The Linux Cookbook: Tips and Techniques for Everyday Use

* * * * *This book may have had Debian as its base, but, this book can easily be used with any distribution. I have been using Linux for six years now, and I was able to learn commands that I didn't know even existed. Don't pay any attention to those who will give this book only three stars simply because they didn't read the books discription and bought the wrong book. This one is a real winner. I antipipate that this book will be in my library for some time to come because most of the books contents go over stuff that will most likely not change very much over time.* * * * *

This book offers an extremist view of Linux. It shows you how to do your everyday computer work using ONLY open source software - manyLinux books take a much less "pure" view of the system. But that's not all. It can also claim what others can't. The dirty little secret of Linux books is most authors use M$ to write and publish them! But Stutz is a GNU/Linux fanatic, and he wrote and produced the whole thing with ONLY Open Source software! This in effect means that the book itself is an example of the kind of things you can do with Linux. And if that wasn't enough this book is also Open Source! If he is right that the Open Source movement is about to transform bookpublishing like it transformed software, then this book is a glimpse at the future.And by the way, Linux Cookbook is packed with lots great tips! It is a thorough guide for learning how to use any Linux system, regardless of your distro or hardware. It is refreshing to see such an extreme view brought to the everyday user. Dare I suggest that it may one day beregarded as a "classic for the masses".

"More Stuff, Less Fluff" is the slogan for No Starch Press and nicely sums up this excellent reference guide. It's tersely written and straight to the point with a metric tonne of helpful tips on nearly every aspect of the Linux operating system. Perfect for the novice who wants to dive head-first into Linux and become productive fast, although experienced users looking for more esoteric material should look eleswhere. The Linux Cookbook by Michael Stutz is on par with O'Reilly's Running Linux for overall readability and usefullness, and I can give no higher compliment than that.

Michael Stutz practices what he preaches. He wrote and typeset the entire book using open source GNU/Linux tools exclusively. This book is a must for users at all levels. Instead of imitating M$ Michael Stutz shows and tells how to do nearly everything using "pure" GNU/Linux tools and applications. He has organised the book very well and struck a balance between terseness and verbosity. He has correctly chosen to order the material according to the jobs to do. He deals with real everyday tasks and configuration issues without trying to isolate the user from the system. He treats the user as an educated, intelligent human being with learning skills and willingness to do some real work. Michael Stutz has added real value instead of just copying HOWTOs. His book is a MUST for every GNU/Linux user. It is for the end user and is NOT a system administrator's handbook. Thanks, Michael, for the great job! May your book be translated into some other major languages.

Linux may be cool, but the documentation is horrible. There are tons of inconsistent HOWTO files, out of date FAQs, and a bunch of programmers that don't really see the problem. Whenever you want to do anything with Linux, you usually have to read every piece of documentation out there, and basically reverse-engineer a solution.Most commercial Linux books for beginners (or at least for people who don't dig through C++ on a daily basis) are not well laid out. I should know - I wrote several chapters in one a few years back. They are usually organized by major system - a chapter on installation, one for video, one for sound, one for networking, and so on. But what if you want to write a book? Or record an album? Unless you can dig around on the web to find someone else doing the same thing, you are out of luck.I'm glad that a book like this is out there. First, it is much more theoretical and philisophical than most approaches. That means it doesn't matter if you have RedHat 7.0 or 7.1 or whatever. It's just like if you are using a cookbook to make food - it doesn't matter if you use fresh-squeezed orange juice or Minute Maid orange juice, other than the difference in taste and texture - the basic lessons still apply.I haven't seen other No Starch books, so I don't know if the look and feel is specific or part of the series, but it works. It's not a glossy, corporate taste - it's easy to flip through and fun to use. After reading a few pages to solve a problem, you're suddenly reading for hours and realizing that there are a lot of other things you could be doing with Linux - and that's the point. People don't need to be programmers to use a computer, and people can use their computer for more than email, web browsing and minesweeper. It's like you wanted a recipe to make some hamburgers, and you find a dozen new dishes you'll want to try for the next few weeks.Great approach overall, and it's also very cool that you can download the entire thing for free at dsl.org, if you want to check it out first, or just have a copy on your local hard drive. I wish more books did this.Overall, very excellent! Now I just need some more time to try out all of the things I've seen in here...