Linux in a Nutshell

This book is designed as a reference for Linux rather than as a teaching tool.

Author: Jessica Perry Hekman

Publisher: O'Reilly & Associates

Price: $19.95

ISBN: 1-56592-167-4

Reviewer: Sid Wentworth

Since Unix in a Nutshell was published
by O'Reilly years ago, it was only a matter of time before it was
followed by Linux in a Nutshell. The
appearance of this Linux version in bookstores affirms the growing
popularity of Linux.

This book is designed as a reference for Linux rather than as
a teaching tool. It contains a minimum of tutorial information.
Covered topics include a subset of the Linux user commands, shells
(including bash, csh and tcsh), Emacs, vi, ex, sed and gawk. There
is a limited amount of information on programming and the
programming commands. Finally, there are chapters covering the
basics of systems administration and a listing of systems
administration commands.

The section on user commands is about 115 pages. While some
commands I know were missing from the book, there were many more
commands, command options or usage information I learned from it.
For example, there are six pages covering every facet of the
less command.

Shell coverage is divided into three chapters: A short
overview of shells in general is followed by a 30-page chapter on
the bash shell and a 40-page chapter on the csh and tcsh shells. My
only disappointment was the lack of information on the
POSIX-compliant Korn shell available for Linux; ksh could easily
have been incorporated into the bash chapter.

The chapters on the Linux editors are designed in the same
manner as those devoted to the user commands, and get about equal
coverage. That is, they provide a good reference source, while
offering a minimum of tutorial information.

The inclusion of a chapter on awk (actually gawk) came as a
nice surprise. With Perl becoming the answer
for so many problems, it is nice to see coverage of a language that
is easier to learn and powerful enough to solve a very large number
of problems.

The programming chapter was so brief, I got the feeling
O'Reilly included it only so they could publicize the book as
covering programming. The best that can be said is that it is
weak—you just can't cover programming in 35 pages. The chapter
covers the basic commands well enough, but don't expect to find
coverage of subjects such as RCS.

I found the chapters on systems administration to be very
strong. The overview shows what commands do what in only 12 pages.
Grouping commands into logical function areas (managing the kernel,
mail, managing file systems, ...) makes it easy to find the one you
need. Once you know which command you need, you can get more detail
from the command usage section in which the commands are presented
in alphabetical order.

Linux in a Nutshell is accurate. This
single fact differentiates it from the current on-line or printed
man pages. If the choice is between accurate and comprehensive,
I'll pick accurate every time. Coverage of many important topics is
done in just over 400 pages.

Is this book for you? If you are comfortable with the idea of
working from the command line to communicate with your OS,
Linux in a Nutshell is probably a good choice
for you. It provides a reasonable subset of the available Linux
commands plus enough related information (such as that on shells
and editors) to turn you into a competent Linux user.

Sid Wentworth lives in Uzbekistan, where he
divides his time between UUCP hacking and raising yaks.