Linux Power Tools

Dan Clough writes "I found Linux Power Tools to be a useful book, although it does have some shortcomings. It's a 644-page, well-written book that covers almost all aspects of managing, administering, and optimizing a working Linux system. The book's cover claims the target audience as intermediate to advanced users, but I think that beginner to intermediate would be more accurate. More advanced users may find Linux Power Tools a little beneath their level." Read on for the rest of Dan's review. Linux Power Tools author Roderick W. Smith pages 644 publisher Sybex rating 8 of 10 reviewer Dan Clough ISBN 0782142265 summary Well-written introductory and intermediate material; a useful jumping off point for many tasks though not the definitive source for specialized ones.

The text doesn't cover installing a Linux system, but does point out some of the differences among the major distributions in common use today, specifically Debian, Mandrake, RedHat, Slackware, and SUSE. Much of the distro-specific information is contained in a chapter on package management (RPM, deb, tar.gz, and the GUI tools for the aforementioned distros). I found this book a good reference for a new user (and especially someone self-administering their Linux box for the first time), but most "expert" users will not find much here that they don't already know.

The author covers a wide range of software that is frequently used. This includes the major desktop environments KDE and Gnome (with a brief discussion of alternate window and file managers which can be used to create your own custom environment), and office application suites (fairly simple overviews of OpenOffice.org, KOffice, and Gnome Office). Also covered are the two most common bootloaders (LILO and GRUB), printer configuration options (LPRng and CUPS), and a pretty basic section on command-line shells and scripting. There are a couple of chapters that touch on the basics of doing backups (using tar), and some general methods of improving the security of a Linux system (such as using proper passwords and stopping unnecessary services). These topics are followed up by several sections on basic networking configuration (TCP/IP, DHCP, and DNS), and controlling network access with firewalls, TCP wrappers, and xinetd service restrictions.

The last few chapters cover setup and operation of various common server applications, including Apache, FTP, Sendmail, Postfix, SSH, and VNC. All of these server descriptions are of the "general overview" variety, and additional resources will be required by someone trying to configure them for the first time. The book includes a basic glossary aimed at beginners, and an excellent index. The inside front and back covers contain a nice list of essential Linux configuration files, with their default locations, although distro-specific variations are not included.

The two sections that I found the most useful are the kernel customization chapter, and the one on optimizing the X Window System configuration.

Although the kernel chapter contains information that can be found elsewhere, it offers a very understandable explanation, and should make the process of compiling a custom kernel (for performance optimization) achievable for someone who hasn't done it before. In short, everything I needed to know about was right there in one place, and eliminated the need to bounce back and forth between the numerous how-to documents available online. By following this book's guidelines, I was able to successfully compile a kernel optimized for my AthlonXP CPU, containing only the drivers I need, which resulted in noticeable improvements in bootup time, application loading times, and desktop responsiveness.

In the X Window System chapter, the use of options in the XF86Config(-4) config file was well explained, including how to set custom modelines useful for a non-standard screen resolution and/or refresh rate. Font configuration was very clearly discussed, and included directions for adding additional fonts, and enabling smoothing (anti-aliasing) in applications.

Linux Power Tools is an excellent reference book, well suited to assisting in specific tasks related to Linux system administration. There is no real new information here, but this book does better than most at having many things you want to know very accessible in one reference volume. I would compare it favorably with another of my favorite books -- O'Reilly's Running Linux. In fact I've found it to be even more valuable for some specific tasks. It is very complete and recent (copyright 2003), and I highly recommend it to other intermediate level system administrators.

You can purchase Linux Power Tools from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to submit a review for consideration, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Comments

Re:looking for a good windows to linux book.

[RobertB-DC]

I would like to find a book more suited to transitioning from windows to Linux

While looking for Knoppix hints, I ran across a page by the author of something called Moving to Linux , subtitled "Kiss the Blue Screen of Death Goodbye." It purports to do what you're asking for, but I haven't bought it and don't know anyone who has, so YMMV.

Re:looking for a good windows to linux book.

[irc.goatse.cx troll]

Can't help you on the book, but I'd advise you to aim for O'Rielly rather than the 'Learn $X in 24 hrs' type books.

I did want to reply to a sepcific comment, though,
"One of the reasons why I don't use Linux is because of this. It's not about fearing change as much as I know how windows works to the point I can set in up in under an hour rather than mess with linux for days."

This really depends on your definition of 'set up'. You could pop in a knoppix cd and be done with knx-hdinstall in about 20minutes and have a fully working linux system, but thats not really set up as to my definition. When I setup a linux box, I configure it exactly how I want, everything from login configs to disable local passwords, shell configs to setup everything how I want, IP QoS configs so my downloads don't kill my ping in quake or SSH, SSH public keys so I don't need to retype a password everywhere, /etc/hosts so I can login to my servers without typing the full hostname, and plenty more. Its a process that takes the lifespan of your install, but generally you're satisfied after a week or so, but when I recently tried windows 2003 I found that it was the same experience -- a week or so to have things how you want it, but still a while longer to fine tune everything (each little apps preferences, installing all of the third party software you need, hunting down serial numbers, the relative[to linux] mess that is drivers/hardware) All of this stuff is optional configuration, but I feel its a required step for setting up your machine.

One thing I can suggest though is if you're going to dual boot, use ext2 or ext3fs, and look into the 'ext2fsd' project. Mounts an ext2 filesystem in windows, defaults to ReadOnly but can be setup to write also. Very useful.

Re:Actually it's not a bad book

[transient]

Try apropos:

% apropos schedule
cron (8) - daemon to execute scheduled commands (Vixie Cron)
cron [crond] (8) - daemon to execute scheduled commands (Vixie Cron)