Rating: 
Summary: Another hit from the O'Reilly crew.
Review: As is typical from the O'Reilly crew, this "nutshell" book proves to be invaluable. This book is a must have reference book for anyone using Linux.This is a well written book that guides you through the linux world. My copy is well dog earred and has paid for itself many times over by helping me with problems.
Rating: 
Summary: the on-going fall of o'reilly
Review: I can't pinpoint exactly what it is that I do not like about "Linux in a Nutshell". Basically, it seems that everytime that I need a bit of information the book does not have what I need. I also dislike the organization of the book. I've had it for 2 or more years and it still just doesn't give me the good use that most other O'Reilly books do. Basically, it's not a must-have and I'd gladly trade it back in for the money I shelled out for it. This book continues the fall from grace of O'Reilly & Associates. Once *the* best computer publisher but now - starting to have more misses than hits (where before EVERY O'Reilly book was almost guaranteeded to be worth every penny paid.
Rating: 
Summary: Do you REALLY need this one?
Review: I have this book, but I have reaely referenced it. Being what it is, the man pages are just as helpful. Some people however, do not like reading from a computer screen, I can understnad that, a book is just more comfortable- this book is for them. My biggest gripe is that this book is not organized well. A book of this type should simply organize the commands alphabetically. However, it is a decent book and the information is quite useful. So because it is a useful book that I simply don't like by prefrence i gave it three stars.
Rating: 
Summary: well-written, and to the point
Review: I picked up this book about three and a half years ago, and have found it to be extremely useful. It covers many of the basic editors and utilities (vi, emacs, etc), plus has a bit on shell programming (all I've needed, actually) for bash and tcsh. I refer to this book constantly, as it's easier to read than man pages, while keeping the succint, to-the-point feel that they provide. An excellent reference.
Rating:
Summary: A priceless book!
Review: It is hard to be enthusiastic sometimes about a book that seems to contain only commands and summaries of various programming tools. This book contains an excellent section on vi (which was easy to start with) and emacs (which really is complicated). The Emacs sections is reason enough for buying the book. It helped me to quickly figure out how to use this program to do basic functions. The other commands are well-organized into sections that make them easy to finds. It is a quality book.
Rating:
Summary: Probably O'Reilly worst Reference
Review: It looks like a hastily and sloppily cranked out nut to capitalize on public interest in Linux, and to force you to buy other books (which are pushed on you throughout the book). The first part (400 pages) contains a dry list of commands. It is complete but has no examples and no sense or purpose. The second part (400 pages) is a hodge-podge of chapters on how to use Linux, which are written by different people, which have no overall logic or guiding theme, and which are often trivial and repetitious. O'Reilly's sloppiness is evidenced by the presence of forty identical pages appearing twice at the end of the book. This book is a waste of money. It is a shell with no meat in it. All this can be found on line where it is better written.
Rating:
Summary: Strong reference
Review: Other reviews make strong cases for rating this book at less than five stars. But after a certain point in using computers, one wants the hard side of a tradeoff between leanness and information. I just looked at my copy and wondered if it could tell me what a 'symbolic link' is. I ended up running "man ln" and "info ln" to understand the difference between a hard and soft link. Not very user-friendly, especially since the concept is as simple as Windows shortcuts. Any fairly new user who tried running "info ln" would be in a little world of pain, as well. It executes the text-mode emacs editor, and I imagine people would try typing 'C' and 'h' to get help, instead of Ctrl-h. But all that aside, I think this book deserves the 5 stars because it's perfect for its very useful role. Its chapter on CVS is better than entire books on the subject, since you just have to look at a page of reference, instead of plodding through some nightmare book that makes CVS seem more profound than it is. The chapters on shell programming get you into the thick of the subject pretty quickly. (My one beef with the book is where it says csh programming is 'bad for your health' without explaining why. C shell lacks some capabilities for file handling. But that's probably only very important for sysadmins, and it's even very unmaintainable for them to use deep shell programming anyway.) This sounds like a review against the book, which is good. I just wish to define what this book is not, since that is what is greatly important for a reference.
Rating:
Summary: Better than average
Review: This book is a solid, keep-beside-your-computer reference book, emphasis on reference.All the material is well-indexed and easy to find, with sub-sections relating to specific areas, such as Sys Admin.Note that there are no examples or tutorial-style material in this book; the material seems aimed mostly at jogging your memory or pointing you in the right direction. Unfortunately, though very extensive, you will probably find yourself using the Linux Man pages just as frequently as you may, now, especially if more detail on commands, etc, is needed.
Rating:
Summary: Good for every Linux user
Review: This book isn't for just experienced users. While the beginner won't find it to be a tutorial, it is a great book to have on the desk when you need to look up a command. For that use it is much easier than trying to find the information in that big tutorial book you just read ;)
Rating:
Summary: Excellent reference, better than the man pages
Review: This book was listed as an optional textbook for a Unix (Linux) class that I took, but I quickly realized that there was nothing optional about it. I had to have it. I use this book often since Linux's man pages can be somewhat cryptic to a new user like me. The author does an excellent job of explaining the commands and options in plain english.
Obviously since this is a reference book (basically a Linux dictionary) you will not read it cover to cover. Instead you will find yourself constantly referring back to it, looking up new things you haven't seen before or old things that you can't quite remember. Having this book on your shelf is sort of like having a good Webster's dictionary, it's a must.
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