Linux for the Rest of Us 2nd Edition

by Mark Rais

The essential and concise guide for getting started with Linux. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0972679049
• ISBN13: 9780972679046
• Release Date: September 2004
• Publisher: Eagle Nest Press LLC
• Length: 244 Pages
• Weight: 0.86 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.2" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Excellent starter book

This is a great starter book for anyone who's felt intimidated by Linux. It has a clear and logical walkthrough for installing, partitioning hard drives for dual boot (in case you need to keep your Windows), and practical advice on how to use Linux once you have it up and running. Great the quick reference tables. I'm using the book now to get an old HP Vectra configured with Mandrake. Concise and well-written with some tongue-in-cheek humor, definitely recommended for any beginners or anyone who needs a refresher on how Linux works.

Perfect for those new to Linux coming from Windows

I'm actually very pleased with this book. I tend to be a person who learns best with a little hand holding and help, and found this book included a lot of personal annecdotes that helped me.Being a regular user of Windows, this book made it very easy to understand the similarities and get started with Linux in a very non-intimidating fashion. It's true that a few things were missing I would have also liked included, but overall it did not waste my time with excess information that is often found in 500 page manuals with lots of white space. Instead, in a refreshing way I found this book to try to gently encourage super brand new users of Linux like me.I recommend this book to anyone who is trying to understand and learn to use Linux that doesn't have a lot of time to fiddle, but needs the essential information spelled out.Excellent book and an easy read!

Really helpful beginner linux guide

I am very impressed by this book. I read the brief reviews here and thought the price was reasonable enough to try it out. NOW I must say that this book FAR exceeded my expectations for a beginner Linux book. It includes tips no one ever thought to tell me. For example during installation the author gives his own real world experiences on what are the best partitions to create and how much to allocate. He also includes a lot of tips I've never heard about before, such as how most versions default to netmask 255.0.0.0, when usually an office intranet uses 255.255.255.0 and this saved me a lot of troubleshooting time. Other personal experience suggestions the author includes helped me to fix problems before they ever became issues such as the excellent details this book includes on using Emacs (the whole problem I got with the "this buffer is for notes" error message was resolved thanks to the tips).Overall, I have never seen a more compact (just over 100 pages) and yet information rich book on Linux. I own a lot of computer books that are much more expensive and I am thankful to have this included in my library.

Good book to get started with Linux

One of the best "starter kit books" for Linux I've come across. It takes you smoothly from putting the CD into the disk drive, to setting up a webserver with database functionality. All concepts are described in laymen terms and the compact size is not intimidating to pickup and read. With easy-to-follow step-by-step instructions, you can be up and running within the hour.The indepth explanation of the disk partioning, and selection of packages was most helpful, and wasn't a daunting task for a novice. The book also contains a very helpful reference section with the most widely used Unix commands, and gives you examples of how to use the commands effectively.Overall, a great addition to my library and I recommend it to everyone who has thought about getting started with Linux.