Rating: 
Summary: reprint of the man pages
Review: 400 pages of the 900 pages are a reprint of the man pages. Other parts of the book can be found online. For example the chapters on shell programming, you can find similar stuff online.I would like to know how to change task priorities. I heard about the nice command. I look it up in the book and it is just a reprint of the man pages. The man documentation isn't very helpful. If you don't like to read online, then this is book for you. If I purchased this book from a local book store, I would return it. Anyone know of a better book for experienced people coming from the MS Windows world? Daniel
Rating:
Summary: reprint of the man pages
Review: 400 pages of the 900 pages are a reprint of the man pages. Other parts of the book can be found online. For example the chapters on shell programming, you can find similar stuff online. I would like to know how to change task priorities. I heard about the nice command. I look it up in the book and it is just a reprint of the man pages. The man documentation isn't very helpful. If you don't like to read online, then this is book for you. If I purchased this book from a local book store, I would return it. Anyone know of a better book for experienced people coming from the MS Windows world? Daniel
Rating:
Summary: Better than nothing, but tedious to wade through.
Review: After spending a fair bit of time with FreeBSD and needing some information regarding Linux installations I thought this book would be a good way to speed things along. Wrong. It's not that this book is too expensive, or poorly put together, but it's little more than a cursory overview of the Linux operating system and a listing of the commands to get things done with a terminal. But even to find the commands to do simple things such as renaming files, is too time consuming to be bothered with. Simply doing a Google for the stuff you want to know is much quicker and more comprehensive. Whole chapters are committed to such stuff as Emacs and KDE. But, yet again, there are specific websites with HTML help manuals for this, and more. These Open Source books are pretty much a waste of paper, simply because, being Open Source, it's all available online, or in the manuals provided with the distros.
Rating:
Summary: Better than nothing, but tedious to wade through.
Review: After spending a fair bit of time with FreeBSD and needing some information regarding Linux installations I thought this book would be a good way to speed things along. Wrong. It's not that this book is too expensive, or poorly put together, but it's little more than a cursory overview of the Linux operating system and a listing of the commands to get things done with a terminal. But even to find the commands to do simple things such as renaming files, is too time consuming to be bothered with. Simply doing a Google for the stuff you want to know is much quicker and more comprehensive. Whole chapters are committed to such stuff as Emacs and KDE. But, yet again, there are specific websites with HTML help manuals for this, and more. These Open Source books are pretty much a waste of paper, simply because, being Open Source, it's all available online, or in the manuals provided with the distros.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent Reference Manual
Review: How many times have you been trying to find a particular command but just can't remember what it was called. How many times have you been typing in a command and forgot the options available? Through this book, the author has taken many of the substaintial commands for users, admins, networking and programming and rolled them into a dictionary of sort for Linux users. Sure, you can find out a lot about any command through the online man pages, but the author has taken the somewhat cryptic man pages and broken them down into simple, to the point, references laid out much like you would expect to find in a dictionary. In addition, you'll find handy reference manuals for common utilities, such as emacs, vi, CVS, sed and awk. While each of these could fill a book in themselves, the author has broken them down to the bare basics to help you get up and running and understand basic operation of each. All in all, a wonderful reference manual that will compliment more in-depth manuals on actual use and administration of a Linux system.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Reference Manual
Review: How many times have you been trying to find a particular command but just can't remember what it was called. How many times have you been typing in a command and forgot the options available? Through this book, the author has taken many of the substaintial commands for users, admins, networking and programming and rolled them into a dictionary of sort for Linux users. Sure, you can find out a lot about any command through the online man pages, but the author has taken the somewhat cryptic man pages and broken them down into simple, to the point, references laid out much like you would expect to find in a dictionary. In addition, you'll find handy reference manuals for common utilities, such as emacs, vi, CVS, sed and awk. While each of these could fill a book in themselves, the author has broken them down to the bare basics to help you get up and running and understand basic operation of each. All in all, a wonderful reference manual that will compliment more in-depth manuals on actual use and administration of a Linux system.
Rating:
Summary: Worth dropping your earlier editions of this book
Review: I had the 3rd edition of this book, and the 2nd, and was really hesitant about getting this latest edition. After all, linux is pretty mature these days, isn't it? Then I read the other reviews, and decided to get it. Glad I did so! Linux is still rapidly expanding, and it really helps to get the latest authoritative scoop, thanks to OReilly.
Rating:
Summary: A Must Have For Linux Users
Review: I have to say that I agree with one of the reviewer here in that most of the book is very much like the manual, but I don't completely agree with his rating; after all the man pages are a great Linux reference, but if you are looking for a reference "Book" for Linux then this is it. Personally it has been really useful for me being a Computer Engineering Major, first exposed to Linux/Unix now in college [Cornell ECE/CS 314 :-) ]
Rating:
Summary: Your IT tool box would be empty without it
Review: I have used Linux (nearly every major and some minor distributions) and I cannot tell you how many times this book has saved me. It is also great because a huge percentage of the commands covered also work just fine in UNIX (though I recommend UNIX in a nutshell too. I also have never bought a book from O'Rielly that was less than top notch. If you are a newbie or want to learn Linux in general BUY THIS BOOK WITH ANOTHER BOOK. Like all of the ....in a nutshell books it's reference book not a read cover-to-cover book....
Rating:
Summary: Seriously Useful Great Big Reference
Review: I should note, before anything else, that I'm biased: I wrote portions of this edition, and I think that it's well worth your time. It's expanded on and improved over the previous edition. I'll also admit that it's not a perfect book. The weakest point is the command reference: much of that consists of sharp distillations of the best available information, but it does occasionally get bogged down. The easiest parts to read, in my opinion, are the chapters on desktop technologies, and the introduction and first chapters. Those can be informative for both new and experienced Linux users. If you want to know how to set up a desktop and use the basic GUI apps, or are just getting started with Linux, head straight there. The other chapters are more reference oriented and you won't want to read those straight through. However, if you know what you're looking for, you'll find it, and some surprising tips and tricks as well. Especially for developers switching to Linux from UNIX or Windows, the text editor and development chapters can be really good to have at hand. This book is a good choice if you've ever asked questions like: How do I select an arbitrary rectangle in Emacs? What's a major mode? What's the difference between scripting in tcsh and bash? How do I write a makefile? What's the deal with X Windows, desktops, and fonts? How can I find advanced GNOME configuration tools? What's an RPM and how do I install, build, or unpack one? It can also be good to have as a reference for new users-- read the introduction, read up on the tools you're using, then keep it there by your side, and you'll grow into this book as you learn to do more with Linux.
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