The Linux Cookbook, 2nd edition

The Linux Cookbook 2nd Edition
Michael Stutz
No Starch Press 2004 788 pgs.

For several years now, the best, and often the only, documentation available to the average Linux desktop user has been for the Red Hat Linux operating system. If you wanted to install Debian, if you had problems compiling applications in BSD, if Mandrake just wouldn’t work the way you wanted, you had to rely on friends, on-line forums or a local Linux User’s Group.

Then in 2001 the No Starch Press published the first Linux Cookbook. Michael Stutz, a journalist and Linux user since the early 1990’s, put together one of the most comprehensive guides for the average Linux user then available. Since that time, developers and maintainers have realized the importance of proper documentation, and now the bookstores have a much wider selection of books designed to get the home-user up and running with almost any Linux distribution. However, for people like me who may try a new Linux distribution every week, having specific guides quickly becomes confusing, and expensive.

In the short four years since the first edition of the Linux Cookbook hit the shelves, Linux has matured dramatically. To reflect the many changes, Mr. Stutz has written a second edition of his fine work, once again published by the No Starch Press.

Mr. Stutz uses the first twenty-two pages to introduce the reader to the conventions used in the book as well as a brief history of Unix and Linux. Since none of this information is vital to running Linux, I was pleased to see it covered in so few pages. Anyone wishing an in-depth history of the operating system and its evolution can pick up any number of other publications.

Chapter 2 covers “What Every Linux User Knows”, or perhaps should know. Such basic concepts as logging in and out, using the console, running a command and using Help are all discussed well enough to make a new user comfortable with those operations. Succeeding chapters cover the shell and the X Window system, parts of the Linux operating system that are going to be totally new to someone just migrating from Windows. Placing these chapters so early in the book show what thought went into organizing the layout. Later chapters on the file system, working with text, video and sound all rely on a basic understanding of the shell and X Window system. The last two chapters, Productivity and Networking, discuss use of utilities and games, as well as getting your computer on-line using Linux. While using the Mozilla Web browser is discussed in detail, Firefox had yet to make its impact on Internet users as of the release of this book. Most of the information relating to Mozilla is still useful however, as it is included in nearly every distribution available. The book wraps up with a short appendix covering administrative issues and several other useful appendices, as well as a couple in indices; a Program Index and a Concept Index. The Concept Index will help you find the pages discussing CD burning, while the Program Index will help you find information about burning a CD with cdrecord.

This is a fact-filled book that’s well composed and easy to reference. No matter which version of Linux is running on your computer, you should have a copy of the Linux Cookbook, 2nd Edition close at hand. You’ll find yourself using it frequently, whether you are trying Linux for the very first time or are an experienced *nixer. There’s something in this volume for everyone, and I would strongly recommend everyone get a copy.