Linux Cookbook

• Michael Stutz
• No Starch Press
• 1886411484

Order (or just read more about) Linux Cookbook  from Amazon.com

Newer Edition

Another winner from No Starch Press, who's motto is "more stuff, less fluff". This is the most practical daily use Linux book I've seen so far- highly recommended for anyone getting started with Linux.

The concentration is entirely on real-life "how do I do this" tasks. What's especially nice about this is that you don't have to take my word for it: the entire book is available, free, on-line at http://dsl.org/cookbook/

If you are new to Linux, you will definitely get a lot from this book. If you've been using Linux for a while, you probably still will- I found some things I didn't know.

The table of contents is well thought out, and the index is comprehensive. There are actually two indexes: one for programs, and another for concepts. That division is useful.

It's impressive and worthy of note that the author eats his own dog-food: this book was wriiten and produced on a Debian Linux machine.

If there's any downside to this at all, it's only that the focus is Debian Linux; it would be better if it gave at least a nod to the more popular distros. But that's such a minor conplaint that I feel guilty even mentioning it at all and feel like I have to polish up a bunch of superlatives to make up for it: this is wonderful, fantastic, near perfect, etc.

My only other concern is the on-line availability. The problem is that it's too good- in many ways it is better than the physical book because of hyperlinks, intelligent use of color, etc. That's wonderful, but this is an author who deserves to be paid for his contribution, so I really hope you'll consider buying the book in spite of how good the web page is.

Newer Edition

Publish your articles, comments, book reviews or opinions here!

Click here to add your comments




Fri Feb 18 21:24:48 2005: Subject: what book on line?   anonymous


There was nothing free on the link, not even an excerpt from a chapter.



Fri Feb 18 21:49:26 2005: Subject: Must have changed their minds   TonyLawrence




There is a table of contents listing, but you seem to be correct: it looks like it is no longer available on-line



Don't miss responses! Subscribe to Comments by RSS or by Email

Click here to add your comments

If you want a picture to show with your comment, go get a Gravatar

Take Control of Maintaining Your Mac

Take Control of Syncing Data in Leopard

Take Control of Upgrading to Snow Leopard

Macworld Total Snow Leopard Superguide

Jump to Comments

Many of the products and books I review are things I purchased for my own use. Some were given to me specifically for the purpose of reviewing them. I resell or can earn commissions from the sale of some of these items. Links within these pages may be affiliate links that pay me for referring you to them. That's mostly insignificant amounts of money; whenever it is not I have made my relationship plain. I also may own stock in companies mentioned here. If you have any question, please do feel free to contact me.

Specific links that take you to pages that allow you to purchase the item I reviewed are very likely to pay me a commission. Many of the books I review were given to me by the publishers specifically for the purpose of writing a review. These gifts and referral fees do not affect my opinions; I often give bad reviews anyway.

We use Google third-party advertising companies to serve ads when you visit our website. These companies may use information (not including your name, address, email address, or telephone number) about your visits to this and other websites in order to provide advertisements about goods and services of interest to you. If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices about not having this information used by these companies, click here.