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Linux Power Tools
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.
Does anyone else other than me seem to think that "Power Tools" is an ill-suited title for a book that sounds more like an introductory book, then one detailing tools for a "Power User"?
Being able to get info in whatever form you prefer is a good thing.
The web and IRC work best if you know the questions you want to ask. Books are better for introducing people to new concepts and giving them the right questions to ask of the wonderful folks on IRC and the right terms to search for in Google, IMHO.
Look, he doesn't mean that you should randomly go out and search google. If you're a newbie and don't even know the question, you can read the guides.
If you have a straightforward problem that has been solved MANY, MANY times, like how to set up a mail,web, or ftp server, you can check the howtos.
In my experience (and I do the IRC thing a lot), you can't expect to have esoteric/advanced questions answered on IRC. If people don't know the answer immediately, they don't want to put in the work to figuring it out. What they can help you with is understanding the things in TLDP if you don't - like perhaps telling you what question you should be asking, or where you should be reading.
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
Man pages, schman pages. Yes, I'll go so far as to say: schman pages.
The deep, inherent flaw with man pages is that you need to know what you need to know before you can even access the relevant piece of documentation. For instance, maybe I want help with setting schedules system events. How am I supposed to know to type
man cron
if I have never heard of cron before? That's why sometimes it's very useful to have this stuff in a book that you can thumb through, learning new stuff as you go.
~jeff
Does it hurt to hear them lying? Was this the only world you had?
I think the reason they claimed it is for beginners thru advanced users is because of arrogance, and not necessarily on their part. How many Linux users have you met who call themselves "experts," just to find out they barely have enough knowledge to be a common user? They think that just because they can figure out some shell commands and edit some .conf files, they must be experts. Those are the kind of "advanced" users that need a book like this.
So tell me, what do you do when something goes wrong in Windows? Reinstall? Windows update? Run defrag? Look on the web for an answer?
:)
Anyhow, there are HOWTOs on this sort of thing, and books as well, although I must say that "Linux in a Nutshell" is a very good introductory Linux book.
However, if you're a Windows and MS-DOS Expert and you Know What You're Doing(tm), then you should have no problems learning Linux. First, familiarize yourself with the commands and software packages that you have available; then, run from there! Most distributions have decent graphical help systems and package managers nowadays, and even if they don't, there's always man and man -k.
As to the rest, there's really no replacement for some good old Unix books, or for having a Unix wizard around. They can explain to you why "echo *" doesn't work the same way in Unix (the shell expands the *), and how you'd go about performing tasks by stringing commands together...
How many reboots have there been:
last | grep ^"reboot " | wc -l
Who logs in the most:
last | cut -d ' ' -f 1 | sort | uniq -c | sort -rn | head
On what day of the week have you logged in the most:
last | grep ^`whoami` | cut -c 40-43 | sort | uniq -c | sort -rn
What file types are the most common:
find -type f -exec file -i {} \; | cut -d : -f 2- | cut -d , -f 1 | sort -n | uniq -c | sort -rn | head
etc., etc.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Learn shell script and PERL, and then you are 50% of the way there. IMHO, The important distinction between distros is not the software that's included, but rather how the software is integrated. This integration is facilitated by the collection of scripts and configuration files that are littered throughout your installation. Thus, by learning the scripting languages used, you can then feel comfortable customizing your system. Otherwise, you might as well be a car mechanic who doesn't know how to use a wrench.
From there, learning how to combine all the small tools to automate your work as much as possible will put in a positition where you feel like you are in control. Nothing feels better than knowing you've setup a system perfectly so that it gets the job done exactly the way you want it.
A book or two may prove convenient in this learning process, but honestly 100% of the material is on the web, and you can always print out your dead tree copy for your reading leisure. Good luck.