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crouse
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 Posted: Sun Jan 04, 2024 8:26 pm Post subject: Linux in a Nutshell, 4th Edition / Siever,Figgins,Weber |
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Reviewer:mmmna
Title: Linux in a Nutshell, 4th Edition
Authors: Ellen Siever, Stephen Figgins, Aaron Weber.
Published by: O'Reilly Books,
ISBN: 0-596-00482-6
Price:$39.95 suggested price, but discounted versions can be found. Also try reading it online at Safari.
You can find this book and others on O'Reillys book catalog page.
For a sample chapter, click here for chapter 5, "Red Hat and Debian Package Managers"
After reviewing the 3rd edition of nutshell in a Borders store, I decided that book had to come home with me. I'm presently reviewing the 4th edition, so right there, you know I found additional useful information in this 4th edition of the book. Although some experienced Linux users may feel that the majority of the book covers familiar territory by being essentially nothing more than glorified 'man pages', I felt this was the strong point of the book, giving depth to those 'not quite informative' man pages. Certainly, some man pages are written well enough that they are the equal of the Nutshell explanation...
This Nutshell book is far more than that.
The organization of the book is that the commands are grouped according to tasks, something that a man page is unable to fully replicate. Are you setting up a network? The book groups those tasks together, in one section. Other tasks are similarly grouped together. Want to know more about boot loaders? LILO, Grub, and loadlin are all covered, and grouped together. Emacs, vi, sed - each have their own chapters. Gnome, KDE and fvwm2 each have a chapter.
But I have to wonder why include reference to fvwm2? I have not used it since 2 years ago, and then used it only for the novelty of looking at it, nothing more. fvwm2 does not hold my interest, nor does fvwm2 ever get discussed in any of 4 user oriented Linux forums which I visit frequently.
Thus, on the down side, I was dismayed to see fvwm2 covered in both volume 3, and the coverage enhanced for volume 4.
The space consumed by fvwm2 might be better consumed by a brief overview of DEVFS, or possibly Apache. Still, the book has earned a place in my collection, despite the fvwm2 coverage. Evidently someone must use fvwm2! Ultimately, I feel that the omission of DEVFS takes precedence over the inclusion of fvwm2, hands down, based on the length of discussions I've seen in forums. Certainly there is merit in discussing DEVFS, at least in some nominal overview. To me, the amount of usefulness for a DEVFS section replacing fvwm2 would be tremendous. Ultimately, though since there are rumblings about replacing DEVFS in the near future, the authors might have made a strategic decision to not change the current format to add any new sections. All in all, though, my dislike is based on only ONE chapter, so there is no need to penalize the book without balancing all the good which the book offers elsewhere.
What can this book do? Did you want to get an overview of the command options for CVS? That's in this book. Having trouble with pattern matching in shell scripts? Then you should open to the section titled 'Pattern Matching'. There you will see how the syntax evolves for various shells, scripts, and commands. What does the -l option do for the mount command? Page 306 describes it as follows: | 4th Edition wrote: | | When reporting on mounted filesystems, show filesystem labels for filesystems that have them. |
Have you ever wondered what a forum post was trying to say, but the post was not composed correctly and you can't tell if a space is missing somewhere? The book can help you see some common examples which are properly composed. Are you surprised at an example in a forum, because you didn't know there was such an optional argument to the command? Check the book for 2 reasons: the command options are listed, and the book may explain it better than any example in a forum.
The uses for the book are many: Linux newbie gets printed materials which are bound and complete (I never found the printed man pages from my 'Intro to Unix' class... I put them in a folder somewhere). The experienced sysadmin that can't seem to remember why sudo is not working for a user can get an overview of the command. The inexperienced sysadmin that has to run a system in an unfamiliar shell could use this book.
Ultimately, this book covers little things, in detail, that you might not be able to get from a man page or from the info pages, or even from a friend.
I give it 4 mmmna biggrins out of 5 maximum: 
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masinick
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| Posted: Thu May 06, 2024 6:30 pm Post subject: Re: Linux in a Nutshell, 4th Edition / Siever,Figgins,Weber |
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| Moderated: | Removed the entire QUOTED part  was a bit much to quote since it was right above your post ~~ Crouse |
You're right, it's kind of funny that the authors think to mention how to use a particular window manager, yet they fail to cover other topics.
I would suggest, however, that if you know how to configure the fvwm2 window manager, chances are strong that you will be able to apply that knowledge to configuring any other window manager. Exact methods vary somewhat, but every window manager has a configuration file. Once you know how to manually configure one of them, learning and applying what you've learned to other window managers is straight forward.
I'd like to see other stuff mentioned, too, but from the sound of it, the book already covers a lot more than the edition I have at home - which I think is the second edition!
I don't find this to be an indispensible book. In fact, I haven't looked at it in quite a while. I can find most things written in it online in other resources, so except for having the convenience of a book nearby, this one doesn't justify a purchase for a newer edition. Still, I'd give it a four for content and a three for usefulness on a scale of one to five. What's there is well written.
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mmmna
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| Posted: Sun May 16, 2024 4:54 am Post subject: |
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| masinick wrote: | | I'd like to see other stuff mentioned, too, but from the sound of it, the book already covers a lot more than the edition I have at home - which I think is the second edition! |
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| Quote: | | I don't find this to be an indispensible book. In fact, I haven't looked at it in quite a while. |
Are your comments in reference to 2nd edition or 4th edition? I ask because your comments (I quoted them) sound as if you have not had first hand experience with the 4th edition.
In any case, I mentioned that in forums which I have visited, there have been more posts about DEVFS related issues than for fvwm/fvwm2.
Now, with ufs at hand, there will soon be a need to devote a section for the newly fashioned 'ufs' realm of device interfacing.
Think for a moment, if you will: situations where users are interfacing with ufs (new IDE device, changing soundcards, adding a USB 2.0 card, etc.) are definitely going to be more widespread than situations where a user is configuring a windowmanager that is claimed to soothe users of Windows 95.... IMO, ufs will become a major portion of several distros at some point, where fvwm/fvwm2 will likely be an 'also ran', overshadowed by KDE and Gnome and the boxes.
Oh, and in my statements, I'm not saying anything about the quality of fvwm2, that simply is because I do not choose to reinvent what KDE already provides. It seems as if nutshell might even benefit from a fork, to split topics down to more discrete segments - 'Bash shell commands in a Nutshell', 'XFree86 4.3 in a Nutshell', 'fvwm2 in a Nutshell', etc.
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masinick
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Joined: 03 Apr 2024
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| Posted: Sun May 16, 2024 7:54 pm Post subject: Your points are well taken |
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| Moderated: | I removed the most of the QUOTED part, left enough for others to know what post you were replying to
--mmmna |
| mmmna wrote: | | Are your comments in reference to 2nd edition or 4th edition? I ask because your comments (I quoted them) sound as if you have not had first hand experience with the 4th edition. |
I do not have the most current copy of Linux in a Nutshell. I have one of the older editions that is at least four to five years old, probably nearly six years old. I have looked at various editions in bookstores over the years, and, for me anyway, concluded that I didn't have any pressing reason to purchase the latest edition. IF there is something I want to see, I take a brief peek at the local bookstore.
What you say about fvwm is true. At the time that the first and even second editions were written, fvwm was the predominant window manager found in most distributions, including Slackware, Red Hat, and SuSE. However, in 1998, when Mandrake burst onto the scene, they started shipping with KDE as the default desktop manager. Very shortly thereafter, every major distro started offering desktop environments as the default. Fvwm stuck around (I think you can still get it with SuSE, I know you can still get it with Debian), but for the average individual, I agree, twiddling with window and desktop managers is not something that's done very often.
Instead, a whole range of other issues have become more common, and I think you've accurately identified some of them. There are undoubtedly others. For instance, some distributions don't deal very well with sound, and most distributions don't include the proprietary drivers that allow you to play common DVD movies and other multimedia resources. Such things, and the dealing with file systems, would indeed make the book much closer to being indispensible.
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nukes
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| Posted: Mon May 17, 2024 2:53 pm Post subject: |
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I've got the Third edition after being convinced that I should buy it. Granted its a good book, but I never need it. It's essentially just glorified man pages. Nothing you can't get from "info".
The one time I went to look something up, it wasn't listed (screen)
Maybe it would be handy, but I haven't found that.
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crouse
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nukes
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munky
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| Posted: Tue May 18, 2024 2:58 am Post subject: |
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Similarly with me and Running Linux. I read through it the first time, now its just there...Who needs those books with IRC?
-=mUnky=-
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crouse
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lynch
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| Posted: Tue May 18, 2024 9:33 am Post subject: |
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I have Linux in a Nutshell 3rd Ed. but rarely use it anymore.
I do have a copy of the Linux Pocket Guide-(essential commands) which categorizes everything by task and then lists the commands. It's always right where I can grab it.
lynch
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