The Linux Programmer's Toolbox (Prentice Hall Open Source Software Development Series) (Paperback)

by John Fusco (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Master the Linux Tools That Will Make You a More Productive, Effective Programmer

The Linux Programmer's Toolbox helps you tap into the vast collection of open source tools available for GNU/Linux. Author John Fusco systematically describes the most useful tools available on most GNU/Linux distributions using concise examples that you can easily modify to meet your needs.

You'll start by learning the basics of downloading, building, and installing open source projects. You'll then learn how open source tools are distributed, and what to look for to avoid wasting time on projects that aren't ready for you. Next, you'll learn the ins and outs of building your own projects. Fusco also demonstrates what to look for in a text editor, and may even show you a few new tricks in your favorite text editor.

You'll enhance your knowledge of the Linux kernel by learning how it interacts with your software. Fusco walks you through the fundamentals of the Linux kernel with simple, thought-provoking examples that illustrate the principles behind the operating system. Then he shows you how to put this knowledge to use with more advanced tools. He focuses on how to interpret output from tools like sar, vmstat, valgrind, strace, and apply it to your application; how to take advantage of various programming APIs to develop your own tools; and how to write code that monitors itself.

Next, Fusco covers tools that help you enhance the performance of your software. He explains the principles behind today's multicore CPUs and demonstrates how to squeeze the most performance from these systems. Finally, you'll learn tools and techniques to debug your code under any circumstances.

Coverage includes

• Maximizing productivity with editors, revision control tools, source code browsers, and "beautifiers"

• Interpreting the kernel: what your tools are telling you

• Understanding processes–and the tools available for managing them

• Tracing and resolving application bottlenecks with gprof and valgrind

• Streamlining and automating the documentation process

• Rapidly finding help, solutions, and workarounds when you need them

• Optimizing program code with sar, vmstat, iostat, and other tools

• Debugging IPC with shell commands: signals, pipes, sockets, files, and IPC objects

• Using printf, gdb, and other essential debugging tools

Foreword 
Preface 
Acknowledgments 
About the Author 
Chapter 1 Downloading and Installing Open Source Tools
Chapter 2 Building from Source
Chapter 3 Finding Help
Chapter 4 Editing and Maintaining Source Files
Chapter 5 What Every Developer Should Know about the Kernel
Chapter 6 Understanding Processes
Chapter 7 Communication between Processes
Chapter 8 Debugging IPC with Shell Commands
Chapter 9 Performance Tuning
Chapter 10 Debugging
Index 

About the Author

John Fusco is a software developer for GE Healthcare who specializes in Linux applications and device drivers. He has worked on Unix software for more than ten years and has been developing applications for Linux since kernel version 2.0. He has written articles for Embedded Systems Programming and Linux Journal.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 656 pages
• Publisher: Prentice Hall PTR; 1 edition (March 16, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0132198576
• ISBN-13: 978-0132198578
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 7 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #200,905 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars How to learn Linux, May 31, 2007

By	topoman "topoman" (Newark, California USA) - See all my reviews

This book is aimed at the person who has learned his way around Linux at the user level and now wants to look under the covers. It's extremely comprehensive - from how to add a Linux application that wasn't in your your initial distribution - whether you can use the binary or need to rebuild it from source - through basic facts on the kernel, devices and their drivers, processes and debugging tools. There has been a need for a book that addresses readers who do know something about computers, but not much Linux. This book fills that need extremely well.

16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars I'm awestruck, March 15, 2007

By	Anthony Lawrence "Unix, Linux and Mac OS X" (Middleboro, MA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

No, really. The first thing that impressed me is how much information the author packed into 600 odd pages. It takes skill to do that well and still be readable and interesting.

A programmer moving from anything to Linux would find this a simply wonderful roadmap and introduction, but I was surprised to notice that this would also be very good for non-programmers: sys admin or high level support types will like this book also.

There's good stuff here: the subsection of Chapter Two that deals with things that can go wrong during compiles is the best treatment of that I've ever read. Chapter 5 is titled "What every developer should know about the kernel", but most of it is things every admin/support person should know too. Of course there's much more: this is very thorough and complete.

Definitely recommended.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A very good reference book to Linux developers, September 1, 2008

By	Jason Ni "Jason" (Singapore) - See all my reviews

It is a very good reference to Linux developers, by providing the most common seen or most used techniques in Linux developments. It covers from the most used tools, including source version control, source code edit, debug,etc, to a brief introduction on the Linux kernel architecture and memory management, that is essential to any programmers who want to know the "evil" inside the kernel.

Jason