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chromatic's wide-ranging series of instructional and reference books for the Linux administrator continues here with three more titles, this time covering two books which sound aimed at fairly experienced uers, and one more suited to Windows crossover users. (Check out Part One and Part Two of this four-part series if you missed those, especially if you're looking for some more novice-oriented books.)

Don't carry all of these books at once, unless it's the only exercise you're getting. At this many total pages, you're likely to find something you don't know well enough -- unless you've written chunks of the software under discussion.

title Linux Clearly Explained publisher Morgan Kaufmann Included Stuff RedHat Linux 6.0, Corel WordPerfect 8.0 Intended Audience New users interested in Linux for the desktop. Scope Desktop usage with GNOME. Technical Correctness Good. Writing style Easy to read -- informs without intimidating new users. Other I was able to read 300 pages while waiting for a plane. It's quite easy to read while still useful.

Linux Clearly Explained aims squarely at a growing population -- people fed up with Windows, ready to try out the newfangled Linux desktop environments. Author Bryan Pfaffenberger explains the concepts of Linux in the context of the GNOME system, intending to help his readers become productive users. Rather than walking people through wizards (as one might expect from a typical Windows book, for example), he demonstrates how the peculiarities and design decisions of Linux flavor GNOME.

Pfaffenberger starts out with an 80 page history discussion. First, there was Unix. Then came RMS, GNU, and Linus. The advantages and shortcomings of Linux culminate in GNOME's raison d'etre -- and the reason this book exists. The author provides plenty of links to more information, even sneaking in a few pages on Internet support for Linux. Armed with this background, readers can tackle installation.

This part covers the Linux filesystem, lists supported hardware, talks about partitioning schemes, and dual booting. It walks through the RedHat 6.0 installation, briefly describing important packages. If your hardware is supported, you'll have no trouble here.

By far the largest, Running GNOME is the critical section. Use GNOME tools to create a normal user, then start exploring. Learn about GNOME conventions, help, and the file manager. Customize your desktop appearance, behavior, available programs, sounds, and window manager. Tour GNOME, KDE, and X productivity applications, then the basics of managing disks and installing new applications.

Part four helps you set up PPP (through various means) and discusses using Netscape and ftp for common Internet tasks. Finally, part five introduces the command line. It's a quick tour of files, basic shell usage, and permissions, with little on shell scripts. The administration section discusses disk maintenance, backups (a good section), and manually working with user accounts. Finally, an exploration of Midnight Commander demonstrates the powerful utility. The only chapter missing is one on security -- there's much more to learn.

Does it work? Can a new user really learn how to use Linux via GNOME? Pfaffenberger has produced an easy to read and informative book. It's not glaringly cutesy, as some books tend to be, but genuine. Linux's heritage comes through early, helping to explain things that aren't immediately obvious. If readers are inspired to explore things on their own (and the book equips them to do so), they'll do fine. Each chapter has plenty of references -- take the time to explore. (Order "Linux Clearly Explained" from Fatbrain.)

title Red Hat Linux Bible publisher IDG Books Included Stuff RedHat Linux 6.1 CD, with additional source disc. Intended Audience New Linux types, especially those interested in configuring, using, and providing network services. Scope Introduction, installation, some desktop use, administration, and networking. Technical Correctness Too many typos and inaccuracies not to mention. Writing style Technical, but readable. Other If you have enough experience to know when this book is wrong, you might not need it. Still, there's a wealth of information, especially for new Linux networkadministrators.

All books have typos. Most people read over them. When describing Unix command lines to beginners, there's little room for error. This book confuses the shell redirection/concatenation operator (>>) with a pipe, while writing the operator as '>' multiple times. (See page 87.) That's not all, either. IDG needs to provide an errata list for data-clobbering mistakes. Granted, the number of errors I caught (around a dozen) considering the amount of information presented isn't huge, but it makes me question the book's accuracy. (See page 579, which confuses printer stair-stepping with font anti-aliasing.) That's a pity, because the book has a lot going for it.

Physically, the book divides material into the same sections you'd expect. The ubiquitious history and installation sections do their jobs, and the command line introduction is good. GNOME and popular Window Managers get some treatment, as well as generic X configuration. Desktop users will learn how to install applications from RPM and source, run applications remotely with the X protocol, and use DOS, Windows, and Mac emulators. There are plenty of other applications covered, like games, publishing utilities (from groff to StarOffice), to ubiquitous Internet apps. The breadth of programs covered is good.

System administration gets a few chapters, too. Not only is RedHat's Linuxconf tool brought to center stage, there's plenty of distribution-neutral command-line advice. Everything from managing user accounts (including an early taste of NFS home directories) to monitoring system status comes up. Shell programming and init levels are explained in the context of automating repetitive tasks, as well as at and cron. Finally, the backup and security chapters are quite good (very informative!), with a good mix of theory and practicality. Presenting multiple approaches with associated benefits and tradeoffs is valuable.

For those aching to demonstrate Linux's server strengths, part five aims to make you a good intranet member. A brief networking refresher tackles TCP/IP Ethernet setup (even over PLIP), and you'll soon be on the Internet if that's your thing. There's even information on using your Linux box as a router and proxy server.

Of course, Samba and NFS get their due. Surprisingly, so does the mars_nwe NetWare Emulator. The mail server chapter makes a valiant attempt at discussing sendmail's configuration file before admitting that the m4 macros make things much easier and devotes a few pages to majordomo mailing list software. There's a great section on ftp services, detailed configuration information for Apache, and good INN news server instructions. Rounding it all out is a brief NIS chapter, followed by an Appendix giving a brief description of the RPM packages included on the CD-ROM.

With another technical reviewer poring through the manuscript before it went to press, this book would have been better. As it stands, it's good, with plenty of detail about plenty of useful programs, marred by the fact that you're never quite sure that what you've just read is correct. If you're willing to play the part of editor and put up an errata page, you'll have done your good deed for the year.

(Order the "Red Hat Linux Bible" from Fatbrain.)

title Red Hat Linux 6 Unleashed publisher SAMS Included Stuff RedHat Linux 6 CD with installation tutorial videos. Intended Audience Users and administrators already comfortable with the command line. Scope At 1100+ pages, there's plenty of space to cover everything from installation to configuration and programming. Technical Correctness Good. Writing style Varies, depending on author. Most chapters are good, some are excellent. Other This massive tome has plenty of information for configuring Linux as a server.

While Linux continues to attract desktop users, it remains an excellent server platform. Administrators familiar with Unix commands and techniques who want to deploy Linux servers might find this voluminous tome handy. (It makes a hefty LART.) While covering installation and configuration, the book intentionally skips over basic usage -- if you're not already comfortable with editing configuration files or reading man pages, you'll have some catching up to do.

After your system is installed, the first things to set up are mail, ftp, web, and news services. The SMTP and FTP chapters are excellent, with easily the best discussion of sendmail so far in this series. (Steve Shaw, author of both chapters, has his own book, reviewed in the last article of this series.) Beyond simple configuration or a light skimming of the man pages, these chapters give some theory and additional options. DNS and bind receive similarly good treatment. NIS and NFS get a few pages, but more attention is devoted to Samba -- serving both Linux and Windows clients.

The system administration section is also good. Of particular note is the TCP/IP chapter, spanning theory to firewalls. Also covered is basic system administration, PPP setup, backups, and security (good, but short). There's a chapter devoted to RedHat's graphical administration tools -- more than just Linuxconf, to be sure. Of this section, standouts include the basic administration chapter. It's packed with more details than any book so far, and focuses on a networked installation. The GNU utilities chapter describes common programs that might come in handy, if you didn't already know about them.

The last big section is an introduction to the smorgasbord of Linux programming. While thirty pages apiece isn't often enough to get into the real guts of a language or toolkit, it does suffice to help a careful reader begin to understand code she may have to confront one day. Shells (bash/pdksh, tcsh) and gawk get the best treatment, being comparatively simple. A kernel configuration chapter will guide you through kernel modules, recompilation and (hopefully short) troubleshooting. The chapter on automating common tasks can help you keep your workload manageable. Perl examples illustrate network programming, in an informative introduction.

Of course, heavy hitters -- C, C++, Perl, Tcl/Tk, Python, and Java each merit attention. Compiling, makefiles, RCS and CVS are covered in the C/C++ section. It's not the K&R book, but it's a decent overview. Perl fares better, with an introduction to the CPAN, one-liners, and shell access. Motif and LessTif get a chapter, and Tcl/Tk have a nice chapter. Python and Java each have plenty of space, but the former spends more time on actual code while the latter discusses Java technologies and libraries.

This book contains a lot of information (at 1252 pages, it ought to), and most of it is useful. Be aware, though, that many different authors contributed to it, so the writing style varies between chapters. For the most part, they're good, with David Pitts and Shaw standing out. If you want a comprehensive, everything-in-one-spot overview of technologies available for Linux in one spot, and are already familiar with Linux as a user, this book is good. (Order "Red Hat Linux 6 Unleashed" from Fatbrain.)

Madman Chromatic (coder, writer, thinker) sheds even more light on the books lurking on store shelves designed to lure, and then snare, new or uncertain users into trying out -- and actually enjoying! -- this wacky "Linux thing." This time around, the texts he's chosen cover the topics of installation and day-to-day operation of a Linux system in greater depth than the Dummies series dares to, but they're still aimed squarely at competent, literate users rather than only at technical gurus. Read on for his insights into Using Linux, Linux Configuration & Installation, and the Linux Essential Reference.

Various Introductory and Reference Books author (Varies by title) pages n/a publisher (Varies by title) rating n/a reviewer chromatic ISBN (Varies by title) summary Three books intended to provide clear guidance and reference to the Linux sysadmin

This week's edition takes a look at three very different books. We have tutorials, theory and techniques, and thick juicy slabs of opts. Step through instructions and stay on the sidewalk, get your hands dirty on your own if you're the trailblazing type, or read up on what you always thought someone should code, if you're stuck at your desk.

Title (Author) Using Linux (Jack Tackett, Jr / Steven Burnett) Publisher, ISBN QUE, 0789717468 Included Stuff none Intended Audience RedHat users. Scope Installation and basic introduction to Linux. Technical Correctness Occasional weird advice. (In one spot, the authors describe a very insecure PATH setting without explaining that it's dangerous.) Writing style Varies with chapter author. Other Two-thirds of the way through the book, there are a number of mildly annoying typesetting errors. Unfortunately, they tend to appear near literal command-lines. Hopefully this will be corrected in a second edition.

Using Linux is a cross between a reference-book and a tutorial. Each chapter takes a different subject (Networking, Working with Hard Drives) and breaks it up into common tasks -- each listed in the copious table of contents and the large index. For example, if you're interested in setting up a file system, you can flip right to page 495 and choose between the RedHat tool or editing /etc/fstab yourself. Though RedHat tools receive a lot of attention, they're not presented as the only way to get things done. In a pinch, you'll find command line equivalents for common tasks given near the graphical description.

Accompanying the chapter text are occasional sidebars. These label figures, give a bit of historical perspective, and dish out useful tidbits of information that don't fit into the normal flow. This is less distracting than the usual approach of goofy icons and inset boxes often found in other books.

What's nice about this book is that it covers more subjects than most of the others. It's thick, but not unreasonably so. It's easy to read, but packed with details. Instead of covering only the handful of things every (home) user will need, the authors add information about removable drives, fax configuration, and file system cleanup, to name a few topics. Also nice is a brief chapter on building installations from source code (both make and Imake style systems) -- there's another world out there beyond RPM.

The task-oriented approach doesn't spend much time on theory, preferring a gentle overview and usage specifics. Obviously, there's more to learn than what's presented, but people more interested in results will prefer this decision. The system administration section really stands out, for an introductory book, and the appendix listing common Linux commands and glossary of terms will come in handy.

All things considered, this is a solid book. The breadth of information is good, and the flow of topics means it's readable from start to finish. Occasional flaws detract slightly, but they're not fatal.

[You can purchase this book at FatBrain.]

Title (Author) Linux Configuration & Installation (Patrick Volkerding, Kevin Reichard, Eric Foster-Johnson) Publisher, ISBN M&T Press, 0764570056 Included Stuff Slackware 3.5 CD-ROM, with extra disk full of additional programs. Intended Audience The do-it-yourself type. No prior Unix knowledge is necessary, though some experience with the command line will come in handy. Scope Installation and introduction to Slackware. Very good overview of the general Linux way to do things. Technical Correctness Quite good. Writing style Easy to read, though still technical. Other The version reviewed is the 4th edition -- somewhat dated (1998), but not out of touch. If there's a newer edition, get it! If not, you won't go astray with this one.

With help from Patrick Volkerding (Slackware creator) himself, this book teaches the do-it-yourself distribution. Expect a tremendous amount of detail -- in the first chapter alone, there are dozens of links to a Web site for more information about Linux and particular hardware. Fully half the book falls under installation and initial configuration issues, though this includes tinkering with your window manager, setting up networking, and recompiling your kernel (topics usually saved for later in other books). The fourth edition added a section on Slackware and portable computing, with pages of links to information on particular laptop models and information on synchronizing your Palm Pilot.

Chapter seven introduces the command line (though people following along will have used it -- with gentle prodding). It's a whirlwind, 50-page tour that explains a bevy of tools and tricks both concisely and thoroughly enough for day to day work. Following that are applications -- text editors, text formatters, graphics viewers, and the like. A short section on system administration covers scheduling, managing accounts, checking performance, but relatively little about security. Finally, chapter ten delves in to Linux programming -- toolkits, languages, tools, and scripts. Maybe the hors d'ouvres will whet your appetite to learn more, or at least help you with the magic "./configure; make; make install;" incantations.

The appendices list additional sources of information and the contents of the CD-ROM. Don't overlook the supplemental information, either -- including 30 pages of extra package description. (If you're going to install Slackware yourself, you ought to know what you need and what additional options there are.)

The only reason to overlook this book is its age, which is a shame. Things haven't changed so much that the knowlege presented is obsolete -- considering that the hands-on Slackware approach often leads to true and deep understanding. Unless you're too intimidated to experiment, you can learn a great deal, even from a two-year-old text.

This book is eminently readable. Readers with some technical background will appreciate the slightly geeky, no nonsense approach, while users new to Unix in general will benefit from the quality explanations. When the publishers see fit to release a 5th edition of this book, it deserves very serious consideration.

[You can purchase this book at FatBrain.]

Title (Author) Linux Essential Reference (Ed Petron) Publisher, ISBN New Riders, Included Stuff none Intended Audience Users and administrators already comfortable with the command line. Scope Common and uncommon commands and switches. If you can imagine a task, it's likely listed here in glorious detail. Technical Correctness Good. Writing style Reference style -- very concise, little prose. Not something you'd read straight through. Trust me. Other The organization by topic here is nice. I've used it a few times already, just to look up something I knew had a command option somewhere.

For the user already familiar with shell basics, running programs, and using 'shutdown' instead of flipping the switch, a reference of commands and options might come in handy. That's the idea behind Linux Essential Reference. If you already know what you want to do but not how to do it, flip to the appropriate section and discover all of the little timesavers and niceties you've always wanted but never knew existed.

What sets this book apart from other works, including the man and info pages, is the excellent organization. Not only are commands grouped by category, the sections are (roughly) arranged according to complexity. (Although if you're not familiar with cd, mv, cp, and at least pico before looking something up, get thee to a tutorial!) For example, the Kernel chapter subsections are, in order, 'Installing New Kernels', 'Using Modules', 'Device Files', 'The /proc Filesystem', and 'Kernel Message Logs.'

Rather than reformatting man pages, the author has gone to quite a bit of work, rewriting often terse descriptions into longer examples. This is helpful with the lesser-known options (ls -T 4). The amount of detail, more than in any other work, makes this a good reference. (If you do read it all the way through, you'll have something to put on your technical reviewing resume.)

As seems to be usual, this book is divided into a user section and an administrator section. Administration gets a stronger treatment here, with information on LAN-specific tools. It's not limited to the home user's point of view, which makes it more useful to system administrator-types. The security chapter, including tcpwrappers and ipchains configuration, stands out as informative, though brief.

This book answers the question, "Okay, now what?" If you're feeling experimentative after polishing off one of the others, but you want a little more direction than the command prompt usually provides, having this book on your desk will prove valuable.

[You can purchase this book from ThinkGeek.]

chromatic returns with a book tuned for anyone whose answer to heterogeneous networks is SAMBA, and wants 500 pages of practical advice (and answers to common problems) distilled from the fountain of SAMBA knowlege.

Samba Administrator's Handbook author Ed Booksbank, George Haberberger, Lisa Doyle pages 518 publisher M&T Books rating 7.5 reviewer chromatic ISBN 0-7645-4636-8 summary Know the theory? Here's the nuts and bolts of administrating a heterogenous network with Samba.

The Scoop Imagine you're the administrator for a diverse network. A couple of engineers have Unix boxes, while some programmers work on NT machines. Managers have Windows laptops, and you've talked them into letting you install Samba domain and print servers. You've read the documentation and understand how it works. Now what?

That's the scenario Samba Administrator's Handbook wants to address. Designed for the busy administrator who needs quick answers in a convenient package, it takes the pragmatic approach, and gets most things right. Need to set up a print queue on Solaris? Turn to the detailed table of contents to find a complete walkthrough. It's not the kind of book you'd sit down and read from cover to cover (Trust me on this), but at least you'll know what kinds of things pop up more than once in smb.conf.

What's to Like? Samba is designed to work with a variety of operating systems and platforms, and the authors cover quite a few: Solaris, RedHat and Caldera Linux distributions, and Free and Net BSD. These are good choices, because they represent a cross section of Unix land. Clients include the Windows family, as well as DOS and Unix (where applicable). Also included are task options (different utilities or command line switches). For example, the Samba installation section describes compilation, package selection during installation, and RPM installs. Samaba's rapid development receives due mention, with advanced users pointed to anonymous CVS and the excellent mailing lists.

SWAT receives the best coverage, reinforcing the notion that this book is meant to be used by administrators who don't have the luxury of looking up many pages on the server (or those who prefer to read printed versions). Additional configuration resources are also covered. These include SMBEdit, webmin and Linuxconf.

The handbook covers client-side issues very thoroughly, including a detailed section on troubleshooting under various operating systems. (The breadth of coverage surprised me, as there were commands I did not know even existed.) Also, the Best Practices chapter takes a server-level approach, with sections on backups and security.

What's to Consider? My one large gripe may only bother a few readers: The editing really seems half-hearted. This is annoying, as the layout is inconsistent in places and numerous typos mar the text. I did not notice any factual errors resulting from this, however.

Occasionally, options are mentioned but not explained. Most of the time, these are the smb.conf options included for debugging purposes, deprecated in newer versions, or options which should never be changed. Some additional information would be interesting, if not immediately useful. Likewise, the benchmarking chapter suffers from a skimpy treatment, mentioning tools but not what to do with them.

In some spots, more information than necessary is presented. For example, the generous SWAT chapter repeats some information verbatim, as certain sections of the smb.conf file take similar options. Erring on the side of caution fits the organizational goal, though reprinting tar man pages may be a bit extreme.

The SummaryShort on theory but long on facts, until you have your smb.conf memorized and can keep six different versions of the same command straight in your head, you can find quick and correct information here.

Buy this book at ThinkGeek.

Table of Contents

1. Installation and Basic Configuration
2. 1. Server Installation
   2. Client Installation
   3. Basic Configuration Using SWAT
   4. Basic Operating System Configuration
   5. Other GUI Configuration Tools
3. Advanced Configuration
4. 1. Naming Services
   2. Best Practices, Browsing, and Domains
   3. Performance Tuning
5. Troubleshooting
6. 1. Basic Network Connectivity
   2. Testing the Samba Configuration
   3. Accessing Samba
   4. Using Net Commands to Diagnose Problems
7. Appendices
8. 1. Error Codes
   2. GNU General Public License
   3. Online Resources