Customer Reviews

X Power Tools

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

 

 

This book exceeded my expectations logarithmically. The title should be something like "X Expertise" or "Everything you will ever need to know about X". Even the back cover text makes this sound rather uninteresting and dull, but trust me: it's not. This is well written and completely stuffed with information and tips. I thought I knew a bit about this subject - hah! I knew very little..


I loved the whole book, but I particularly loved the little asides the author threw in now and then, like "The memory and raw processing power of many modern optical mice exceeds that of the first computer to run Unix".

Chris Taylor explains things very well.. no, he does it better than that. So many things that I was a little vague on are now crystal clear - great job!

If you are using X at all, you want this. I had the big multi-volume "X Windows User's Guide" years ago (probably still have it kicking around here somewhere) - amazingly enough, Chris seems to have packed more truly useful information into 200+ pages than that did in several larger books.

Ever since making Linux my primary OS of choice, I have found it impossible to find a cogent explanation of the different pieces of software that result in the graphical desktop. There are X, session managers, window managers, compositing managers, and desktop environments. Happily, this book explains these pieces of software, their purpose and the way they interact, and does it in a way that is accesible to the intermediate *nix user while still providing a satisfying amount of technical detail. It also provides tools for managing the software and tweaking it to make it do what you want.

I have been using X11 with OpenBSD for at least 5 years now. I have
become knowledgeable about using KDE, less so about using X by itself.

This book filled in quite a few gaps in my knowledge of X, but it did not
provide me with the information I need to solve a problem making a new
monitor run at its rated maximum resolution.

I had been running with a 21" crt at 2048x1546, but the 9-year-old crt
was wearing out. So I bought a 19" ACER lcd display with maximum
resolution of 1440x900. The new display would not work at all with the
default xorg.conf generated by "X -configure". The problem turned out to
be the driver, which was specified as "ati". When I changed the driver
spec to "vesa", X came up at 1280x1024 and worked well. But I have so
far not been able to get the monitor to run in 1440x900.

The book does a pretty good job of explaining the xorg.conf file.
Modelines are mentioned briefly in the text, but not in the index. There
are no formulas given for computing modeline data to be included in the
xorg.conf file. No mention is made of the various values (eg ati, vesa)
that can be specified for X drivers. There is no list of validated modes
in the Xorg.0.log file. So after reading the book I still have not
figured out how to make my monitor run in 1440x900.

The book describes how to support keyboards for multiple countries, but
it was not clear to me after reading it how to display the corresponding
characters for (eg French,German,Russian) characters in addition to
English.

That said, I give the book a 4-star rating. There seems to be no other
current, up-to-date book on X. I'm glad I have a copy to study and write
notes in.

there is too much unrelated articles/info on internet searches for "X" and "Windows", so this is book is good in having all the information about x-windows in one place. The XWindow layer is not something a lot of end-users of linux are going to be messing with, so the target audience of programmers and device driver writers in particular might be disappointed. The information is valuable but not in depth enough for coders. It explains the bridge between the device level and gui but not enough in how to expand that bridge.

Although a bit superficial technically speaking X Power Tools pieces together a survey of generally useful X11 knowledge in a quick and easy read. Think of this book as a good place to begin an exploration of X. For those who know next to nothing X11 or windowing systems, and have little experience configuring or running Linux the book is a perfect introduction (5 stars). For those who have a lot of experience configuring or running Linux, who certainly have had to interact with X before, much of this material will already be familiar (3 stars). I fall into the latter category and still found the book useful.

Here is a list of the "x" commands on my linux box cross referenced with the book's index. Note this isn't necessarily a complete list and the book is more than just a command reference, as it goes into detail explaining configuration file formats and options. Still this list gives an idea of the scope of the book.

x11perf NO
x11perfcomp NO
xargs NO
xauth YES
xbiff NO
xbmtopbm NO
xbsh NO
xcalc YES
xcam NO
xclipboard YES
xclock YES
xcmsdb YES
xconsole NO
xcursorgen NO
xcutsel NO
xdfcopy NO
xdfformat NO
xdg-desktop-icon NO
xdg-desktop-menu NO
xdg-email NO
xdg-icon-resource NO
xdg-mime NO
xdg-open NO
xdg-screensaver NO
xdg-user-dir NO
xdg-user-dirs-update NO
xditview NO
xdpyinfo YES
xdriinfo NO
xdvi NO
xdvi.bin NO
xdvi-xaw.bin NO
xdvizilla NO
xedit NO
xev NO
xeyes NO
xfd YES
xfontsel YES
xfsinfo NO
xft-config NO
xgamma YES
xgettext NO
xhost YES
ximtoppm NO
xinit YES
xinput NO
xkbbell NO
xkbcomp YES
xkbevd NO
xkbprint YES
xkbvleds NO
xkbwatch NO
xkill YES
xload NO
xlogo NO
xlsatoms NO
xlsclients NO
xlsfonts NO
xmag YES
xman NO
xmessage NO
xmkmf NO
xmodmap YES
xmore NO
xpcshell-1.9 NO
xpmtoppm NO
xprop NO
xqxdecode NO
xrandr YES
xrdb NO
xrefresh YES
xscanimage NO
x-session-manager NO
xset YES
xsetmode NO
xsetpointer NO
xsetroot YES
xsm YES
xstdcmap NO
xsubpp NO
xterm YES
x-terminal-emulator NO
xtrapchar NO
xtrapin NO
xtrapinfo NO
xtrapout NO
xtrapproto NO
xtrapreset NO
xtrapstats NO
xulrunner NO
xulrunner-1.9 NO
xvidtune NO
xvinfo NO
xvminitoppm NO
xwd YES
xwdtopnm NO
x-window-manager NO
xwininfo YES
xwud YES
x-www-browser NO
xxd NO

This book has rare coverage of X windows and VNC that is not findable in the internet.
When I search for similar material on the internet I usually get outdated material or cryptic explanations.

If you are working with or configuring X windows or VNC on servers, this book is worth getting.
It covers these topics and the explanations are good.

The X Window System is the foundation of graphical desktops on both Linux and Unix systems and supports advanced features of modern graphics cards, so X Power Tools' articles on the topic are a top pick for any advanced computer library specializing in Unix. It offers an introduction to how the system works, considers useful utility programs and applications, covers software that work with X, and reviews the basics of building networks and systems with X. Any advanced Unix or Linux computer reference library will find it useful and specific.

'X Power Tools' is a book for Linux admins and developers who want to learn how to use Linux better than ever before. With 250+ pages of material spread over 15 chapters and close to 200 recipes, this is perfect for anyone looking to do more with the X Windows system.

Great book, great resource, easy recommendation

***** RECOMMENDED

According to the author of the book in review:" This book is written for experienced
computer users...".

Nothing can be further from the truth. In reality this is a very elementary
text on X window system that probably would not be worth of buying if not for the excellent Chapter 3 which does a great job in systematically explaining
structure of xorg.conf file. It is also the only book written in the past ten years entirely dedicated to X window system.

At the beginning of the chapter 6 the author brags about the
fact that he will discuss often ignored utility programs which ships with X window
system. That is quite an overstatement as after the reading of chapters 6, 7, and 8
one would not be able even to configure mice for a left-handed person.

The book in review is just a part of the general trend which can be summarized in the following observation:" As the use of computer technology has seen unprecedented
expansion in the past 20-30 years the computer literacy of an average computer user
has shrunk to zero". I can just add that above observation seems nowadays apply
to so called "power users" too.

At the end, I shell mentioned that the book is written by a GNU/Linux user but the
author made a genuine attempt to write in a fashion which would make the text useful
to Unix users. In an era of great ignorance by a large part of GNU/Linux
community about Unix the author's approach should be commended.