shell programming section is complete and also all of the book is equally complete for a start-up guide (if you exclude the X section), if somewhat outdated and dealing with a not-so-popular distribution, like LST. If you are a newbie, buy this book. If you are an intermediate go buy "Running Linux" by Matt Welsh. Just ignore all these "in 10 minutes" or "in 21 days" series.

I began to study Linux few years ago, and got a few books,
but still not confident enough to play with Linux,
until I got this book, which make Linux simple,
the author don't try to make things bigger to scare beginner.
I can just input some command an play with Linux.

I would like to recommend this book to a beginner.

because it's for newbie, so I don't give it 5 stars. 4.