Customer Reviews

Linux The Complete Reference

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

 

 

I bought this book for an introductory UNIX course even though the second edition was recommended. I thought the third edition would be more detailed and up to date. I was wrong. Much of the detail on shell scripting and programming was lost with the new edition. Too much of the text in either edition is dedicated to installing Linux rather than administering it, a task better handled in a smaller user's manual than a textbook. The CD's are awful. There are only a few slightly useful applications included on them. If you want to install Linux on your PC, buy a complete commercial version off the shelf, along with a better book. Most commercial versions of Linux come with many useful applications for a reasonable price. If you must buy "Linux: TCR", buy the second edition, otherwise, O'Reilly's "Running Linux", although also heavy on installation detail, is a much better option. If you're looking for a Linux admin guide, try Steve Shah's "Linux Administration: A Beginner's Guide."

Much of what I know about Linux today I got from this book. I have read other books about Linux but none of them were so "complete". It is an excellent reference.

I was however a bit disappointed that SAMBA was not covered in more detail. Even if it was only just to help me set up a simple "peer to peer" network between a "linux-windows" box and a "linux-linux" box. Networking is covered in great detail and connecting to the Internet is one of the first things discussed in this book.(didn't we all want to get on the internet the first time we installed Linux? :-> )

This book is an absolute goldmine if you are looking to master al those Linux commands.

All in all I think that this book should be rated as one of the best Linux books(for it's scope) and should be on every Linux user's desk.

Get It...NOW

The book is really for those wishing to delve into Linux and is looking for a reference that is understandable. Someone who has a working knowledge of other OS like MS Windows. The title is quite misleading because it claims to be complete but is NNNOOOTTT.

And most of all it contains a lot of errors or incomplete discussions like the four sets of 3-digit numbers in an IP address that consists of the first three sets being the network address and the last the host address. Although true on some networks, this is not true for all networks. I could name a lot of others but this should be enough to ward off possible buyers of this book who already have experience using Linux and need a good reference. If you are new into Linux, this book simplifies a lot of the new things that you have to learn but on the other had if that it your intent go ahead. The two stars is for this reason otherwise only one star would be given.

The discussion on file systems should have included disk quotas but was missing. The chapter on network administration alone could be the subject of another book but was treated quite lamely and contained less pages than the discussion on file systems. And there was no discussion on the three major groupings on file/device accessors - root/system, user, others.

The CD works fantastically well--I used to mess around with Linux on a friend's PC and got hooked, but I needed some guidance and this book totally hit the spot and answered all questions which came up over a three week period. I also have "Linux in a Nutshell" from O'Reilly and "Linux for Dummies" which was fun but fell short; I prefer the format of this book. It's my favorite so far--logical, well-organized. Kudos!

By the time I bought this book, I'd already figured out for myself the majority of the topics that this book discusses. It would, clearly, be a wonderful aid to those who had no prior computer experience whatsoever...but for those of us who've spent years working in a DOS/Windows environment, you will find yourself flipping past scores of chapters dealing with basic computing concepts. As I said, it is an excellent source of information for those who need very basic assistance but I would not recommend this book for anyone who considers themselves highly knowledgable about computers in general.

So far! So good!

But a little bit hard to find the information. It is a textbook rather than a reference book.

I feel that the author spent too much time and space on GUI interface to Linux at the expense of some other material, like SENDMAIL and SAMBA -- to which only fleeting refernces are made. GUI discussion detracts from a deeper understanding of the O/S. If you understand what's going on at the shell level, the GUIs are easy and should have been treated summarily in an appendix. I was disappointed that, for SENDMAIL, readers were simply referred to the O'REILLY book. For a 900+ page book that calls itself complete, I would have expected more. I understand that many topics in Linux require books in themselves for complete treatment, but a complete treatment of LINUX requires at least a basic overview of some of its main features, like SENDMAIL and SAMBA. I know you can't treat every application that runs on LINUX, but some biggies have been omitted or just skimmed over. Cut out the GUI stuff and add more discussion of these important services -- and get deeper into the heart of LINUX itself, the nuts and bolts, and not the superficial GUI interfaces. Most people who get into LINUX are trying precisely to get away from the undue overhead of GUI. Many shell commands find only superficial treatment with a perfunctory "See the man pages for more info." I don't like the man pages -- that's why I bought this book.