A Practical Guide to Ubuntu Linux
Posted on 20 March 2010 by Abidoon
Product Description
The Most Complete, Easy-to-Follow Guide to Ubuntu Linux Mark Sobell’s A Practical Guide to Ubuntu Linux®, Second Edition, isn’t just the most thorough and up-to-date reference to installing, configuring, and working with Ubuntu. It also provides comprehensive server coverage you won’t find in any other Ubuntu book. The fully updated JumpStart sections help you get complex servers running quickly. Whatever your questions may be,… More >>
I’m new to linux so having this as an introduction has been a life saver in many respects.
Pros:
Great table of contents. For instance when I wanted to look up a command in the chapter pertaining to the terminal I found many of the basics utilities listed right there in the table of contents with a BRIEF blurb on what they individually did. The material is also easy to follow in most cases and I have no complaints so far.
Cons:
It’s kinda big lol
Rating: 5 / 5
I am hardly a newbie to Linux, having spent 20 years as a system and network administrator, taken three years of courses on Unix and Linux administration, and run Linux desktop systems and servers at work for a number of years. But now my perspective on Linux has changed: I have purchased for my personal use a netbook running Ubuntu Linux. Because I had used Sobell’s books on Unix, Linux, and Macintosh OS X for years at work, I ordered his Practical Guide to Ubuntu Linux as my reference to that OS. From the perspective of one who “just wants it to work,” as the users at my jobs always have, I am quite disappointed not in Ubuntu but in Sobell’s Ubuntu book. I want to use Ubuntu on my netbook exactly as I use my two Macintosh laptops: at home, for personal use, on a combined wired and wireless network at home, wirelessly in public places, for e-mail, Web-surfing, online ordering, and so on. For these purposes, I have no interest in using the command line, although I am totally familiar and comfortable with it from a professional perspective. Sobell seemingly is obsessed with the command line and pays little attention to the GUIs Ubuntu offers (GNOME, KDE, and, in the case of my netbook, Remix). His “Tour of the Ubuntu Desktop” is cursory at best, and his screenshots don’t show what I see on my system even when I switch from Remix to the Classic (GNOME) desktop, and yes, I have a correct version of Ubuntu for this edition of his book–8.04. He mentions OpenOffice, with which I and presumably other users will spend a great deal of time, only in passing–twice in 1200 pages. I don’t need a complete review of networking, with which I am thoroughly familiar from my work, but information on how to get my Ubuntu netbook working on a protected wireless network. And so on and so on with every subject I look up in his book.
This is a fine book for an administrator but not so fine for an everyday user, which is what I want to be with my Ubuntu netbook. Indeed, it seems to me that Sobell has simply transferred huge chunks of his earlier books to this one with little heed for what his audience for this book might be. Practical this book is not, for the likes of me in my new incarnation as an everyday user of Ubuntu Linux. Fortunately, there are plenty of other books that take this perspective, and those are the ones I will end up consulting regularly, not Sobell’s.
Rating: 3 / 5
Despite it’s length, this book avoids (for the most part) degenerating into a concatenation of man pages. The text is concise and accurate, as far as I can tell, and examples are short and to the point.
I was a bit surprised that even though such a large book wouldn’t seem attractive for beginners, some of the basics (e.g. file systems) are discussed in great detail, but without much technical depth.
The book also spends a lot of space re-documenting various tools, instead of focusing more on giving a good overview of what tools are available for what purpose, and how to choose the most appropriate one.
For example, I don’t need a comprehensive discussion of Apache configuration directives (can go to the Apache documentation for that or read another, more specialized, book). But I do want to know Ubuntu-specific configuration file locations (discussed), and why I would be using Apache rather than e.g. lighthttpd (not discussed).
In summary, the main audience for this book must be people who are not too familiar with Linux yet, but have just accepted an admin position on a remote island without Internet (or just have an aversion to reading documentation online).
Rating: 3 / 5
I recommend Practical guide to Ubuntu Linux, 2nd ed. to all interested in understanding and running the Ubuntu Linux on their home, school or work machines.
It is written by Mark Sobell whose book on Linux Commands, Editors and Shell Programming is one of my favorite IT titles of all.
Book covers all topics you can think of – from a novice tutorial on the guided installation of the system to intermediate/advanced tasks such as shell scripting and installation of the server components such as Apache, DNS or mail server.
Specifically, subjects covered are:
Installation, overview of Linux, Linux file system, the shell and shell programming, utilities, networking, remote access, printing, server components, building the kernel, …
Appendices are excellent. There is Appendix on regular expressions, security, finding help, free software.
Books is most suitable for beginners and intermediate users.
Rating: 5 / 5
This was the book I was searching for. It goes under the hood of the OS and not just limited to Ubuntu.
Rating: 5 / 5