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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.
well, at least everyone can read it....
... hi bingo
How ironic! I am rather short in height, and I sit on this very book at home when I use my computer.
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"?
I've had the book for sometime, and I open it up every now and again, it brings up some good points here and there and its nice to have a hard copy to fall back on, but all in all its nothing you cant find in a man page.
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.
I think this might be considered fair marketing. If you're using Linux, you're probably not a "beginner" -- you've probably an expert on other OS's and have decided to take the next step.
I just got a $35 PII and installed Knoppix 3.3. It's my first Linux box after 15+ years in the DOS/Windows world, and I'm finding out just how little I know. But I can at least make some educated guesses about "hda5" and "eth0", and when the screen displays 4 penguins instead of 1 I know that it's a screen resolution problem, not a "it doesn't work" problem.
So I'm not sure there's such a thing as a "Linux Beginner"... at least not until Wal-Mart's Lindows PCs outsell the Windows/AOL equipped models. Those buyers are the true "beginners".
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
More advanced users may find Linux Power Tools a little beneath their level.
Don't most advanced Linux users find "Multi-Dimensional Calculus for Astrophysicists" beneath their level? Much the same way showering and deodorant use are beneath them...
Being able to get info in whatever form you prefer is a good thing.
It's a shame that the book is perhaps a little basic - when I heard the title I was hoping for something along the lines of UNIX Power Tools specialised to Linux. UNIX Power Toolsreally is one of the best books out there on using UNIX. No matter how experienced a user you are you're likely to find some little gem of information buried in it - and that's all it really is, simply a collection of little gems of information about everything UNIX. It would be nice to see a book along those lines that covered Linux more specifically.
Jedidiah
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The title "Linux Power Tools" falsely suggests that the book is a sequel or update to O'Reilly's "Unix Power Tools". Unlike the book reviewed here, "Unix Power Tools" is not about configuring KDE and such stuff, but a wizard's guide to & treasury of classical shell tools, arguably the best Unix user book ever written, the bible of the commandline, the ultimate celebration of design philosophy genius behind Unix. In that light, calling the reviewed book "Linux Power Tools" is pure blasphemy.
gopher://cramer.plaintext.cc http://cramer.plaintext.cc:70
currently, I'm a windows XP user. I've used Microsoft from DOS 6.22 to NT to 2000 to XP and I'm very proficient in how to use these os'es to the point where I'm confortable in how they work and what to do if something goes wrong.
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.
What I'm looking for is a Linux book that doesn't walk you through a liunx distro step by step from installiation to installing apps, etc, but more along the lines of "this is how it's done in windows, and this is how linux does the same thing. Or a straght reference manual.
So far the only book I've seen that is close to what I want is "Linux in a Nutshell", primarialy becuase it has a great reference to all the commands and doesn't focus on one distro, which seems that all of the books do, but I would like to find a book more suited to transitioning from windows to Linux to the point where if I'm a windows and MSDOS Expert and know what I'm doing then if I follow this book I should have no trouble finding my way through linux based on the examples they give.
Does such a book exist?
In Soviet Russia, Trojan exploits YOU!
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.
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
Perhaps in my original point I should have said "books are better FOR SOME PEOPLE" instead of just "books are better" .. because there ARE a lot of people out there who learn best from books, and who feel more confident about tackling new problems if they have a reference to refer to.
I personally use a combo of books/web references whenever I do *anything* new. I learn best that way.
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.
irb(main):001:0>
I've asked this question before, but it is still bugging me, since I am about to switch my server and workstation from RedHat 7.3 (RIP) to Debian (just as soon as I'm clear about what I'll be losing by going back to Debian "stable" from RH 7.3, or what I'll be risking by going to "testing" or "unstable")... I'm afraid RedHat has used up all my trust by disenfranchising *paying* customers like me. So, good-bye Red Hat, hello ... what? At present, Debian looks like the most viable candidate. Everyone seems to think it'll be around for the duration, apt-get rocks, etc etc.
But for a while now I've been noticing that all the books on Debian seem to be out of print or else rather poorly rated. Why is this? Why does nobody seem to think it's worth writing new books on Debian, while there are tons on Red Hat? Is Debian becoming sidelined, or do people think that it has a really solid future alongside the "mainstream" distros such as RH, SuSe et al? Changing distros is a pain in the ass, all those little small tiny differences that eat up days when trying to get your box back to working the way it did before... I don't want to have to change again in a hurry. Debian sounds great, but I am at the same time a little disturbed by how long it seems to be taking to (e.g.) get a better installation program working. If I go with Debian, am I doomed to choosing between either extremely out-of-date packages (stable) or a newer-but-might-crash setup (testing), or spending a lot of time cobbling together a mishmash of my own from both?
I've already heard the arguments about "everything you need to know is somewhere online", but the simple fact is it's often *convenient* to just have a reference all in one place for the common stuff you might want to do with a particular distro. Yes, of course everything is out there and Google is my friend etc, but I know from experience that it can take days to get together the right search query that comes up with the relevant posting or doc for a particular issue. Sometimes the thing you want to do is maddeningly simple, and yet it takes forever to track down. A good book on any distro can only help. Also, when new users are looking at switching to a distro (even relatively intermediate-level ones like me), they often look for a book that will put everything together on paper. It's just human nature. A lack of decent books on a particular distro only hurts that distro, imho.
Is it because a new release of Debian is relatively close? Is anyone aware of anyone else working on a new Debian book that is more specific to the new stuff in Sarge (the upcoming next "stable" version, I think)?
TIA, sorry if this is a little off-topic.
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.
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