Running Linux, Fourth Edition Fourth Edition

Perhaps best of all, this book conveys a sense of the "Linux attitude" as the authors see it. Linux, they say, is largely about experimentation, research, trial and error, and participation in a community. This comes in welcome contrast to books that focus on recipes (follow these steps to accomplish A; do these things to make your system do B). Though the authors of this book provide lots of how-to information, it's always presented with an eye toward further exploration. In explaining how to build the kernel, for example, the authors provide six concise steps as a reference, but then go on for several pages about designing makefiles and how to deal with error messages. This book's a treat. --David Wall

Topics covered: Assuming you know next to nothing about Linux, socially and historically as well as technically, this book teaches you what you need to know to make the operating system meet your desktop and server computing requirements. Coverage takes you from preparing to install Linux (in a multi-OS environment if you wish), continues through system administration and the most useful applications (like TeX and Internet clients), and proceeds to cover programming tools and server daemons (notably Apache, MySQL, and PHP). The coverage is mostly generic, but peculiarities of Red Hat, SuSE, and Debian get attention, too.

is a computer scientist with research interests spanning many aspects of complex systems, including operating systems design, distributed systems, networking, and parallel computing. Matt is a long-time Linux advocate and developer, a role in which he has fielded questions from thousands of Linux users over the years. He was the original coordinator of the Linux Documentation Project and author of the original Linux Installation and Getting Started guide. He completed his Ph.D. at UC Berkeley and is currently a researcher at Intel Research Labs in Berkeley, and will be joining the faculty of the Computer Science department at Harvard University in July 2003.

Terry Dawson is an amateur radio operator and long time Linux enthusiast. He is the author of a number of network related HOWTO documents for the Linux Documentation Project, co-author the 2nd edition of O'Reilly's Linux Network Administrators Guide and is an active participant in a number of other Linux projects. Terry has 15 years professional experience in telecommunications and is currently engaged in network management research in the Telstra Research Laboratories.

Lar Kaufman is a documentation consultant living in Concord, Massachusetts. He began writing about UNIX in 1983 and since then has written on System V, BSD, Mach, OSF/1, and now Linux. His hobbies include interactive media as art/literature, homebuilt and antique aircraft (he's a licensed aircraft mechanic), and natural history. Formerly a BBS operator, in 1987 Lar founded the Fidonet echoes (newsgroups) Biosphere and BioNews. He is currently leading a project to establish a global biological conservation network, using a Linux host as the mail, news, and file server.