Running Linux

by Matt Welsh, Lar Kaufman

Once a little-known productivity boost for personal computers, Linux is now becoming a central part of computing environments everywhere. This operating system now serves as corporate hubs, Web servers, academic research platforms, and program development systems. All along it's also managed to keep its original role as an enjoyable environment for personal computing, learning system administration and programming skills, and all-around hacking.

This book, now in its third edition, has been widely recognized for years in the Linux community as the getting-started book people need. It goes into depth about configuration issues that often trip up users but are glossed over by other books.

A complete, UNIX-compatible operating system developed by volunteers on the Internet, Linux is distributed freely in electronic form and at a low cost from many vendors. Developed first on the PC, it has been ported to many other architectures and can now support such heavy-duty features as multiprocessing, RAID, and clustering.

Software packages on Linux include the Samba file server and Apache Web server; the X Window System (X11R6); TCP/IP networking (including PPP, SSH, and NFS support); popular software tools such as Emacs and TeX; a complete software development environment including C, C++, Java, Perl, Tcl/Tk, and Python; libraries, debuggers, multimedia support, scientific and database applications, and much more. Commercial applications that run on Linux range from end-user tools like word processors and spreadsheets to mission-critical software like the Oracle, Sybase, Informix, and IBM DB/2 database management systems.

Running Linux has all the information you need to understand, install, and start using the Linux operating system. This includes a comprehensive installation tutorial, complete information on system maintenance, tools for document development and programming, and guidelines for network, file, printer, and Web site administration.

Genres: Reference, Technical, Nonfiction, Computer Science, Technology, Computers, Programming

760 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 1995

Reviews

[Dale Pearl · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not very useful, particularly if you have ever used the internet. Nothing in is book is relevant, current or a fresh perspective. Every single line of this book can be found by going to www.google.com and typing in what you want to know. There are no clear examples given, tips, techniques or anything of value that would give the target audience a purpose for which to buy this book. I give the book a two star because I love Linux and just maybe someone who doesn't know what the internet or what google is could possibly find this book remotely useful.

[Carl · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book came out only four years after the first kernel was released. Linux was on v1.1 when this was published, before mint, Ubuntu, fedora, etc. had been developed. No doubt there are easier ways to learn how to run Linux on your computer. However there is a lot of interesting historical information on its early development, and some of the command line instructions are still relevant. I’d recommend the introduction if you want to learn history and context, but for someone who has little technical background and no appetite for decoding jargon your best bet is downloading ubuntu22 on a memory stick and playing around with it. I wouldn’t recommend unless you have used it before or are a drone who finds technical guides fun. The author writes with an upbeat, light hearted tone so it is better than most books in the genre.

[Jason · Rating 2 out of 5]

I suppose this wouldn't be a slog and a half if it wasn't the edition that's 13 years out of date making it Neolithic in software/ hardware terms. You're probably better off at this point just running a VM and trying to install from scratch. Top level nerd points for pulling that off plus you'll be waay more up to date.

[Sean Peterson]

infotech