10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
When you want a CD and DVD, May 6, 2007
This review is from: Linux Bible 2007 Edition: Boot up Ubuntu, Fedora, KNOPPIX, Debian, SUSE, and 11 Other Distributions (Bible) (Paperback)
I'm new to Linux. I've been using it for three months. I was looking for a fairly inclusive book so I could learn more. I didn't find this book terribly helpful to me though. Mostly I used the discs that came with the book to try out the distributions contained. So, on to the book ...
The first 1/3 of the book deals with the "shell" - Choosing a shell (fairly esoteric for somebody like me), and running commands from the shell. Unfortunately, the book never gives any comprehensive list of commands in one place (this would have been quite helpful). The commands it does give are scattered throughout the section. Also covered are basic administration, securing Linux, running a firewall/router, getting into the desktop and getting on the internet. Most of it except "Getting into the Desktop" seems geared more toward system administrators than standard desktop users. As written, I doubt I'll ever use the first third of this book even as reference material.
Approximately the next 1/3 of the book deals with choosing and installing a Linux distribution. It covers the distros that come with the CD and DVD included with the book - a total of 12 distros - excluding alternate installs and 4 specialty programs such as Coyote Linux (floppy firewall), INSERT (I don't know what this is and I don't see it in the index or contents), BackTrack and System Rescue CD. (This leads me to the fact that the index left a lot to be desired.) This being said, this third of the book was a good and helpful companion to the discs.
The next part of the book deals a bit with running bootable distributions but mainly with running applications such as word processing, Internet browsers, e-mail, playing music and videos, image editing and gaming. I can't comment on this - I merely glanced through it. I tend to figure this stuff out myself. I'm sure it would be helpful to many people though.
The rest of the book (about a quarter of the book) deals with running Linux servers and programming. I'm not running e-mail, print or file servers and so had no interest in Apache, LAMP, SQL etc... but I'm sure there was some good information there.
If you want a book that comes with a dozen distros and is a rather helpful companion to the installation and basics those distros, this is the book for you. But overall, for my purposes, I'd give it an average rating.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent Discussions on the Distributions and Getting Started, May 14, 2007
This review is from: Linux Bible 2007 Edition: Boot up Ubuntu, Fedora, KNOPPIX, Debian, SUSE, and 11 Other Distributions (Bible) (Paperback)
Knowing that I need to spend some time learning about Linux I went looking for a book that would be a general introduction to help me get started. This book attracted my attention because it has an individual chapter talking about the special features about the distributions that are included with the book. I don't know how many distributions there are - over a thousand, I think - and had no idea about the best one for me to pick. After reading the book I'm going to try Ubuntu.
This is an excellent book on getting started, but as a Linux Bible, I think the book is mis-named. It's strength is talking about the distributions and the fairly general things you can do with Linux. It's a bit weak in the details of how to do things. As such, it's a great book to use when you are getting started. Then you will want more books to talk about the individual software packages that you'll be using. For instance he talks about PHP, he tells you how to get it running but once you start you'll want a programming book on PHP.
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Very helpful, May 15, 2007
This review is from: Linux Bible 2007 Edition: Boot up Ubuntu, Fedora, KNOPPIX, Debian, SUSE, and 11 Other Distributions (Bible) (Paperback)
The book is an excellent overview of Linux. I highly recommend the Linux Bible to get an idea of what is available in linux and to chose a distro. However, and this is not a flaw in the book, to become more that a windozer, one must read at least, Garrell's, "Introduction to Linux", available online as opensource. Without proper maintenance linux will soon be clogged, useless and hacked, but at least it will still be free!!
The CD/DVD combination available with the book, is very helpful and quite a time saver.
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