Tuning and Customizing a Linux System [Paperback]

Daniel L. Morrill (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 31, 2002 | Series: Expert's Voice

Linux-based operating systems are extremely powerful and flexible, but unlocking that power and flexibility requires knowledge and understanding of how the systems work. Tuning and Customizing a Linux System goes beyond the mere basics of using and administrating Linux systems—it covers how the systems are designed. Through detailed analyses of popular Linux distributions, real-world case studies, and example configurations and administration tasks, you will come away with a genuine mastery of Linux-based operating systems (as well as Unix-like systems in general).

Tuning and Customizing a Linux System is geared toward users of Linux systems who already know the basics but aren't yet gurus. The author fills in the gaps left by other books, creating a bridge from the basic "how to" to the plane of true mastery. You'll find detailed examples of what a Linux distribution actually consists of, and youll explore explore three popular distributions in detail, learning useful techniques along the way. This comprehensive guide provides you with a complete, practical understanding of what's going on under the covers.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Daniel L. Morrill is a computer scientist working as a researcher at the GE Global Research Center in upstate New York. He holds a master's degree in computer science and has extensive experience with a variety of operating systems in a number of environments. He has worked with many types of UNIX systems, IBM's OS/2, Microsoft's various Windows platforms, and even real-time and embedded operating systems. He has successfully used his knowledge of Linux systems to support real-world projects professionally, and he has used Linux exclusively on all of his personal systems for years.

Product Details

• Paperback: 464 pages
• Publisher: Apress; 1st edition (July 31, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1893115275
• ISBN-13: 978-1893115279
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,315,476 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars NOT tuning, December 15, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Tuning and Customizing a Linux System (Paperback)

I was looking for a good resource on Linux system tuning. This book does NOT fill the bill. The word "tuning" doesn't even appear in the index!

If you need help with installation options that go beyond the basic defaults, you'll find this book helpful.

If you want to tune your Linux system for maximum performance, look elsewhere.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must read for professional moving to the Linux OS, May 2, 2005

By 

ART SEDIGHI (Old Bethpage, NY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tuning and Customizing a Linux System (Paperback)

The growth and the penetration of the Linux Operating System in the recent years has caused an increase in both the need for professionals familiar with Linux and an increase in the sheer number of available books, journals, web sites, etc, that cover this topic. Morrill's book on Tuning and Customizing a Linux Operating System finds its way to the top of the "must read" stack due to its applicable coverage of the topic. The author starts with the Linux mentality and "physiology" and delves into the details of how to build, maintain and administrator a Linux-bases workstation or PC. Other book cover the commands, or at a more engineering level, cover programming in the Linux environment, but this book talks about how to actually build a Linux-based system and how to configure it. Talks about how the file system in configured, and why the directory structure is the way it is. It talks about how to install, remove or update software packages to your system under three popular Linux OS distributions.

To me, the most valuable part of this book was the explanation of why "things" are the way they are. For example, why there are /etc, /usr/etc/ and /usr/local/etc in the directory structure of Linux? And why you should pick or refer to one over the other if you need to look for a configuration file? To me, these are the details in one handy chapter that is very hard to find, and one would only get that type of information from an expert who has been working in the field for a number of years. The example I just gave is along the same lines of the other examples and topics that you find in this book. Three different Linux distributions are covered: Red Hat, Slackware and Debian. Each distribution is covered in detail, and their differences are pointed out. The authors show the reader how to do basic administration and tuning for any of these packages. The package installation utilities such the RPM from Red Hat, the Slackware's classic tarballs, and the dpkg program from the Debian distribution are discussed and compared. The options pertaining to package customization are covered in detail, and examples are given for each tool.

You need to keep in mind that this book teaches you how to install and configure your Linux system, and how to navigate your way around it. This book does not cover each command nor does it cover the programming aspects of Linux. It discusses the installation and manipulation of the operation system and any software package that you may want to install and configure on your system. Six popular programs are given as an example of the various ways that almost any software package is installed on Linux. These packages include:
* The OpenSSH Secure Shell
* The Pluggable Authentication Modules
* SOCKS Library
* Apache HTTP Server
* CVS
* Java JDK

In addition to being a very useful reference, these examples portray how manage any software installation in Linux. The three different Linux distributions are referred to throughout the text, and the variations between how each system is manipulated and customized to take advantage of the newly installed software is given.

The author brings the book to a closure with detailing two case studies: how to build a simple desktop system, and how to setup a corporate software development environment. All the topics covered in the text are revisited with these two case studies to bring the topic to a full closure.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Install software into usr/local/ or /opt? Answers are here!, June 23, 2004

By 

M.S. "mtin" (Germany) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tuning and Customizing a Linux System (Paperback)

This Book is definitely about customizing a linux systems and the concepts behind. its more a "how to" thing like : how and where should i install the "sun java SDK" or how to use (install, configure) other important software like "open shh" or apache. and on these subject the authors do a fairly good job on explaining and guiding through this process. the word tuning in the title may be give you eventually wrong expectations, because its not about tuning in the meaning of "how can i squeeze out the last bit of performance of the system" or something similar.