Linux Bible: Boot Up to Ubuntu, Fedora, KNOPPIX, Debian, SUSE, and 11 Other Distributions [With DVD]

by Christopher Negus

Book Overview

Get ready to master the basics and beyond with this in-depth guide to Linux. You'll discover how Linux is productive enough to use as your only desktop system and powerful enough to run entire... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0470082798
• ISBN13: 9780470082799
• Release Date: March 2007
• Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
• Length: 848 Pages
• Weight: 3.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 2.0" x 7.4" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

good book broke CD

This was a "new" book and was in very good condition BUT one of the CD that came with it was broken completely in half. That was disappointing.

a linux book that works for me ... pretty much ... more or less

I first reviewed this book in the AZTCS Journal of October 2007. There are things I don't like about this book. Bible status, I think not!! If there is a Bible for Linux this isn't it. Enthusiastic Beginner's guide. Yes. Bible, no!! In Chapter 3, I'm disappointed there isn't more detail about alternate window managers. I think too many people feel KDE and GNOME are the only choices available ... or the desktop is Linux ... or don't know they can start with a blank xwindow and make their own desktop and menus. The book should include more about shell scripting, not so much to teach it as to give an idea of the power available. I feel slighted he didn't mention Emacs in the text editor section; honestly I think this is a tremendous oversight on his part as Emacs is a popular and powerful text editor. The 250 + pages is too much to spend on specific distros in a book with Bible in the name. Almost 1/3 of the book is wasted and could have been put to better use or left out. There are several things I like about the book. I think it gives an objective view of Linux. The author introduces and quickly acquaints the reader with the command-line. Many authors seem to feel the command line should be avoided, but Negus plunges in Chapter 2 and makes the use of the command-line, if not easy, at least not scary. The command-line is a part of Linux. He is not afraid to expose his readers to the terminal and to its use. Chapter 4 covering basic administration is very helpful. He gives a lot of good information here about log files with excellent explanations. The CD/DVD collection contains an excellent range of distros (of course most are out of date by the time the book is released) ... from a distro that will run from a floppy (I recently used a floppy distro to fix a forgotten password in Windows XP) to some desktops that are a little cramped on a PIII with 512 MB memory. Negus shows, although there are some specialized distributions, most have the tools and versitiliy to handle any task. If you want to surf the web and check your email and chat on-line, build a full webhost, add a firewall to your home network, recover files from a crashed Windows system or are looking for something VERY interesting to do with your computer, Linux probably has something for you. I think this CD/DVD collection should have been a chapter with links for downloading the latest versions instead. His instructions are generally clear and concise. Where necessary, Negus gives step-by-step examples. He explains but, to me, manages to balance between over informing to the point of boredom and talking down to the audience. I read 2 or 3 of his other books and his style generally is informative and as technical as necessary but not overly so. Of the several beginning to intermediate Linix books I read in the last few years, this book is the best so far. As a Bible, I don't think it is up to that status. I am rating it on the good parts and comparing it

This book changed my entire opinion about Linux

I wish I'd bought this book first - it would have saved me a lot of frustration (and $$) in trying to find a Linux distro (version) that would actually work on my evidently odd combination of hardware. Thanks to the DVD and CD that come with this book, I was able to find 3 different Linux distros that work just fine on my computer (I'm using one of them right now, in fact). I'd say the best part of this book, at least for me, is definitely the included DVD and CD - especially since I'm on dialup and it's not practical to try to download a bunch of different versions of Linux, to find which ones are compatible with my hardware. The DVD and CD itself is worth 5 stars, in my opinion. Before buying this book, I'd previously bought a *different* book, whose DVD featured only one version of Linux that everyone raves about (it's supposedly user-friendly and all that), but that other book and Linux version was a total waste of my money because that particular Linux distro had too many major incompatibilities with my hardware, and I was unable to make it work. I spent a good solid week doing web searches trying to find workarounds to make it work (using my other computer to do online research, since I couldn't even get that far with Linux), but it was hopeless. I figured that if one of the most popular and most raved-about Linux versions couldn't be made to work, then what chance would I (as a total newbie) have with other versions? It was at that point that I gave up on Linux for several months, concluding that Linux was over-rated and worthless. But I was not happy about that. But, after a while, I decided I couldn't just let it drop like that - I wanted to try some different versions/distros, to give it another try. So I bought a different version/distro of Linux, on DVD, but that one had an entirely different set of problems and it was useless too. More money down the drain. But, my "last chance" to make something of Linux, then I ended up buying *this* book, which turned out to be a good idea, because as I said, this book's DVD and CD has enough different versions/distros of Linux included with it, that it greatly increases your chances of finding one that will actually work for you. If I'd bought this book *first* I could have saved myself all that aggravation. So, thanks to this book, I went from being a Linux newbie that couldn't make Linux do anything at all, to finding a distro that I'm actually comfortable with, that works great for me. I agree with what others have written, that the book itself may not exactly be up to "Bible" standards and once you find a distro that works for you, you may want to supplement the book with some additional material. But it got me started with Linux, which other books and materials were unable to do. - J2000 - and now Registered Linux User #454273 :-)

Very helpful

The book is an excellent overview of Linux. I highly recommend the Linux Bible to get an idea of what is available in linux and to chose a distro. However, and this is not a flaw in the book, to become more that a windozer, one must read at least, Garrell's, "Introduction to Linux", available online as opensource. Without proper maintenance linux will soon be clogged, useless and hacked, but at least it will still be free!! The CD/DVD combination available with the book, is very helpful and quite a time saver.

Excellent Discussions on the Distributions and Getting Started

Knowing that I need to spend some time learning about Linux I went looking for a book that would be a general introduction to help me get started. This book attracted my attention because it has an individual chapter talking about the special features about the distributions that are included with the book. I don't know how many distributions there are - over a thousand, I think - and had no idea about the best one for me to pick. After reading the book I'm going to try Ubuntu. This is an excellent book on getting started, but as a Linux Bible, I think the book is mis-named. It's strength is talking about the distributions and the fairly general things you can do with Linux. It's a bit weak in the details of how to do things. As such, it's a great book to use when you are getting started. Then you will want more books to talk about the individual software packages that you'll be using. For instance he talks about PHP, he tells you how to get it running but once you start you'll want a programming book on PHP.