Customer Reviews

Linux Unleashed

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(13)

 

 

If you want to learn very little about many topic in Linux, then this is a good book. But if you want to learn about specific topics, don't even bother buying this book.

If you are somewhat lost with Linux, I highly recommend this book to you. While there is no book that can spell out every minute detail and every point of Linux, this book does a far better job than most.

I'd give it 5 stars, but the included software is not that great. I doubt anyone would actually use the CDROM anymore, but then, that's not really the value behind the book at all. Linux and almost all applications are free on the Internet anyway.

If you plan to run Linux, and you are having a tough time finding what you need to know at the Linux Documentation Project (LDP = NOT a well organized place), this book will certainly lead you in the proper directions. Once you have general knowledge of a given subject matter, then you can much more easily find additional information online. But remember, unless you can ask the right question, you'll never get the right answer.

If you are new to Linux, you will not regret buying this book. Download RedHat 6.1 from the Internet to have the latest release and forget the CDROM. However, don't feel that this book is in any way outdated. Most of the code of the programs you'll use on a day to day basis in Linux is already years old, and that's often based on software that is sometimes decades old. Sure, the code is updated, but the commands and command structure rarely change.

An excellent reference. CDROM should be updated, so think of this one as a shiny coaster. This is still a good purchase. Only the Linux pros should skip it... they already know their way around the confusing LDP. They already KNOW the RIGHT QUESTIONS.

I don't suppose you really need another review telling you that this is NOT a good book. It tries to cover everything, and ends up covering nothing. Please do not repeat my mistake! Buy something else (I wish I knew what though...)

Do not order this book if you are looking for Red Hat 5.2. Although I have seen this book for sale in bookstores with 5.2, this book comes with 5.1. Also, don't assume that the book refers to the version on the cd-rom. Many of the examples and information do NOT apply to Red Hat 5.1. I have (unfortunately) found myself going to the HOW-TO's to figure out what the book was trying to explain. The book is a good source of basic info, even though it (unbelievably) doesn't contain a section on SAMBA.

Just recently a became a LINUX convert, having bought a thin book (Linux Pro) which came with a distribution of RedHat Linux 4.2. Soon after I upgraded to Linux 5.1 and downloaded and installed WindowMaker and KDE. I was in heaven! I decided it was time to set up a printer, modem, scanner, sound etc... So I bought three massive tomes: "LINUX UNLEASHED", "Using LINUX", and "RedHat LINUX SECRETS". Each one of these books cost $40.00 and was between 900 - 1000+ pages ( 2 inches thick". I was surprised to find that of the 3 books, "UNIX UNLEASHED" was the most useless. Most of the book consists of Summarised explanations of "what things are". The book spends several pages explaining what files and directories are, but then when I wanted to find information on how to set up a modem, all I found was a paragraph that said "If your modem works under DOS, you should have no trouble getting it to work under Linux". Most of the information in the book I either knew already or could easily obtain from the man pages installed with the OS, or from any number of web pages. It difficult to understand who the authors were targeting the book at. If you feel the reader doesn't know what a file system is, or how to browse directories, why would you included a chapter on programming in C!? The book mentions that you have a choice between several window managers, but doesn't given any instruction on how to set them up, or switch between them, or even give decent descriptions of what they are or what the differences are between them. Despite the packaging and impressive, size and price, this book was one poorly thought out potboiler. "Using LINUX", is a more comprehensive book, but it one really wants to get started with LINUX and have a comprehensive reference at your fingertips, one should purchase "RedHat LINUX Secets". For $10.00 more than the other two books, "RedHat LINUX Secrets" has hundreds of pages of real "how to" instruction, and some information that's hard to find elsewhere.

This is a very late review of a book which may not even be in print now. And as computer books tend to have a fairly limited shelf life, why bother to even pass a few comments on this book. Well, I started using Ubuntu GNU/Linux about 2 years ago and this book was passed on to me as a gift (or a kind of hand-me-down).

Despite its age, I've found it to be very useful as a guide to the workings of Ubuntu and here I speaking of the underlying Linux structure which is pretty much common to all Linux varieties. I take on board comments by previous reviewers that the coverage here tends to be introductory rather than in depth, but at over 1000 pages in length, Unleashed does a comprehensive if rather shallow survey of Linux capabilities (the mind boogles at the size of a book or books that would cover all aspects in depth). And in a book of this size, you can always find little snippets of information that are hard to turn up elsewhere.

So if you are a user of a modern distro of GNU/Linux but, like me, by no means a Linux geek, then this book may well very useful for you. And looking at the alternative sellers, the price of a new copy at around $6-7 and a good used copy at the give away price of $0.01, makes buying this book a no-brainer.

And to all those benighted Windows users out there, if you decide to make the jump to a very stable and powerful operating system like Ubuntu then this book will tell nearly all you need to know about the command line functionality of GNU/Linux. Good luck.

Don't waist your money on this book. If you do, make sure you don't open the CD ROMs. This would prevent you from doing what I wanted to do so bad--return the darn thing and get a refund. It is incoherent. It gives facts about a topic, but does not link the ideas in a way that drives to conclude a point, offer a suggestion, or explain a procedure. Poor use of headings and sub-headings, or lack there-of. It seems the author (although he appears to be reputable in his field) threw the contents of the book together with little consideration for making it flow in a smooth and truly explanitory manner. It defines terms and ideas for the sake of defining them, but not with the aim of applying them to solve or provide answers to practical situations. It is also sorely out of date. Although the copywrite is 1998, it makes no mention at all of Windows NT, (much less dual-booting with this O.S., or Windows 95 for that matter) and instead spends complete chapters discussing Gopher and WAIS, and considerable portions discussing DOS.

Admittingly, the introduction was very good, though. I was foolish for buying it based on this.

Like the title says, the book is great with plenty of insights and is fairly easy to navigate when you're looking for something specific. However it comes bundled with Red Hat 5.1 which, in and of itself, is fine but most of the commands that the book mentions don't work with Red Hat! I found that when I obtained a copy of Slackware 3.6 that the book was an excellent resource. Red Hat's version of Linux is so proprietary that I don't understand why they (the publisher) shipped it with this book. The book would easily have a 4 star rating but since part of the reason I bought it was to get a copy of Linux, I'd have to give it a 3.

I bought this book to suplememt some other linux books which weren't very clear. This book explains subjects clearly and when possible gives real life examples. The software is incredibly ussefull mainly the programing utils and was a major reason for my buying the book. It is also cheaper than Red Hat Linux unleashed (here anyway!).

This book covers alot of ground, but it tends to be unclear on alot of topics. It isn't the most complete guide to Linux around, and you'll probably want to pick up another reference book to supplement it as it isn't very indepth, but all in all I would recomend it as it is rather easy to read if you have had at least a little experience with Unix and Linux.