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Linux Server Hacks
About the book LSH is not just about the Linux operating system, per se. Despite the title, it spends more time covering applications which can run on Linux than it does the Linux operating system itself. It is composed of 100 "hacks" all grouped together into like areas, such as "Monitoring" and "Networking". The style sort of reminded me of O'Reilly's Cookbook series, and I find it to be an easy format to read. Indeed, if the book was larger, it could have easily been called "The Linux Server Cookbook."
After a somewhat cheesy forward by ESR and a recognizably standard O'Reilly preface, LSH starts out the hacking with a section called "Server Basics," and it's here that most of the Linux-specific tips are. You get to learn how to pass args to LILO, stroll through /proc, tweak the Linux kernel, play with hdparm and so forth. This chapter left me thinking that this was all stuff every admin should know, and not much of it was new to me (if you've used Linux for more than a couple years you probably won't find much here that you haven't at least heard about before). If you are new to Linux however, then this chapter will be valuable even if you stop reading the book right at chapter two.
If the book had to be divided into two parts, the first chapter would be titled "Part 1: Linux the OS." The balance of the book would then be called "Part 2: Linux Applications." Subsequent chapters each tackle one area of services or applications that run on Linux, such as CVS or rsync or ssh, and it's very easy to find something interesting purely by looking through the table of contents. The book's grouping of hacks into like topics helps, I think, because you can easily pick out what you want to see more of without having to wade through that which you don't find terribly interesting. For example, if you only deal with your personal Linux workstation, then you can easily disregard the "Information Servers" chapter without missing other valuable content. I personally found the "Networking" and "Monitoring" chapters to be the most useful. The "Backups" chapter was interesting, the "Scripting" chapter not so much. Each chapter starts with a summary of what's to come, so if the table of contents isn't enough to find the good bits, then just reading those summaries can give you an idea of whether you'll find anything useful to you.
The book includes a fairly complete index, but I didn't use it very much. I found the table of contents, with its list of each hack's title, to be useful enough. I suspect that when I pick the book up a couple months from now looking for something I had read about I'll get more use out of the index.
What's to likeAs I mentioned above, the book is very easy to read. Flickenger has a "conversational" writing style I found easy to parse. If you hang out with Linux geeks very much, you'll recognize his way of communicating and easily assimilate what he has to say. His advice is sound, his skill level high (the same can be said for the other contributors as well). The book's layout and organization made it easy to find specifics and will ensure that it gets used as a reference later on.
You might be wondering about the code samples in this book: there are a lot of them. I didn't check, but I think each hack had at least one CLI listing or bit of example code. This made the book much more valuable than if it simply told you want to do; "seeing" the hack in action helped tremendously. In fact, I'd have felt disappointed if Flickenger hadn't included as many examples as he did. Most of the code is Perl, with some shell mixed in. The example code is well written and properly placed, so if you don't know Perl or shell you'll still be able to make use of the hack.
Each hack can stand on its own. This makes the book easy to read, and ensures its place as a reference. I didn't read the book sequentially at first, but I went through the whole thing regardless. Some hacks refer to other hacks, and I found myself reading the book as if it was hypertext, as is mentioned in the preface. Again, this also means less time spent reading that which you already know (or find boring) and more time spent thinking about something more useful.
The book is distribution-agnostic. I couldn't find anything that would upset a Debian user or would flummox a Mandrake fan. While this might have more to do with the bulk of the hacks being on the application level, I found the lack of an axe to grind refreshing nonetheless.
The book doesn't assume l33t-ness nor coddle the reader. It assumes you know your stuff and are a professional, and in doing so finds its voice rather well. This gave me a sense of admiration for the author and allowed me to absorb the knowledge being imparted with ease.
Although not specifically about the book, O'Reilly has set up a website devoted to their "Hacks" series of books. Users can send in their own hacks, which helps flesh out the content in the print edition.
What could be betterESR's forward, titled "How to Become a Hacker," was just silly. The forward added nothing to the book, and I find the whole "zen of hacking" schtick tiresome after only a short while. Yes, "hack" is a cool word, but one which easily suffers from overuse: it suffers a lot in ESR's forward. The forward also contains a plug for ESR's book, which I thought was somewhat tacky.
LILO is referred to in several places, but there is not a single mention of GRUB. Where the boot loader was being discussed, an "If you use GRUB, you'd want to do it this way..." aside would have been welcome.
The "Information Servers" chapter is very large, but only deals with BIND 9, Apache and MySQL. If you don't work with any of these three, then fully one quarter of the book will be useless to you. I would have really liked to see mail servers (especially Postfix and Qmail) mentioned, and including tweaks for an ftp daemon would have made the book that much more valuable. I would have also liked to see sshd covered; the book contains only ssh client hacks. Finally, a hack or three about PostgreSQL would have been nice.
The "Scripting" chapter could have been replaced with a "Security" chapter. There are only 4 scripting hacks, and they aren't all that useful. Although the book has a security-conscious mindset running throughout it, I felt the lack of a section devoted specifically to security was a glaring omission. In fact, I almost didn't buy the book when I noticed that the table of contents didn't list a security chapter. It was only after reading a hack or two that I could see security was going to be mentioned.
Another area I expected to see was one with hacks involving package management. A whole chapter dealing with this topic would have certainly been welcome to users of Red Hat, SuSE, et al. I suspect that such a chapter might have broken an unwritten editorial rule about remaining distribution neutral, however. And Debian users would have found anything beyond an apt-get one-liner superfluous, so I can forgive the "omission."
Although the title of the book is "Linux Server Hacks," someone using Linux as a workstation would also find the book helpful. For example, Flickenger includes two hacks on burning CDs, a hack on displaying the load average in the title bar of an xterm window, and so on. I got the impression that the server-centric focus wandered into desktop land quite a bit. Because of this, I thought that some hacks involving window managers should have been included. I've tweaked vnc to run blackbox on more than one occasion and expected to see things like that mentioned. This is a niggling complaint, however.
I found myself wishing the book was longer. At US$24.95 the price was right, but I would have rather paid US$34.95 for 150 total hacks.
Finally, the book looked somewhat rushed. There were more than a couple formatting errors (typeset characters visible, etc) sprinkled throughout, and all the code examples were unindented; it was as if all the tabs were stripped out by the printer. While the lack of indenting might confuse those who don't know Perl or shell, the only "real" consequence of this is that the lack of tabs in the makefile examples on pages 27 and 28 prevent them from working.
SummaryBased on this review, it might seem that the bad outweighs the good where Linux Server hacks is concerned. I don't think this is the case, and I would caution anyone against taking that view (rather, I'd have them glance through the book at the bookstore before deciding not to buy it). I think it should be noted that given the usually high quality of O'Reilly titles, it's far easier to spot what could be better than what is likeable. Like the old saying goes, nobody notices a clean kitchen unless it isn't.
None of the "bad" things would keep me from recommending this book, and I found Linux Server Hacks to be a very useful -- both as a future reference and as "thumb through while waiting for the train" sort of read. There's not much in it which is "new", and most of the hacks would border on common sense for the seasoned sysadmin (although I'd be willing to be that even the most grizzled admin would find something new or interesting). Indeed, nearly all the information in the book can probably be found on the web somewhere. It is nice, however, to have everything collected in one place and organized into specific groups. Linux Server Hacks would make a good addition to the bookshelf of anyone, regardless of their skill level, who finds themself administering a Linux machine, be it a server or workstation.
Table of contents- How to Become a Hacker
- Preface
- Server Basics
- Revision Control
- Backups
- Networking
- Monitoring
- SSH
- Scripting
- Information Servers
You can purchase Linux Server Hacks from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
It is also not a book which will teach you how to break into Linux servers.
Then what good is it!?
-1 redundant
:)
it's a joke, laugh
why cant all this information be on a searchable website? and charge me subscription...
Consensus is good, but informed dictatorship is better
Does this book have any methods for filtering pr0n from user mail accounts, and indexing/organizing it correctly for the administer to 'review' and archive? I know this admin would surely welcome suggestions that would help me better utilize my time in this most important area.
The book will probably not make you a better admin, but it will almost certainly save you some time
More time for recreation makes me a better admin. More time for automation and documentation makes me a better admin. And, of course, more time for Slashdot makes me a better admin.
UNIX Papers
for UNIX Developers and Power Users
ISBN 0-672-22578-6
Like I said, it is old, but sed, awk and C haven't changed over the years. This has some great information on shell scripting, NFS, and email.
Click here or here.
I had a few extra book places so I checked this book out last week. I was suprised how useful much of it was. I have been working with linux for years and there where plenty of things I had never done before, but would have had I known of them before. I may even get a copy for everyone at the office.
Since they don't work out of the box like Microsoft products, you gotta buy a fucking book to kludge them together before you can use them.
Yea, everyone knows that Windows users are the KeWl3sT anyway, right?
Idiots like you are just as bad as the Windows bashers. I use both. I like both. Both piss me off in some ways, delight me in others. Anyone who can't see value in both are just blind or stupid. Now go crawl back under your rock and die a miserable death.
Punk.
I agree that the ESR forward should have been deleted. However, this book is a nifty collection of various hacks that probably would take you forever to stumble upon if they weren't in this book. (You're probably too busy administering or programming to experiment all day long).
/etc/* files that have lines commented out, no explanation why. Having a revision history clean the clutter, makes a backup, and lets you know why and when something was changed.
Using RCS/CVS to track revisions to settings files is just an example. I've seen far too many
That's the sort of time saving, "ehy didn't i think of that" tips you'll find.
First book I've read that treats you like an experienced System Administrator. Not for the faint of heart or inexperienced. I really enjoyed it!
To some of you Uber network admins out there this book won't be very helpful. But to me, someone whose been net-admin'ing it for 2 years this was very helpful! Shows you lots of nice tricks. I found the section on utilizing ssh to its full potential extremely useful! I never thought of doing backups over ssh before! I'd rate this book 5 out of 5 stars personally!
LFS. Have you built your system today?
-- Power corrupts, but PowerPoint corrupts absolutely.
let the man have his review stop spammin the comments with crap >:|
I've left to find myself. If you happen to see me, please, keep me there until I return.
www.tldp.net
There's was a book review of this same book about a week or two ago, wasn't there? I bought the book and have been pleased overall with it, but there wasn't really anything new or exciting, just a few tips and tricks. Note you can find most of these by going to www.google.com/linux and looking up tips and tricks. One example would be that you can find out who is hogging the most disk space using an alias for du, like this:
du -cks | sort -rn | head -n 10
Pretty simple, yet really effective. This book is full of little things like this.
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. It's just that yours is stupid.
ESR wrote a foreword. Forward is a direction, foreward is piece of writing at the front of a book.
Canthros
sounds intresting, but anyone with the knoldage required to understand this book could easily find all its contents on one or two webpages. I dont see the need for this in print. well except for those of us who like to kick back and drink a beer while we reed, or cant get networking to work (in which case this book isnt for you anyway). just my thorught.
Noone writes jokes in base 13!
For Pete's sake: It's "foreword" (ie. fore-word). Defined as "A word said before something else; hence, an introduction, a preface." (OED).
Why the heck would it be called 'forward'? Do people who make this mistake think it is the suggested reading direction?
And we are supposed to have this take over our whole life right? We can't do anything but sit infront of the TV and watch for the Next "Hoe-down in Iraq with Wolf Blitzer?" Excuse us for doing what the Pres recomended ==> "GET ON WITH YOUR LIFE AS NORMAL!" Not everyone is going to let this crap in Iraq take over their life.
--- If the bible proves the existence of God, then Superman comics prove the existence of Superman.
As I mentioned above, the book is very easy to read. Flickenger has a "conversational" writing style I found easy to parse. If you hang out with Linux geeks very much, you'll recognize his way of communicating and easily assimilate what he has to say.
:-)
You know that if you start using words such as 'parse' in every day language, you probably do hangout with geeks very much!
(and they probably find words such as parse easy to communicate with, too)
There's a war against Islam? I must have totally missed that, with the war against an evil dictator taking up all the headlines these days.
what about all those "Windows Secrets" and "make Windows Faster" books out there? As someone already posted, it's all about optimization.
Perhaps you're not getting as much from a Windows OS package as a Linux Boxed set. For a fraction of what Windows costs, you can get RedHat (or any other distro) that comes with the OS, lots of software, and a big manual that explains a lot of things. Windows..all you get is the OS CD(s) and a booklet
$cat
What - those were "geeky" phrases?!? Thanks for blowing the whistle...I never would've known! ;)
is anyone else wondering why they got a rating of funny? i dont see any comedy in the post. oh and btw, there are distros that work oob like ms products dont. RedHat and Mandrake both work fine oob, and can even be configured during the installs to setup and run as a server, i havent seen a MS distro that allows you to install and configure iis during first boot...?
Noone writes jokes in base 13!
Like there aren't books for Windows folks for tricks you can pull to make your life easier on a Windows box? Aren't there are a bunch of classes available for MCSE types?
Yeah, you might want the book if you had not already thought of some of these tricks. That is the point of reading and learning, duh!
Give me a break. Every admin knows there are little things that can be automated and worked from a base install to help them get through the day and get their stuff done no matter what OS you admin.
I propose this to the community. What is the neatest hack/trick that saves time from your day in terms of programming or system administration?
BTW, any tricks I don't care if they are straight commercial Unix, Linux or Windows.
ACK
I'm glad to see that the kiddies think exquisite English is an attempt at sounding cool. Meanwhile, you aught to seek some more education and work on biting your tongue when you think you're about to sound witty.
(What the heck, may as well burn what little karma I have by addressing a pet peeve; good English is never a sin!)
-- Hey, what the hell, it's only slashdot..
"ESR wrote a foreword. Forward is a direction, foreward is piece of writing at the front of a book."
Very good, looks like you've introduced a third spelling.
Those who love UNIX (and UNIX-inspired operating systems) will surely adore Linux Server Hacks by Rob Flickenger. For decades, a mysterious sect of bearded wizards has dominated the inner sanctums of our network infrastructures, inspiring the awe of onlookers by crafting clever scripts and piping output in ingenious ways most of us never even thought of. This small but marvelous book attempts to steer apprentice wizards in the noble direction of clever system administration, with examples taken from experience in O'Reilly's own LAMP networks.
The book begins with a refreshing introduction (by esr) detailing what it means to be a hacker. No, not the hax0ring w4r3z d00dz of frequent media attention, but the aforementioned bearded variety who spend most of their waking effort forging uncommon techniques for solving otherwise dull problems. Kudos to Mr. Flickenger (and O'Reilly) for not only acknowledging the difference, but celebrating it.
As the title would indicate, the audience of this book is the administrator in charge of a server--that is, a Linux box performing only a couple of dedicated tasks, probably of a network-oriented nature. Although Linux enthusiasts from the desktop realm are not part of the intended audience, they will almost certainly pick up a thing or two from the material anyway.
The book is organized into the following sections:
I think the real magic of this chapter isn't necessarily the tips themselves, but the creative process behind them; the author is demonstrating a methodology for dealing with common problems by introducing clever solutions. This will ideally inspire the reader to deal with other problems in the same creative manner.
Buy five books, and then take a vacation with the money saved. In addition to the software and books, there is a requirement for a basic grasp of what you're about...
While we are on the topic of linux books, I was wandering if anyone would recommend a linux book for a beginner (but someone who recompiled the kernel and messed with X before even knowing the 'less' command :-) ) Your help is appreciated.
Free speech is getting expensive...
This isn't just a comment, it's a tradition, bordering on an institiution...
Hey, can't you guys read the sign? Please don't feed the trolls.
DON'T CLICK THAT LINK!!! GOATSE alert!!! GOATSE alert!!!
I really liked it though...
I used to be somebody... until I gave the account away...
Yeah, I agree. Linux is great - I've loved it when I've had access to it, although I can't say that much right now - but I don't mind using Windows. Honestly, if I had the choice, there are few things I'd change about Windows as it is now - it's crashed to the point that I need to restart the system maybe four times in a year, and application specific crashes are fairly infrequent. I'd still rather be using Linux right now if I had the opportunity, but this isn't my computer... but yeah. They both have advantages and disadvantages, people need to realize that.
That sentance does not make any sense. If it saves you time, then wouldn't you be a better admin?
Another self-serving plug. Complete was of time.
Gee except for noobs.
Revision control? What's that.
Backups? A new angle? Yeah right.
Network? Transitioning FROM pf? Not likely.
Monitoring? Syslog? What's that.
SSH? Try OpenSSH.
Scriping? Made easier? It's already totally easy.
Information Servers? Oh yeah, all in one book. Bind, MySQL and mid-to-high traffic servers. Awesome.
pffft! Stop the sensless killing of trees. Boycott this book!
You ought to seek some more edumocation, you sonova bitch! And for your attempt to sound witty, you got half-way there.
good English is never a sin!
Bad spelling however, really pisses off any God.
Using the word pejorative is pejorative ( : having negative connotations; especially : tending to disparage or belittle : DEPRECIATORY) ...I think, man too much thinkin. How about something like "not ment in a bad way"? Much better...ahhhh
Incidentally, I am highly educated, including the subject of the English language, and I would never presume to classify my direct attack on bombastic language as "witty". As a tit-for-tat reaction to your ad hominem I should point out that the word you were looking for was "ought" not "aught", although I hasten to add that pointing out such a petty error would be of no interest but for the fact you had insulted me.
With respect to your parenthetical, I must tip my hat to you. Firstly because Slashdot would be a far better place if rebuttals such as yours were considered part of discussion rather than earning off-topic moderations. Secondly, I agree wholeheartedly that good English is never a sin, and furthermore that bad English very often is.
I bid you farewell, with the suggestion that you re-write that phrase yourself, and see how much clearer, better flowing, and less wordy it is.
I don't know if the computers can sort out the good pr0n you want to see, but I imagine they could with the right filters sort them by breast size, hair color, and number of people involved. Even this small bit might really help you utilize your time in "this most important area" much more effectively.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
...that make you go ooh thats clever. I've always found the difference to be between a good sysadmin and a great sysadmin is when they do something and you go wow now thats smart. Some one like this
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
Oh, you youngsters. You're so cute!
if you're not familiar with setting up linux then this book will just confuse people. Indeed. if you're familiar with setting up linux then this book will just prove a complete waste of time. Indeed.
So where does the book fit in then? For starters it makes good kindling.
Bravo,
That reply warrants a fan designation!
I stand corrected.
-- Hey, what the hell, it's only slashdot..
I appreciate the correction. If I find myself in a similar situation (taking pot shots at slashdot poster's grammar and spelling) I'll remember that aught means all/anything/everything, and ought means obligation...
:)
Or, moreover, that I should probably get my flames peer-reviewed before I spout them out!
-- Hey, what the hell, it's only slashdot..
How was the word abused? A pejorative, as you know, is "a disparaging or belittling word or expression". It always seemed to me that "hack" is used to describe criminals and script kiddies, which is exactly the opposite connotation the foreward would have you believe. I've also seen it used to describe "hacks" which were shoddy pieces of work and in no way clever.
However, there is much that is stylistically wrong.
Seems I got my point across, in spite of not having proofread it before submission.
Were I reading a text on any non-geeky subject I would be very surprised to see those particular phrases, as the immediate impression is that the author picked a set of words from random points in the review and then checked for alternatives in a thesaurus. This is the expected behaviour of a smart-ass 14 year old, but is not "exquisite English".
Nope. I'm well beyond 14, although I'd much rather be called a smart-ass than a dumb-ass. I wrote the review last night in one sitting, and not a single thesarus was harmed in its making. I didn't use any word or phrase I don't normally use, so pardon the perceived affectation.
-B
Ash and Hickory, straight-grained and true, make excellent bludgeons, dandy for the cudgeling of vegetarians.
Pejorative \Pe*jor"a*tive\, a. [F. p['e]joratif, fr. L. pejor, used as compar. of malus evil.] Implying or imputing evil; depreciatory; disparaging; unfavorable
The book doesn't assume l33t-ness nor coddle the reader.
I hate to sound 'l33t' but I wish there were more books for people who has used linux for a long time. It's hard to aquire any new knowledge when most books are targeted at people with little experience.
Of course there is a lot of good places on internet to get good tips and advice but that defeats the whole point of a book.
The wall when your poorly written server code wouldn't scale to any more users and you had to get some big-money LiNUX high-flyer to bail you out and buy you a whole whack of expensive hardware in order to distribute all your servers.
/.'ing is about 5000 reads. A well designed website can server a lot more than 5000 highly dynamic page views over an hour. The Slashdot lesson of websites should be that you can save gobs of money on hardware and administration by designing your software well and getting someone competent to write it.
Either that or get someone to spend a week or so redesigning and rewriting your software so that it would work on just one machine.
Seriously, folks, the average
This provides a segway into using CVS for controlling revision of large software projects.
Ok, I know about O'Reilly's Safari, and that's cool, but where can I get a book that has an electronic copy with it? Safari doesn't cut it. I have O'Reilly's Perl CD bookshelf as well as their Network CD Bookshelf and I love them. I bought around $2,000 worth of books last year and not one of them came with an electronic copy. I need both. I need the hard-bound copy to read in bed or in the lazy-boy in the living room. I want my electronic copy so I can copy and paste code snippets, or put it on my password-protected website so I can access the book from work. I don't want to tote my books from home to work every day and I certainly don't want to buy 2 copies of every book. Safari just doesn't cut it. Safari only lets me view the book on their website. I want a copy on my local hard drive. I think everyone that purchases an O'Reilly book should at least have free access to that same book on Safari. I still want HTML or PDF copies of my books. Where o where can I get them?
I found it informative. I was going to start at the last page and read backwards to the front page, until I saw the forward.
Oh but it's SOOOO much fun!!!! Why not? Most trolls are idiots just waiting to be manipulated by people like me. I love watching how they bend over and take it when I feed them the right sauce. Here.. here's and example to hook onto a troll out there:
Hey you! Yeah you! I've got something to say to you. You were dissing my favorite OS Linux up there. You know what? if I ever meet you in person, I'm going to punch you in the nose. Linux is THE premiere OS of teh 21st century. There are so many things you can do with Linux that you can't do with Windows it's just mindboggling. For starters, Linux is WAYYYY more secure than Windows. It comes secure right out of the box. Even Windows XP can't boast that. And it's flexible. You can have it run as many or as few services and programs as you need. It can power a server, a desktop, a car, a phone, a wristwatch, a PDA, an MP3 player, a PVR, and maybe even someday the subsystems of an AI. Can Windows do that? I don't think so. Windows is just a pile of shit for lusers who think they know computers. They waste their money on a shit OS and overkill hardware for what they want to do.
And now the other side:
Hellooo... Anti-linux trolls... It's din-din time... You all know Linux is teh sux0rz right? A pathetic kernel cobbled together with a bunch of crap software written by some ugly GNU hippies. There is so much that you can't do with Linux that you can do with Windows, but one of the primary things is: WORK!!! All those Linux users spend their time doing is working on compiling the latest kernel to fix all the bugs that were in the last one and add support for new hardware that wasn't supported before. Hardware support? HAH! Don't even think about it. Most of the best hardware (typically the latest and greates because that's what makes Windows users "leet") isn't supported in Linux at all!! Want to use the TV out on your two year old Radeon? -BZZZZZT!- There isn't any support for it unless you want to compile half of the OS and GUI and X stuff. And when you want to use normal features on it like: DVD, MPEG and 3D acceleration, you can forget it. The current expeirmental stuff for it isn't even being updated because Linux users are so lazy. They all probably use Serial and PS2 mice instead of the much better performing USB. I've seen speed increase in my mouse pointer since I switched to Windows XP and USB mice. And I can play Battlefield 1942 because that's the game of the year that everyone should play. So fuck you Lunix users! You think you're so good, then make your computers work instead of using two year old machines and then complaining when you can't connect to the internet.
Let the games begin...
...sounds like a good way to interview your prospective new server-master. Give them a blank server box and a play domain. He gets to set it up however. Have him coder 'er up to what he thinks is "good stuff", serve wise and security-wise. Have a nice strange web page fulla blinkenlights graphics and flash and whatevers, THEN see if you can get it posted as a story on slashdot. Server don't cut it,or gets owned real quick, he don't get the job. Forget all the other resume stuff.
Did you mean "Beginning Programming for Dummies"?
Why do I need a book to tell me how to edit sshd.conf? Isn't that what the manpage is for?
Is it just me, or do these "hack" books sound really lame?
Who said a person made this mistake? How do you know it was not the auto-correct feature of M$ Word? Be glad the M$ meat heads don't give books foreskins instead.
Foreskin - a protective collection of words at the start of a book. Some people think of them as superflous, others call them Introductions.
How's that for forward of me?
Ever heard of a book so up front?
The direction depends on it's state.
OK, I'm going to stop mow, my wife is punching me.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
My personal favourite is the Linux Gazette, but there are others (too lazy to reahch for bookmarks now ;). Don't overlook past issues even if they are pretty old, because some of the tricks discussed haven't changed much over the years (like motd, rdev, tcsh etc.), but of course some of it is to be viewed from a historical point of view =)
I haven't seen any MS OS that will work at all during first boot - they all take a minumum of 3 or 4 boots before you get to the stage of a working OS...
That's a very nice try, but when I was front-page Slashdotted over two years ago, it was more like ~80,000 pageviews in eight hours from (and my memory fades here a bit) about 45,000 uniques. My load average hovered at about 20 for an entire day and it would have been worse if my bandwidth wasn't completely saturated by that point.
On the other hand, I added yesterday "Unix Power Tools", to my safari bookshelf and this one really absolutly rocks ! Not quite like a cookbook, it's more like a guide to get the most of Unix. Even on very basic subjects, and even if each topic is generally concise, I found alot of things I had never heard of. And i'm really learning alot about using the shell itself. I realized there are a lot more nice features to help edition the combination of emacs bindings and C-r. The authors not just tell you "this feature do that", but demonstrate how they use it all the time in their day to day job. There are alot of things that I thought were useless for me but it all makes sense while reading this book. And I've not really looked into the others chapters yet, but they look as good as this one.
In fact those books aren't even comparable : one will be read in one day and after having noted the things you'll find inside it'll sleep on your shelf. The other one will give you an insight each time you open it, and you'll open it often.
h
testing out my trending skills
I remember coming across the hacker-howto years ago, when I was a windows-only newbie, and it actually inspired me to start to learn to program, and figure things out. That's what it was intended for; not for a server hack intro. Hence, that's probably why it seemed so out-of-place.
philcrissman.com.
Hi - Wee's wife Tess here. I just wanted to note for the edification of the vocabulary police that Wee does, in fact, employ multisyllabic words both in speech and in writing on a regular basis and entirely without pretense. It's one of the things that I liked best about him when we first met. Literate guys are hot!! ;-)