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Running Linux, 3rd Edition
Overview You've decided to take the Linux plunge. You have a computer all set up and you have your shiny new CD in hand. You're excited and nervous all at the same time. You've put in some time on your shell account at work, but you're not a power user. This dual-booting thing might be for you. But the CD just sits there next to the black screen... where do you go from here?
"Running Linux" seeks to take you from that first icy shock of installation to the deep end of recompiling kernels, upgrading system libraries, and tweaking your X configuration.
The intended audience is people with some previous Unix experience who are willing to get their hands dirty under the hood of their installations. There are frequent references to man pages and HOWTOs for gory details.
What's good? The authors take an early distribution-neutral stance, glossing over some of the slick configuration utilities in favor of editing text files. While that may dissuade some users, it has the benefits of being universally applicable as well as more educational.
The section on installation is particularly good, discussing common pitfalls, partitioning techniques (and preferences), and various configurations, including dual booting. The Samba information is also quite good.
"Running Linux" covers a wide scope of other utilities, from Apache to gdb, Tcl/Tk to the GIMP.
What Might Bite Back? There's a lot of material covering a lot of subjects. This means that there's not much fat here -- just the bare essentials. Consider this your roadmap and be ready check the references provided when you need to know more.
Some of the applications covered appear only by personal preference. For example, fvwn, elm, and smail are discussed, while WindowMaker, pine, and sendmail are not. That's not a big issue, however.
Feel free to jump around between the chapters -- the arrangement is more encyclopedic than progressive. Common tools such as vi or Emacs appear in chapter 9, while kernel upgrades and modules show up in chapter 7.
One of the larger limitations in the draft copy was the conspicuous absence of GNOME-related material. Thankfully, the final version includes an appendix written by members of the GNOME team. (One of the authors, Matthias Dalheimer, develops KDE.)
The Bottom Line If you're the curious type, looking to play around with Linux, and you need a little friendly advice and some suggestions on where to look for further information, this is the place to start. If you've used Linux for a while, and want to start understanding your system, this is also the book for you.
Pick this book up at Amazon.
Table of Contents (abbreviated) Preface
Chapter 1. Introduction to Linux
Chapter 2. Preparing to Install Linux
Chapter 3. Installation and Initial Configuration
Chapter 4. Basic Unix Commands and Concepts
Chapter 5. Essential System Management
Chapter 6. Managing Filesystems, Swap, and Devices
Chapter 7. Upgrading Software and the Kernel
Chapter 8. Other Administrative Tasks
Chapter 9. Editors, Text Tools, Graphics, and Printing
Chapter 10. Installing the X Window System
Chapter 11. Customizing Your X Environment
Chapter 12. Windows Compatibility and Samba
Chapter 13. Programming Languages
Chapter 14. Tools for Programmers
Chapter 15. TCP/IP and PPP
Chapter 16. The World Wide Web and Electronic Mail
Appendix A. Sources of Linux Information
Appendix B. The GNOME Project
Appendix C. Installing Linux on Digital/Compaq Alpha Systems
Appendix D. LinuxPPC: Installing Linux on PowerPC Computers
Appendix E. Installing Linux/m68k on Motorola 68000-Series Systems
Appendix F. Installing Linux on Sun SPARC Systems
Appendix G. LILO Boot Options
Appendix H. Zmodem File Transfer
It provides introductory information on a whole lot of different sorts of software, particularly including development tools and applications. It only provides a "taste" of each, but nonetheless does provide enough detail to accomplish something useful, as well as how to get at more detail if you care to make more serious use of the facility.
The purposes of the books are pretty complementary; Running Linux does not forcibly obsolete UNIX in a Nutshell or Essential System Administration;
Running Linux is particularly useful for assessing answers to the question:
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
First of all, I really appreciate all of the good reviews here on Slashdot, and I'm glad that folks find Running Linux to be useful. I wanted it to be a book that Slashdot readers would appreciate :-)
I'd just like to point out that if you do find any mistakes or incorrect information in the book, please feel free to send corrections my way: mdw@metalab.unc.edu. Usually we can correct small things in subsequent printings without waiting for the next edition to be released. In a book of this size, sometimes things slip through the cracks, but we do our best.
Also, feel free to send me any suggestions or ideas for future editions. We really depend upon readers to help us to shape the direction of the book's content, since it's often hard to tell which topics are important to cover and which are not. Now that Linux has grown so much this task is even more difficult than in previous editions.
It is true that our bias towards KDE was due to Kalle being on-board for this edition, but we did our best to talk about GNOME (albeit in an appendix). I hope that the next edition will have a bona fide section on GNOME incorporated into the book, but unfortunately we ran out of time to include it in this one.
Thanks everyone!
Matt Welsh
I bought this book about a week ago when I decided to take the Linux plunge. I chose that book because it seemed to cover a lot of subjects, it had a lot of references for each subject, and it's published by O'Reilly (they just have good books).
Considering I'm a complete Unix/Linux newbie (I just found out yesterday I have to be logged in as root user to invoke shutdown. Stop laughing, you were a newbie once too), it's been pretty usefull so far.
I've managed to install Linux in about an hour, and most of that time was spent trying to configure my Linux partitions properly with Disk Druid. I have Lilo running well for dual boot with Win98, and I've been able to do some file management, DOS style.
I obviously still have much to read, but considering all of the complaints I've read about installing Linux (including last week's CNN article), it's been very helpful so far, and I don't have any problems recommending it.
bh