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$9.95 USD
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£6.95 GBP
By Daniel J. Barrett
First Edition February 2004
Pages: 200 (More details)
(Average of 3 Customer Reviews)
Linux Pocket Guide gets you up to speed quickly on day-to-day Linux use. The book begins with general concepts like files and directories, the shell, and X windows, and then presents detailed overviews of the most essential commands. You'll learn each command's purpose, usage, options, location on disk, and even the RPM package that installed it. Throw in a host of valuable power user tips and a friendly, accessible style, and you'll find this practical, to-the-point book a small but mighty resource for Linux users.
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Book details
Title:
Linux Pocket Guide
First Edition: February 2004
Series: Pocket References
ISBN 10: 0-596-00628-4
ISBN 13: 9780596006280
Pages: 200
Average Customer Reviews: (Based on 3 Reviews)
Featured customer reviews
Book Review: Linux Pocket Guide - Essential Commands
Rating:
2004-11-17 13:20:31
Crouse
[Reply | View]
Reviewer: Crouse - http://www.usalug.org
Book: Linux Pocket Guide
Author: Daniel J. Barrett
"Essential Commands."
200 Pages , $9.95 US, $14.95 CA, £6.95 UK
1st Edition March 2004
ISBN:0-596-00628-4
Publisher: O'Reilly
Publisher Book Link: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/linuxpg/index.html
Table of Contents
One of the first things you will notice about this book is the size. Measuring a tiny 4.25 inches wide X 7 inches tall and only about a 1/2 inch in thickness, you might be under the mistaken impression that it doesn't have much to offer. Don't let it's size fool you. Personally, I love the size of this little book. It is small enough to take with you in your coat pocket, giving you reading material while waiting in line or any time you have spare time to kill.
This book is written as a short guide, and not intended to cover every single topic. What it does cover, it covers very well. Basically it shows you the "Essential Commands", just like the note on the front cover says. If your like me, and don't have every command and man page memorized or are just learning the Linux command line, this is a valuable tool. The book covers almost all of the basic command line commands and gives a very readable account of how they are used and some intersting comments thrown in for good measure.
The book starts out with the obligatory introduction to Linux and progresses very fast from there. A few comments on "What's a Command" and "Users and Superusers" and then into a few pages on "The role of the Shell". Now it starts to get into the bulk of what makes up the book. The bulk of the rest of the chapters cover mostly commands and what each one does. The book progresses nicely through these, starting with the basic commands for moving through the Linux filesytems, and then to basic file operations. The flow of the book is nice because as it progresses, you don't feel lost. Each section builds on the others and feels almost like a textbook in that regard.
So much is covered in the 200 pages, it's hard to believe that it actually all fit into this small book. Again, don't let the size fool you, there is an enormous amount of information packed into it. The final chapters cover some graphical things (it's not all command line), like audio/video, screensavers, web browsing. The final section deals with shell scripting and the basic bash commands. This ties in nicely as it allows you to use the commands from the previous chapters and integrate them into some bash scripts which, very nicely, wraps things up.
One of the only things that might initially make people think the book isn't something that they want, is that it says "Covers Fedora Linux" on the cover. While it does go into some Fedora specific things on a few pages, in reality, it isn't much of an issue and 99% of the book is applicable for other distro's as well. So don't let that stop you from getting this book!
This is definatley a must have for those new to Linux that want to get up to speed on using the command line. I saw this book the other day in the bookstore and bought it. It's such a great value, I had to write a review for it. For $10, you would be hard pressed to find a better book for the money.
This gets my 5/5 rating.
Book Review: Linux Pocket Guide - Essential Commands
short review of "Linux Pocket Guide"
Rating:
2004-04-26 10:51:38
George Woolley of Oakland.pm
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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.
Linux Pocket Guide Review
Rating:
2004-02-23 13:01:17
Igor
[Reply | View]
I am a big fan of oreilly ( ordered 'running mac os x' today from amazon )
I looked over the online excerpts and found the following error,
page 175:
------------
For example, if this is the script myscript:
i=0
while [ $i -lt 3 ]
do
echo "again"
i=`expr $i + 1`
done
$ ./myscript
0
1
2
The until loop repeats until a condition becomes true:
until command While the exit status of command is nonzero
do
body
done
For example:
i=0
until [ $i -gt 3 ]
do
echo "again"
i=`expr $i + 1`
done
$ ./myscript
0
1
2
The for loop iterates over values from a list:
----------
this will actually print again 3 times.
Other than that, I found the writing style very enjoyable and accessable.
Media reviews
"O'Reilly's Linux Pocket Guide has a cornucopia of commands and their parameters that can help you where your memory fails...The focus is wholly on the commands that drive console Linux...You also get a ten-page index listing all the commands and where they are, which is remarkably good...Can't memorize man pages? This is for you."
Rating: 9/10
--Linux Format, October 2004
"In conclusion, the book packs a powerful punch for only 10 bucks. If you use the Linux command line, you need this book. It's quick reference style will save you a lot of time."
--Stephanie Smith, Plano Java User's Group, February 2004
http://www.planojava.org/BookReviews.html#LinuxPkt
