Practical Linux [Paperback]

M. Drew Streib (Author), Michael Turner (Author), John Ray (Author), Drew Streib (Author), William Ball (Author), Tony Guntharp (Author)

Book Description

Series: Practical Series | Publication Date: January 15, 2000

Practical Linux gears itself toward people who don't want to be burdened with technobabble, but just want to use Linux just as they would any other operating system. Most books in this category concentrate mostly on the installation and configuration process, while neglecting content that helps you use Linux for daily tasks. This book covers all the bases, making use of a systematic approach, while providing numerous cross-references. Topics include working with the KDE and Gnome desktops, using the command line, getting help and maintaining your system, connecting to the Web, using browsers, setting up e-mail, setting up printers and adding peripherals, using graphics and multimedia tools, and networking.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

M. Drew Streib is a senior programmer specializing in Web applications for VA Linux Systems (http://www.valinux.com), the system administrator for Linux International (http://li.org), and a senior programmer for SourceForge (http://sourceforge.net). He also contributes to many open-source projects in his free time. Drew programs in several languages but now spends most of his time in PHP, C, and Perl. Bill Ball is a technical writer, editor, and magazine journalist and has been working with computers for the past 20 years. He has published Linux PPP network connection guides for ISPs, as well as more than a dozen articles in magazines such as Computer Shopper and MacTech Magazine. Bill is the author of several Linux-related books, including Red Hat Linux Unleashed, How to Use Linux, and the best-selling Sams Teach Yourself Linux in 24 Hours, 2nd Ed.

Product Details

• Paperback: 685 pages
• Publisher: Que (January 15, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0789722518
• ISBN-13: 978-0789722515
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 7.4 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,274,151 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Practical, step-by-step guide, August 26, 2000

By 

Jacob S. Nikom "jacob_nikom" (Cambridge, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Practical Linux (Paperback)

This book is one of the rare guides which is organize not by what the author knows but what are the typical problems you (the reader) have to solve. I would call it "How to.." book. Almost every time when I need to mount the disk, add the device I found exact instructions how to do it and it worked.

I am not very experienced Linux user (< 2 years) and I found this book just right for me.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best UNIX Book I've Seen!, March 27, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Practical Linux (Paperback)

This book has repeatedly saved me when I needed information that the man pages are too arcane to provide. I used the book for practical suggestions on how to use the grep utility to search for multiple terms. And, it was the only UNIX book I could find that gave practical and meaningful suggestions about how to configure the modem via the command line.

Get this book, it will save you a lot of time!

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Practical (outdated) approach, June 24, 2003

By 

David - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Practical Linux (Paperback)

685 pages divided by 31 chapters and 6 big parts. The big parts are: Linux basics (entering commands, using text editors, etc, everything on the command line), Configuring your system (from the command line), The X window system (with an overview of multimedia tools), Connecting to the ISP (and using email, FTP, browsers, telnet and IRC), system administration (basic programming and shell programming, boot managers, users, network connections, daemons, FS, kernel,...) and appendices.

This book pretends to teach how to do things not why you need to do this or that. So this is a practical book and, because linux is evolving fast, it is outdated.

Another problem of the book is that there are many authors, each responsable for a chapter or so, and there is no good coordination between them. This brings some repeated things and a feeling of no constant evolution in complexity or evolution on the presentation himself.