Linux: Rute User's Tutorial and Exposition (With CD-ROM)
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
The key difference between Microsoft Windows and UNIX is that Windows is meant to be easy to learn, while UNIX is meant to compensate for a steep learning curve by providing extraordinary flexibility to knowledgeable users. Linux: Rute User's Tutorial and Exposition is the best book on the market in terms of flattening that learning curve. The author, Paul Sheer, uses this book as the text for a class he teaches, and its instructional value is unquestionable. Rather than attempt to make analogies for the way things are done in Windows or in Mac OS, or try to satisfy readers' requirements with mere recipes, Sheer tries to inculcate his readers into the Linux way of thinking. The idea is that work gets done differently in Linux, and you have to get a few concepts clear in order to work effectively in the environment.
Take, for example, Sheer's discussion of the /etc/passwd file, which is at the core of user authentication. He provides a listing of a typical /etc/passwd file, then explains what each element on each line is for. This leads smoothly into a discussion of /etc/shadow, the shadow password file, and its capacity for hiding passwords behind a one-way hash algorithm. Sheer's prose is unfailingly clear and detailed, which is good because he's chosen to omit graphics altogether (which means, incidentally, that this book focuses on the command shell--bash, to be precise--and even the chapter on X Windows lacks screen shots). Aside from a few weird typographical choices (a tiny picture of a penguin invariably follows the word "Linux" in body text, for example), this is a faultless book. The CD-ROM contains a comprehensive HTML copy of the paper book--every last paragraph and table appears on the disc. --David Wall
Topics covered: How to be a competent Linux user, familiar with the command line, key utilities like "sed," and important related skills like C programming, shell scripting, and regular expression creation. There's coverage of server software--notably HTTPd, Sendmail, and Exim--and coverage of the PostgreSQL server.
Book Description
Preface When I began working with GNU/LINUX in 1994, it was straight from the DOSworld. Though UNIX was unfamiliar territory, LINUX books assumed that anyoneusing LINUX was migrating from System V or BSD systems that I had never heardof. It is a sensible adage to create, for others to share, the recipe that you would mostlike to have had. Indeed, I am not convinced that a single unifying text exists, evennow, without this book. Even so, I give it to you desperately incomplete; but there isonly so much one can explain in a single volume. I hope that readers will now have a single text to guide them through all facetsof GNU/LINUX.
Linux: Rute User's Tutorial and Exposition (With CD-ROM)
Linux: Rute User's Tutorial and Exposition (With CD-ROM),Paul Sheer,Prentice Hall PTR,0130333514,Certification Guides - General,Computer Books And Software,Computers,Computers - Certification,Linux,Operating Systems - Linux,Operating Systems - UNIX,Operating systems (Computers),Unix (Operating System),Computers / Technical Skills
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