Short Review
Linux Pocket Guide
By Daniel J. Barrett
March 2004
Series: Pocket References
ISBN: 0-596-00628-4
200 pages, $9.95 US, $14.95 CA, £6.95 UK
A very good book. :) :) :) :) of 5
This is a small book: 4 1/4 inches by 7 inches and just 179 pages. It's motto is "short, sweet and essential". It delivers essential info on Linux very compactly. The essential is mostly, but not entirely, carefully selected Linux commands and carefully selected options of those commands.
I'm happy to recommend this book for just about any Linux user who doesn't consider themselves a Linux expert. Hey, I'm not a Linux expert so I'll let them come to their own conclusions.
Personally, I've used the book first to review Linux commands and then as a reference. It's done the job for me.
Want more? See my more detailed review.
George Woolley of Oakland.pm
[top]
Other Stuff
Top Level Section Headings
- What's in This Book?*
- Getting Help*
- Fedora: A First View*
- Logins, Logouts, and Shutdowns
- The Filesystem*
- The Shell*
- Installing Software
- Basic File Operations
- Directory Operations
- File Viewing
- File Creation and Editing
- File Properties
- File Location
- File Text Manipulation
- File Compression and Packaging
- File Comparison
- Disks and Filesystems
- Backups and Remote Storage
- File Printing
- Spelling Operations
- Viewing Processes
- Controlling Processes
- Users and Their Environment
- Working with User Accounts
- Becoming the Superuser
- Working with Groups
- Basic Host Information
- Host Location
- Network Connections
- Web Browsing
- Usenet News
- Instant Messaging
- Screen Output
- Math and Calculations
- Dates and Times
- Scheduling Jobs
- Graphics and Screensavers
- Audio and Video
- Programming with Shell Scripts*
- Final Words
Notes:
- The section names followed by an * have multiple subheadings in the Table of Contents.
- See the catalog entry for the full Table of Contents.
[top]
Related Humor Books
Near the back of my copy is a list of 28 related titles available from O'Reilly. Among them are three compilations of the User Friendly online comic strip:
- User Friendly
- The Root of All Evil
- Even Grues Get Full
Notes:
- Hey, Linux is not all work and no play.
- For some reason "Evil Geniuses in a Nutshell" is not included.
[top]
More Detailed Review
Contents
- The Title
- About the Reviewer
- What Did I Expect?
- What Pleased Me?
- Gripes
- Who's It for?
- Final Thoughts
Note:
The Title
What's Linux?: Very briefly, Linux is an alternative operating system to Microsoft Windows. Depending on your use of terminology, it's either a flavor of Unix or a Unix-like operating system derived from Unix.
For a number of other definitions of Linux, do a search on "define:Linux" on Google. There's a good answer to this question on www.linux.org too.
What's a Pocket Guide?: My understanding is that O'Reilly Pocket Guides
- are concise little books
- give broad coverage of the subject addressed
- are similar to, but more abbreviated than, O'Reilly Nutshell books, if you happen to be familiar with them
- assume a fairly competent user
- include things that such a user might find useful (in a new area)
- are inexpensive
- are easy to use.
Does the Book fit the Title?: This book is certainly about Linux.
And I'd say it is consistent with the O'Reilly tradition of Pocket Guides. Using the bulleted items above as a checklist, I'd say:
- yes, compact: 4 1/4 by 7 inches, with the body being just 179 pages
- yes, broad coverage
- yes, similar to but more abbreviated than a nutshell book
- yes, assumes a competent user (more on this later)
- yes, includes things such a user would find useful
- yes, inexpensive: $9.95
- yes, easy to use: easy to read and can also serve as a reference
[top]
About the Reviewer
I think of Linux as a flavor of Unix. It's my preferred flavor of Unix and my preferred operating system.
I've been using Unix since 1989. I've used it primarily for software development and website development.
For several years, I worked for a Unix training company that was a leader in self-teach manuals. There I was one of a number of co-authors of the first edition of the book "UNIX Made Easy". I also developed a course called "Unix in a Day" for internal use at the training company.
I once taught a 5 day (8 hours a day) intensive introduction to basic Unix commands at San Francisco State Extension. I enjoyed doing that and seemed to be good at it.
Linux became my operating system of choice in 2002. In my home, I have two PCs dedicated to running SuSE Linux.
I don't consider myself to be either a Linux or a Unix expert, but I sure do have a lot of experience using Unix and Linux.
[top]
What Did I Expect?
What I expected was a compact book in the spirit of an O'Reilly Pocket Guide. I expected coverage of a useful subset of Linux commands and command options. I also expected some perspective on their use.
I was hopeful that I would find several commands that I'd like to use but had forgotten about or just didn't know about.
On the negative side, I was concerned that there might be a fair amount of information that didn't apply to my system. I was particularly concerned with the statement that the book generally dealt with Linux, but specifically dealt with Fedora Linux. Since my experience has been that for most purposes Linux is just Linux, my expectation was that with a few exceptions everything I read would apply to the distribution I have.
Generally things were as I hoped and expected. For a bit more detail, read on.
[top]
What Pleased Me?
Selection: My focus is on SuSE Linux, but the book is more focused on Fedora Linux. It rarely mattered. I thought the selection of commands and options included was very good.
More Than Just Commands: There's more than just a selection of commands and options to commands here.
There are useful sections on:
- the shell
- the file system
- shell programming
Also, I've found the way the commands are grouped to be useful. Sometimes I've looked up one command in the index and ended up exploring a command that was grouped with it.
Reference: I thought that such a short book would not have an index. But I was wrong. :) The index plus the table of contents are my starting places when I use the book as a reference, which I do.
Some Specific Things I Learned: There's a short section on Getting Help near the start of the book that I think would be especially valuable to someone new to Linux. I learned a couple of things from it. For example, I've added /usr/share/doc to my list of places for looking for information.
I learned several commands that I expect to make use of that I didn't even know existed. Two of them were:
- md5sum which I can use for 32 byte checksums
- eog for displaying images
[top]
Gripes
Organization: In the table of contents there are 38 top level headings. That's a bit overwhelming to me.
However in actually reading the book, it didn't seem to matter.
And in using the book as a reference, depending on my interest, I used either the table of contents or the index as my entry to the book. Again, no problem.
The idea of having 38 top level headings seems extreme to me. I believe I could easily reduce that to less than 10, however I'm not convinced that would help either someone reading the book or someone using the book as a reference.
Some info not Relevant To Me: There was a small amount of information in the book that was not relevant to me. For example, there were a few places which were Fedora specific.
But almost everything in the book applied to my system.
Missing: I would have been really interested in a write up of sudo. sudo was mentioned just long enough to say that covering it was beyond the scope of the book.
I'm quite interested in being able to record using a mic. I didn't find any commands to help me to do that, though such commands certainly exist.
Would I have included these omissions if it had been up to me? Probably not.
Not An Introduction: The book claims that it can be a quick introduction to Linux for a new user. I don't doubt it can be for someone, but I wouldn't personally recommend it for that.
IMO, if the new user is comfortable with Unix, sure. From my point of view, Linux is a flavor of Unix so I'm not sure I'd call them a completely new user. Hm, looking back at my understanding of Pocket Guide, I see that it assumes a competent user.
But my guess is that many people considering buying this book will not be "competent" to use this book as an introduction to Linux. In fact, I believe many of them will be MAC or Windows users addicted to a graphical interface. For them, I'd recommend a tutorial of some kind, plus some personal coaching if possible. I can, however see "Linux Pocket Guide" as an excellent supplement to such a tutorial.
Perspective: When I examine them, all my gripes except the last one evaporate.
[top]
Who's It for?
Not for: This book is not for everyone. For example, it is likely not going to be useful for someone who
- is an expert in Linux
- remembers the details of all the specific commands he/she has ever used
- uses a lot of commands most people don't use.
If you are a beginner at Linux looking for a hand holding tutorial, this is not the book you seek. However, you likely would benefit from this book as a supplement to whatever book you do select.
For: Based on my experience, I'd say this book is likely to be quite useful for someone who:
- isn't an expert at Linux
- doesn't even try to remember the details of all the specific commands he/she has ever used
I'm assuming, of course, that you are interested in Linux. Hey, you're reading this review, so that seems likely.
[top]
Final Thoughts
If you are interested in Linux but not an expert, I suggest getting this book. It's a compact presentation of carefully selected Linux commands and options organized in such a way that I found this book useful to read as a review and I continue to find it useful as a reference.
[top]