I was at Borders Books yesterday looking for just ONE general linux book that covers the basics + a little more. The tests I was using were "tar" and "apt-get" - I wanted to see if any books discussed these issues. I know, I know - apt-get is pretty easy - even for me... but I just wanted to see if any books say that it even exists...

I looked thru maybe 3 or 4 huge 1000+ page "redhat 9 bible" or "redhat 9 secrets" or "redhat 9 unleashed' or basically any "everything you always wanted to know about linux...".

You would think that in more than 1000 pages you would find a discussion regarding installing software by way of tar... nope. Apt-get - not even mentioned anywhere... Tar may be mentioned, but most of the discussion may be regarding "backups with tar". I didn't see much in the way of installing software by tar.

The more "lightweight" books - "Learn blah blah linux in 24 hours", blah blah linux for dummies" - tar? - nope not mentioned - ONLY rpm is discussed. Apt-get - not mentioned.

That's why, on all the linux boards around, there are probably tons of posts like "how do I install tar software..."

The point is, I can't even find ONE linux book that I like. I just come here.
I know some people on this board don't believe wasting money on linux books - just find whatever info you need on the internet for free. Still, I'd like to have one good general book.

I don't know about the Redhat Distro your using, but if you buy a Mandrake box set, it comes with two books which cover all the things you mentioned and more.

hmmm.... I'm using rh9 at the moment, but I did buy the mandrake 9.0 powerpack - I'll check out the books when I get home...

I generally don't read books that come with software... :? I know, I know, I should

still it would be nice to have a large linux book that has everything you need to know to actually use the system and do things with it. Not just 1000 pages of setting up samba, backing up your system with tar, blah blah.

Be nice to see a chapter something like "All about installing software - tar, rpm, apt-get, blah blah - everything you need to know"

Personally, I think distro specific books are a waste of money. I learned much more from reading the How-To, docs from LDP, this and other boards, etc.

Now, since LinuxIt is supposedly putting their own training manuals for LPI Level 1 certification under GPL, this have the potential to be the best general purpose manual for linux training. I have yet to see the docs, though so I cannot judge how good it is yet.

Hmmmm.

I agree on the basics book. And the 'general uselessness' of Linux books.

What you seem to have missed is what a tar actually is. It's not your fault becuase where the hell would you find out..... I know its catch-22

The main problem is possibly the lack of any 'easy start' and universal glossary. One of the main failings of most linux books is they fail to describe linux's relationship with UNIX in general.

tar has NOTHING to do with linux. NOTHING. It was around before linux and will continue after linux becuase its a UNIX standard.

This begs the question should it be mentioed in a LINUX book. ?????

I don't know and I'm deliberately playing Devils advocate here :wink: but I understand your frustration.

Some of the online tech dictionaries are possibly the best source of definitions....
Back to your TAR....
One distro used TAR as an open standard and further gz compression of a tar file as an extension to this open standard and they made this the way that 'packages' were 'installed on their distro' .
That distro is slackware .....
So if you want documentation you should look at the slackware documentation.....
Redhat is completely opposed to tar.gz .... in fact you could say RedHat is Redhat Package Manager. (RPM)....
Their philosophy is the i386 RPM philosophy so no official RedHat book should really mention installing from tar ball.
You stand to 'break' the stability of using the RedHat signed packages.

You could also say that APT is Debian.....
etc etc
Gentoo is emerge....
All of this is true but where to look to learn this Im not sure.
Hang around here ???
The SAG/NAG documentation is pretty good but possibly high level.

I agree with most of that, but...

I know apt is not exactly redhat, however - it IS available and it DOES work great and it DOES make things alot easier...

So, as a beginner, I would just appreciate a $50 "complete" redhat book saying something like - "hey, this apt-get is alot easier, why don't you try it... here's what is is and how it works...".

I didn't think to look at the various linux "certification" books - maybe one of those would be more like what I want...

The reason you're not going to find apt in redhat books is that redhat doesn't come with apt, it's a third party ad-on.

Except in the case of slackware, tar isn't a package - it's just a way of compressing files into an archive - the linux books I've read tend to have brief sections on compiling source code, which appears to be what you mean.

I'd recommend the book RUTE, it's freely available on the web (in html and ps formats IIRC) and you can also buy a hardcopy if you feel the need.

most of these books you mentioned tell us to use the man pages, which has tar, and apt-get in them. there is no way a book can cover everything about linux. one book i found worth the investment was "hacking linux exposed 2nd edition".

in the windows world, books dont tell you everything. neither do the web sites.

i guess its that the books are designed to give you a grounding, not spoon feed you every detail.

The only useful books are the ones that come with a fairly recent distribution in the attached discs.

Linux books often get to print too late to be of any use. There are tons of improvements made from time to time, and it's hard to get a book that is recent enough to cover them. What is really needed is a regular magazine that gets circulated and includes a distro per month on the enclosed CDs. That would be more current. However, I don't know of such a magazine, at least in the USA.

The magazine Linux Format is pretty good for that in the UK, AFAIK it's also available in Australia and the US as an import (read expensive).

It's around $15 here in the US.

Linux Administration Handbook 3rd editon is a pretty good book.

click cyberjackle's link

As a newbie, I found it a bit heavy going. My local W H Smith has several linux mags now, including Linux Magazine (http://www.linux-magazine.com) which seems quite newbie-friendly.

I see there is also a US Linux Magazine (no relation, apparently) which seems to be at about the same level (http://www.linux-mag.com).

Click on the current issues for a taster.
No free distro tho'... :(

I actually like Linux Format magazine. That's where I learned all about setting up apt-get on redhat. I followed the instructions and got it working great, upgraded my entire system, did an apt-get of k3b - perfect ! I Could never get k3b installed the rpm way... rpm just literally sucks big time... in my opinion...

Stuff like that is what I'd like in one basic linux book. As cyberjackal says, LF magazine is $15 here in the US, if my calculations are correct - that's $180 per year. :(

Ill just hijack this to make my point, it seems apt :wink:

If you install APT on a Redhat system that REdHat system ceases top be a RedHat system, it becomes a hacked, unsupported redHat system.

So perhaps the book which contains how to install APT on RH would be called hacking RedHat linux.

But thats a whole anathema, it goes against everything RH is trying to be which is solid, stable, boring? - server oriented.

RUTE/NAG/etc. are all available on the web and mostly also on the mandrake install disks under books.

TAR.
Or its not an installer.... Its a tape encapulation mechanism.
Tape ARchiver. As I said why would any linux book talk about it. Its nothing to do with linux any more than say TCP/IP is. You can buy the TCP/IP book from O'Reilly. Its not specifically TAR but well lots of things.... A Linux book could cover every optional component of linux. Do you expect a full java and fortran primer in every linux book ? mysql ? php ? perl ? UDP and every other common protocol ????
:wink:

OK, I'm just trying to make a point and the real point is I agree with nul ... very little is written to explain this to noobies. Its very much a 'your expected to know the history of linux thing'. To be honest this is eliteist BS..

Your friends at mandrakeusers and Mr. Google are your best tools for this!
and of course Ms. Man and the LDP.
Unfortunately interpreting man pages is something you just have to get used to. I posted on this a while ago :wink:
One thing is that the man pages all follow the same format so once you get used to it you find the info pretty quick!

On top of what Gowtar stated, I would imagine if another book comes out for RH 10 or Fedora Project Cambridge(I think) since they will be includeing apt and yum, I imagine the next book will cover them. That is if they still decide to make a book for Fedora Project. Probably will since every book publisher loves money and that would be some more!

Hi, null...

I learned about tar in two places. The easiest place that doesn't cost any money is at the following forum:

http://linuxiso.org/forums/viewforum.php?f=3

This is the Red Hat forum at www.linuxiso.org. On this forum page is a wonderful and fabulous Linux Easy Guide which explains everything about tars and apt-get (even using apt-get and synaptic in Red Hat 9), written by yowww from Ontario, Canada. He now even has developed his own forum at

http://easylinuxguide.com/

or more specifically at :

http://easylinuxguide.jsutnoni.com/index.php.

This will help you TREMENDOUSLY! Believe me.

Another source I use (which other will probably laugh at me, but which I found really helpful) is

LINUX FOR DUMMIES (the 2003 edition with the Red Hat 8 discs in the back). It has several authors (it's NOT the one written by Mad Dog Hall or whatever his name is that wrote the prior edition).,
It is also very well written and very practical for the non-technical newbie.

Hope this helps....

Richard L. from Houston

ok, I agree with the "won't find apt-get discussed in a Red Hat book..." thing. I know that there are lots of actual Red Hat Press books about RedHat, and I would not expect to find (non-redhat) neat stuff in those books...

The books I was looking at were just large books about rh 9 - Not published by Red Hat Press. Therefore, it would make sense to find chapters like "look at this cool way you can install software... it's called apt - it doesn't actually come with your red hat distro BUT here's how to get it and how to use it..."

If I ever see a book with "hacking" in the title, I figure its over my head... :?

I'm gonna look at some of the Linux+ books. I think they have large sections regarding ALL methods of installing software... and I would be studying for a certification at the same time... yeah right, me linux certified :?

i recommend looking into alomost any of the books published by O'Reilly the have generic linux boks and other more directional ones as well and a whole school of great computer books. basically if o'reilly doesn't discuss it it is either new or depreciated.

I have to agree with Sarah.
The O'Reilly books are just about the only consistent place for documentation of opensource stuff from Apache to Zope.

UNIX includes literally millions of components some of which are UNIX specific and others not.

Linux contains compenents on top of UNIX ... some of which are distro specific and others not.

RH will I presume document RPM,
Debian will document APT.

Mandrake I presume docuemnt the Drake wizards somewhere.... after you join the club and sign in triplicicate ?? Or perhaps I live in a hopeful world?


But 90% of the documentation is HOW-TO/info/man by the actual maintainers and the ultimate documentation is always available in the form of source code.

(Thats the idea anyway)

So O'Reilly publish the SAMBA documentation..... Its not Linux specific.... It runs on ANY UNIX from OS-X, FreeBSD,Linux, AIX ... etc.
And it runs identically so the point is you need to read the SAMBA Docs.

LESS (the command) is probably only documented in the man pages....

This is the way it is....and everyone is free to contribute with documentation/translations etc.

However nul makes a good point: where does a beginner start?
The O Reilly book on DNS is possibly a bit heavy for anyone who just wants to set up a DHCP client and get an IP assigned etc. What is needed is the summary of all these little snippets in an easy to digest form with further reading lists ??? Perhaps....

There is also a lot of misleading information out there.... and 'urban myth' surrounding a lot of things. Specifically, what is/belongs to Linux and what belongs to UNIX and what belongs to common standards.

The tar example is just one of a million of these. Take X, or even specifically XFREE86.... becuase its source you can run it on ANY Unix client, quite why you would want to replace XSUN on a solaris box is another question but it also runs on BSD and BeOS and ......
And XFREE86 is itself only a subset of X.

For Mandrake users and many other distro's I recommend strongly including the documentation, especially 'the books'. NAG/SAG etc.
These can be a bit heavy but the good thing is they explain what it is your reading about and where it came from.

I agree with Orielly's, MAN, How-to's, IBM's Development Site, Gentoo's Doc's & the book I posted above, it talks about the differnce between RH/SuSE/Debian from a Command Line perspective instead of using there GUI's. Yes, it explains APT. I would really suggest just picking the book up at a book store and just flip through it to see if it is something you like. I've seen it at Borders, Barnes & Knobles & MicroCenter just to name a few so it should be around you just to skim through.

That IBM site you posted REALLY ROCKED!

I'm still looking for information though on what to give to a complete noobie

I just installed Mandrake 9.1 on a computer for a friend And I see she's alredy joined this forum ... (hi)
I did have one book, Linux for windows users but it doesn't really cover just what is Linux.

Linux makes a lot of pre-assumptions as to your knowledge about a lot of different things and it is difficult to explain this to a new convert.

Apart from Bill/M$ bashing ... . one of the main things about the WHY DO YOU USE LINUX thread that came across (for me at least) was that linux lets you configure it the way YOU want.
Thats all well and good but where does a noobie start.
Like cybrjackle I came from a UNIX world and it was comforting to see an OS at home that spoke my language.
However its hard to imagine me just getting dumped in that world without the UNIX knowledge I had. Just where do you start ???

There is also a load of 'urban legend' stuff developing, mainly from people who went from windows to Linux (which is why I keep telling people to at least try other OS's).

The problem is mainly that if I want to understand TCP/IP I can go and download the white paper but I don't think my mum would be very happy reading it. I also start off with a good idea of what TCP/IP is......

Taking the tar question .....
This is one of those questions where the answer is "If I was going to there I wouldn't be starting from here" ... but I can completely see why someone would see TAR as an install method and not a tape encapsulation method.
The Linux Administration Handbook looks pretty good, at least the 65 pages from Amazon

But its still a bit heavy (????) the problem is I don't really see any option. Unless you understand this stuff you just stand to become a <insert distro> drone instead on a MS drone.

On top of something like this, obviously I had to learn Solaris or any kind of Unix from scratch some were and you might ask well how did you learn that to make the transition to Linux easy? Answer: I don't know, I read a lot of books on Unix & Linux in general, I read and read. Were they fun books? Would I hand them to anyone and say "Oh, don't worry you wont fall asleep reading this"? Heck NO. All I remember from my Noob days was that I read a lot, but not everyone is going to want to do that. Before that I had just come off of 5 months studying NT 4.0 non stop to pass 6 test and then Studied Cisco routers/switches for a CCNA in a month. So my brain was already conviced that all I could do was READ READ READ and practice practice practice.

It all really depends on what you want to use it for. Many Linux users wanted it to be the same as Windows & Mac: email, print, money, & Internet. That's all they want and they don't really need or have the desire to get dirty with Linux. I really think those people would have no problem using MDK/RH/SuSE as a stock install, but there is a learning curve when you want to install a new piece of software, BUT it really isn't any differnt than say WinZip for Windows. Did everyone really know how to use winzip to get software they downloaded. NO.

I'm the opposite, I work with Solaris and I would rather be working on Linux in my job, so I have worked hard at learning everything my brain will taken for the moment. BUT, not only do it because I want to work with it, I do it because I ENJOY working with Linux, there is so much you can do with it. To me it is the BEST OS on the planet. 8)


Basically, I think I just spit out a lot of garbage there, but most of it has some truth behind it. I remember one of the first Linux books I picked up was something like Learn Linux in 24 hours or a month or something. I really think that book helped to. It even came with some version of RH or MDK. So that might be another idea, look for the Linux for Dummies or the Learn Linux or Linux for Beginner books. There's nothing wrong with flipping through them and the best ones are the ones that have examples, read a chapter at the end, "Do this". Just reinforces what you went through.


Anyway, have fun with Linux, learn something and a year or five from now, you wont remember how you learned everything you know. :wink:

**Side Note**

The more you learn, the more you realize you don't know! :roll:

I'm gonna flip thru a few of the books mentioned above, next time I'm at Borders or B&N.

I'm not really "scared" of this linux stuff, its just different. When I was younger, like back in the mid-80's to early 90's - I really loved DOS - I suppose I was a DOS "power user...". I wasn't interested in win 3.1 when it was getting popular in the early 90s. "drag & drop..." - what the hell did that mean... :?

However, after dragging & dropping for 10 years now, and being older and with a family & career, I just don't have the patience that I did back in my 20s.

That's why I'd like a general book that has the daily basics that you need to know.. like installing from tars, fs basics, what certain files do and how to edit them safely, what NOT to screw around with... :? and stuff like that.

Plus I can leave it on the magazine rack in our bathroom, and have something to read while I'm sittin' .. 8)

I have seen far too many Data Center oriented books on Linux. Part of the problem there, has been Redhat's attitude of 'Linux is for Servers, only'. Unfortunately, that attitude caught on. Another attitude problem I see with Linux, is the focus on Desktop, as in Only at Work, NOT at home. This is showing up in print, where most of it, has to do with MS workplace substitutes. Of the rest tha I have actually seen, it is written by Geeks, FOR Geeks, in GEEKESE.

Hmmm, MAN pages. I do have a rant with those, and the How Tos: Also written in GEEKESE and assume you are already an expert.

The 2 printed manuals (books) that come with Mandrake Powerpack: Written in plain language. OH, what a Novelty that is! (Great Idea, too!!!). Thanks to them, I actually understood what Tarballs are, and alot of other things. Yes, I actually took the time to READ both of them. This was back when I got my very first copy of Linux: Mandrake Linux 7.2 Powerpack Edition.

Keep in mind, that I am one of those, that the Geeks like to sneer at: A long time MSDOS/Windows user, and worst of all, a Home user!

I don't know about other distros, but, Mandrake has this GUI Archiver front end, which is SO Nice! No more typing in loooong lines on the console, just to extract things from tar.gz files.

Newbies do need plain language books to explain the basics, including how to call up MAN pages. Most importantly, Linux books need to be Distro neutral and explain things like RPM and apt-get, and so forth. They do need to include things like how to compile programs that the author requires you to compile, just to use. I can go on and on, but do include how to use Tar, gzip, and other essential utilities that are standard in Linux, but from the UNIX and BSD world.

I was actually thinking of writing a 'newbie-ized' book about Linux. The point I got stumped is the problem with differences in distros, because a lot of newbies will say "Open a console??? What's a console???" and I can't just say "Click the little TV-looking thing on the bottom left."

I'm not THAT bad...

and I'm trying to avoid the "Dummies" series... SOME of the "dummies" books are pretty well written, but some of them are just all jokes and no "meat"... Plus I'm trying to stay out of the mind-set that I'm a "Dummy" or a "Complete Idiot"... :?

One of these evenings, I'm not gonna do anything except check out the net for all the linux "help" sites (linuxnewbie, blah blah) and find a few I like....

No more typing in loooong lines on the console, just to extract things from tar.gz files.


You aren't meant to type them.
First you have bash completion....you start a few letters and it finishes for you.
Second you have middle mouse button.

Lets say you want a file
wget http://asite.com/afileIwant.tgz
then
tar xvfz (middle button) afileIwant.tgz

90% of the time the CLI is easier and quicker, you just need to know the tricks


Using the gui is an old habit and it dies hard but using the two toether is the best way....
BTW achiver is a great tool anyway..... but I don't use it all the time.

I read somewhere (amazon.com I think) about someone suggesting that a good "general purpose, do everything book" would be one of the cert books - like a Linux+ book, or RHCE book or like that. Because they basically tell how to do everything and are even helpful to beginners, who could then "grow" into the more advanced topics.

Anyway, I still can't find a good "one book tells all", but after looking thru some of the "cert" books, I agree that they do seem good. I may decide on one of those.

Not exactly "linux" books, but a couple of books I just bought are:
Thinking in Java, by Eckel
Head First Java, by ?? I forget
oh yeah... Oracle 9i for Dummies :? I broke my "no dummies books" rule on that one... It seems like a good book though

I like the "casual" writing style of the Head First book. Makes learning more enjoyable. Its put out by O'Reilly.

I don't know if I already said this in here or not, and i don't feel like looking to see if i did ;-) but the best two books i ever invested in with regards to Linux:
Linux in a Nutshell
and
Running Linux

both are great resources...and much easier than searching for info on the web!

I'll have to check out Running Linux again next time I'm at the bookstore.

I was never interested in it before because I think the 3rd edition was the one that was out for a long time, and maybe it had an old date like "1999" or something....

I think they have released a 4th edition now, so I'll make a point to look at it again...

Linux Format:

It's OK but as for providing any working knowledge its pretty basic about the level of the beginners books mentioned earlier in this thread. Occasionally it does more involved stuff. Like most magazines it tends to repeat itself after a while. Most of the up to date can be found on the web a few weeks (maybe even a month) before each magazine hits the shelves.

I think the problem for publishers is the vast arena which is Linux / open source.
What does the average Linux user want in a more sophisticated book? What is an average open source user? Who is the average Linux user?
Even from from this forum you can tell that we're a loose bunch of people with a variety of objectives lifestyles, needs and wants. Everybody is an individual but that fact becomes less apparent when you sample larger groups (MS Windows users). Individuals are a frightening thing for advertisers, marketeers, governments and publishers.

As an aside theres an Australian(possibly American) guy living close to me who wrote an extremely large tome with a title like Windows XP encyclopedia - how to do everything with MS Windows XP which contains something like 3000 pages sells for about £60.00 and is really pretty trivial. I'd guess he's a writer/ technical journalist rather than a computer person. Be careful what you wish for.......

This really is an ongoing subject!

As willisoften points out the number of trivial books on windows is massive!

But it isn't faced with the same problems....
Firstly, a WinXP Home book is unlikely to cover running a web server or your own email server yet hardly a linux distro comes without them!

As mentioned above the server based books are in the majority, representing the RH trend!

The distro's of linux are uncontrolled. They can include anything and the documentation of one thing is usually a matter for the package writers, not the distro. Look at window managers. Who should document KDE???
KDE - Mandrake or who? Same for Gnome....

I strongly beleive the KDE documentation should be done by KDE... and Gnome by Gnome etc. These are not anything to do with linux, let alone a specific distro.

If you buy a car ( I love my car analogies) its made up of components from many manufactuerers. You get a car handbook and it tells you service intervals and tyre pressures but it doesn't tell you how to take apart the gear box. This is often becuase the gear box (or whatever) isn't made by the manufacturer, indeed it could actually be made by a rival or third party. When you BUY a maintainance manual it is pretty specific to your model/year etc. and even then some stuff is just left out. I don't see a general book that tells me how to hook an engine management diagnositc program up to my EMS.
Of course the manafactuers of the diagnositc machines have manuals but they are considered as not for a general consumer.

This computer probably works for 20 makes of car and thousands of models by a series of inputs and measureing devices. Therefore documentation isn't in your manual provided by your manufactuerer.

To me this is like say DNS/NIS you can't expect a full explaination of what is a several hundred page book with every distro. Linux just uses these standards and if you want to understand them and many more you need to get the specialist books (O'Reilly seems the reliable source on these)

KDE/Gnome .... etc. I believe the relevant .org's are responsible. Again they don't just run on linux they run on ANY unix like system that runs X.

X - Who documents that... ?? Again it has to be the open standards

You don't buy a consumer phone and expect it to list and explain all the standards used it telecomunications! Quite often it just refers to the accompanying legal framework of standards for telecoms.

So Linux/Mandrake is just using these Open Standards. That is the whole idea of Linux/UNIX.


What is REALLY badly missing is explaining to people where linux comes from and where to find information on these standards!

This is one reason I dislike distro-specific config tools for things which are not even specifically UNIX. I prefer Webmin to admin DNS/NIS etc. because webmin is all UNIX platforms as is DNS/NIS. Therefore a book can be written on Using Webmin and this will serve everyone from Linux to solaris to BSD!

I have yet to find ANY documentaiton on the wizard in Mandrake ... and this is IMHO bad.... if a distro makes specific tools then they SHOULD document them. For an organisation/company having the source is one thing, for a home user it is in many cases not realistic as a source of documentation!

Finally, some distro's do document stuff and they are usually the NON FREE ones. Not only are they not free beer theyre not free speech becuase if you try and modfy them you stand a good chance of breaking them ... (i.e. Lindows, Xandros etc.)

Nor can anyone anticipate which firewall ?? you will use. i.e. A general book on ipchains/iptables is one thing a shorewall/bastille etc book is another. This is why I think the Mandrake shorewall implementaiton really stinks, becuase it actually is implemented so that the shorewall documentation is pretty much useless with it until you REALLY understand it. If I wrote a Using Mandrake book, what would I put in for shorewall.
I'd have to say forget the Mandrake setup and read the shorewall documentaiton ... if I do that then my whole chapter is redundant!!!

null has really hit the nail on the head!!!! There is a problem but the solution isn't easy or simple!!!