Amazon.com
Perhaps best of all, this book conveys a sense of the "Linux attitude" as the authors see it. Linux, they say, is largely about experimentation, research, trial and error, and participation in a community. This comes in welcome contrast to books that focus on recipes (follow these steps to accomplish A; do these things to make your system do B). Though the authors of this book provide lots of how-to information, it's always presented with an eye toward further exploration. In explaining how to build the kernel, for example, the authors provide six concise steps as a reference, but then go on for several pages about designing makefiles and how to deal with error messages. This book's a treat. --David Wall
Topics covered: Assuming you know next to nothing about Linux, socially and historically as well as technically, this book teaches you what you need to know to make the operating system meet your desktop and server computing requirements. Coverage takes you from preparing to install Linux (in a multi-OS environment if you wish), continues through system administration and the most useful applications (like TeX and Internet clients), and proceeds to cover programming tools and server daemons (notably Apache, MySQL, and PHP). The coverage is mostly generic, but peculiarities of Red Hat, SuSE, and Debian get attention, too.
Dr. Dobb's Electronic Review of Computer Books
Switching to Linux is like moving to a new city -- you don't know where things are, what they are called, or how to get there. In short, you don't know enough to ask the right questions, and probably have a job or some work you want to get done. Running Linux, by Matt Welsh and Lar Kaufman, is a gentle welcome to Linux that shows you around, points out some places where you may want to spend some time, and tells you where to find good detailed guides. I read the first six chapters, and every article in print or on the Web I could get my hands on, before installing Linux on its own partition. (I had started with Dragon Linux's IronWing, an eight-floppy distribution that uses the MS-DOS file system. It is a low impact way to try out Linux.) --Jeff Taylor, Dr. Dobb's Electronic Review of Computer Books --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.
