Customer Reviews

Linux For Dummies, Fourth Edition

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(19)
1 star:		(18)

 

 

Linux for Dummies has followed a long and rocky road. The first two editions were done by one group, then the last 3 (including this) by another after completely rewriting it from scratch--and unfortunately Amazon refuses to detach the old reviews that have nothing to do with this version of the book. It's gone from trying to cover everything (impossible to do well!) to trying to focus on the desktop.

Don't expect Linux for Dummies 5th Edition to tell you how to set up a server! This book is exclusively for those who want to master the desktop and simple system administration (like user account creation) tasks. Fedora Core 1 is a powerful new desktop offering and I think you'll find that it's an exciting evolution in desktop Linux. A new chapter focusing on multimedia galore will especially knock your socks off!

Thanks for reading!

I read LeBlanc's 4th Edition book to see if it has been improved enough for Newbies. It is not. While including two CDs that have RedHat Linux v8, its installation section is still woefully inadequate with two chapters of 40 pages. For example on p22 the authors say that if you have Dell, Compaq, or HP, you should have no problem. In my experience with Compaq Presarios and HP Vectras, they use custom mobos, BIOSs, chipsets, sound, and win modems that will conflict with Linux. Another example on p31, the authors write 2 inches on video boards and monitors, the Achilles heel for getting the Linux GUI up and running.

The authors' best suggestion (p65) is to get help from a local Linux Users Group; available in large metros; such as Minneapolis which meets monthly at the Univ of Minnesota's renown Computer Science and Electrical Engineering Dept! How can you get better help than that? They also have a daylong Install-Fest twice a year. I agree that this is the best way, but what about the rest of us (p2) which is this book's target audience?

After researching, reading, and buying a half dozen books on Linux installation, I have yet to see a book that shows a cookbook approach for the Newbie. It would be based upon a reference computer hardware set that has been chosen for it's popularity and compatible processor, motherboard, cards, and devices. Since one can easily find and cheaply buy used, legacy components on eBay, used computer stores, electronic swap meets, flea markets, and garage sales, installation procedures could be simplified and would be direct and to the point. And be guaranteed to work! It would avoid the tons of frustration and wasted time by reading and attempting to follow all those books and Linux HowTos which are so generalized that Newbies finds them totally confusing and absolutely useless.

Case in point, almost all Linux authors (p14) pride themselves that Linux will run on older, legacy hardware, probably what is in their DOS and Windows hand-me-down pile. However for a Newbie, they want to use a modern GUI, not type into a CLI. So in attempting to use this legacy equipment, the Newbie will run into the most common problem, which is carefully not mentioned by Linux writers, that the X-Windows probe for video board and monitor is not very robust compared to Microsoft Windows. Visually identifying chipset models on video boards and finding monitor sync information is one of the most critical items, yet it is rarely emphasized with step-by-step explanations and photos of reference hardware. The Newbie is not shown how to decipher the actual spec listings of popular hardware, locating the important parameters, and ignoring all the rest.

Another example is dual boot (p26) Linux along with Windows, a common Newbie configuration. Again almost all Linux authors, including these authors, gloss over the interactivity required on the boot blocks by reconfiguring the MBR with the MSDOS Format command. Wannabe Linux users will find that just because you have a computer working in DOS, WfWG, or Win9X, etc, that it does not translate to a slam-dunk in installing and configuring Linux.

The Newbie just isn't aware of the behind-the-scenes sophistication that Microsoft developed for Windows installs. Overzealous Linux authors don't warn the Newbie that incredibly more work is necessary to technically understand the details of each component. And if that component manufacturer has gone out of business, then avoid it with a ten-foot pole for his first Linux box.

It now comes full circle that a reference hardware installation cookbook is sorely needed. Chapter 4, Installing Other Distributions, includes installation notes for Caldera, Mandrake, SuSE, and Debian, which is superfluous for the Newbie. These 10 pages could have been put to better use with a hardware cookbook because if the Newbie couldn't get RedHat v8 to install, then (s)he certainly wouldn't get the others installed either. The install troubleshooting Chapter 18, of ten (10) pages, is woefully inadequate and full of one-liners (jokes). The CLI log-in screen is here in the back (p296); why not in the install section on p62?

Back to my purpose in reading these authors' book, I was expressly trying to find how to switch to the KDE GUI since RedHat's default GUI install is GNOME. The authors say (p84) that it is easy to switch and they have a Chapter 6 (p86-97) which explains the differences and similarities between the two GUIs. Yet the authors never tells HOW to switch; the Table of Contents, sidebars, icons, 20-page index, were all useless. The RedHat and GNOME Help were useless too.

The critical thing that the authors left out was the GUI log-in screen, which had no pix. Although I discovered the secret with RedHat Linux 9 (March 03, Shrike release), the GUI log-in screen has a "Session" button along the bottom row. I had previously ignored them; but lo-and-behold! It is for the GUI startup selection. A serious omission on part of the three authors.

An important area that the authors discuss adequately is the systems administrator account and user accounts, explaining that Newbies can crash the system (p98) by an inadvertent keystroke (mouse-click). The Linux OS can be pretty fragile as a root user. But further explanation of the superuser, especially application superusers, and users & groups is not well explained. As listed on p286, important applications that attract Newbies to Linux in the first place, such as a Samba fileserver, an Apache webserver, and MySQL and PostgreSQL databases are not covered at all.

And last, but not least, the authors put in another one-liner to install and use a tape backup (p308) because Linux will fail, you just don't know when. The authors omitted installing a tape drive, neither using the Tar nor Amanda tape backup utility, nor explaining the disaster recovery process. From authors who have umpteen credentials, this last omission is almost unforgivable.

I installed Linux from the CD in the back of the book (5.2). The install went well thanks to the explicit instructions in the first few chapters. I now have a full-fledged Linux box up and running. Infact, I am writing this review with it. :)

Linux for Dummies is an excellent INTRODUCTION to the world of Unix. If you want to get a Linux box up and running, try this book. If you want to delve into the how-and-why of things Linux and start to TWEAK, I suggest Mastering Linux by A. Danesh. It's geared to the newbie and is the next logical step from Hall's well-written intro.

I recently "upgraded" and bought the newer edition of this book, since the previous editions are horribly outdated. And I'm surprised that Amazon is including on this page the reviews for those older editions, because they don't even apply to this edition! Ms. LeBlanc (any relation to Matthew?) has outdone herself (and has especially outdone the other authors who wrote the earlier editions) and has written a highly useful book that anyone interested in Linux should own.

This new edition of Linux for Dummies, written by Linux guru Dee Ann LeBlanc is well worth the price. It's packed with the latest information and expertly written in a style that is accessible to computer users of all ability levels. A must have for every Linux user!

I bought this book because of the need to learn Linux. While the book started out very very easy in the Installing Linux Chapter, and in fact helped me more than the Linux docs on the RedHat 6.0 CD, it lost me big time when it gets to the Mount Point part of Disk Druid. It also failed to say that once you have used FIPS to partition spare space on your HD, you have to delete that partition in order to install it as a linux partition. This of course I didn't find out until I got to the Mount Point section of the installation instructions. The Mount Point instructions also are very very sketchy at best and I am completely lost with what I'm supposed to do here because I know nothing about Linux, hence the reason why I brought the book. Jon Hall assumes alot about people who know nothing about the Linux operating system. In all I'm dissapointed because not only does it slack of there but at numerous other places in the book as well. Please don't buy this book, rather Australia Personal Computer Magazine have a better learning system for Linux with the Linux Pocket Book, which covers everything you need to know on how to get started and installing. I learnt from that that you had to delete the new partition after using FIPS on your HD.

A dissapointing effort from the Dummies Press and Jon Hall.

I was reluctant to switch to Linux because I thought that it was only for professional computer users.
Gradually by getting more and more information, I choose to migrate totally to Linux...No more Windows operating system ! The most scariest part is undoubtly the command line but Linux for Dummies really helped me to get familiar with the basics and now I can administrate my computer directly with the command line, whithout using the GUI. Very good job !!
I don t use the distro described in the Book since I am a Mandrake user and the main developments are focused on FEDORA core of Red Hat. But the two GUI are well described.
A very usefull book to get started with LINUX.

I'm just your average Windows user trying to make the jump. I'm not sure if I'm the problem or the book is the problem or the O/S is the problem or possibly a combination. I'm still determind to figure it all out. The good news is that it came with RedHat 7. The bad news is that it crashes several times trying to load before loading successfully. But seems like the computer gives in eventually and it loads up. The order of loading up did not match the book and the screens shown didn't match either. But that's mostly a nusance as you can figure that part out on your own. My main problem is that it's written from the point of view from an expert and not in the point of view of somebody totally alien to linux. I do think that once I get a handle on Linux, this book would be an excellent quick reference. Maybe it's not the book's fault. Maybe Linux is just a complicated subject. It's not up to MS Windows ease of use yet, but it's better than it was two years ago when I tried it back then. A video session would be helpfull instead of reading about files. A video on CD!

The overall content is good, but some places are skimpy. I tried to connect to the internet using the instructions it gave me, but Linux won't let me connect. Also, it only includes Red Hat version 5.2, not 6.0.

While this book is a decent resource for the first time user it has its problems. For one, the author is very opinionated and passes off his opinion as fact. Secondly, it overcomplicates certain things such as telling you to use /sbin/ifup ppp0 where simply ifup ppp0 will do. I can see the reason for doing this, but for a Dummies book I think it should be simple and to the point. Also, the author states that you cannot use the included cd for an AMD or Cyrix cpu (Intel only). This is outright incorrect and has probably disuaded thousands of people from using the cd. A major fumble. It worked fine on my Cyrix and AMD machines. It sometimes seems like the author is working for Red Hat and Intel. On the positive side, it does contain good tips and shortcuts, some of which I haven't found in "real" Linux books. If you do buy it, you will need another book to supplement it as it is limited.