LINUX For Dummies - Softcover

Hall, Jon

3.4

25 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0764504215 ISBN 13: 9780764504211

Publisher: For Dummies, 1999

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Set up your own powerful LINUX system quickly, easily, and without spending tons of hard-earned cash! Even if you have no experience with LINUX or UNIX operating systems, you can rely on the second edition of LINUX For Dummies -- authored by Jon "maddog" Hall, executive director of the nonprofit organization Linux International -- to help you install, organize, and troubleshoot your LINUX system.

LINUX For Dummies, 2nd Edition, delivers helpful advice on how to

Get the upper hand on the LINUX command system Add to the power of LINUX with its friendly configuration utilities Select a shell program that works for you Follow the step-by-step guide to installing LINUX Discover the ins and outs of the X Window System, the graphical portion of LINUX Find the right answers to your troubleshooting questions Maintain your system in tip-top shape

With the fun and friendly advice that's a hallmark of ...For Dummies� books, you'll be tackling complex jobs like a pro in no time flat. Plus, the book comes with a CD-ROM featuring setup software from Red Hat plus everything you need to access the Internet, write programs in several languages, create and manipulate images, play games, and more.

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Review:

Geared to casual users who want to install Linux on a personal machine--in other words, hobbyists--Linux for Dummies walks the reader through installing, configuring, tuning, and using each version of Linux. While the book includes a useful comparison of various Linux distributions, the companion CD-ROM holds Red Hat Linux 5.0 and the book uses that distribution in its examples.

This clearly written text begins by helping you prepare your system for Linux, going so far as to recommend you get it a special hard disk. The authors then show you how to install the system--including the mechanics of selecting file systems and setting up hardware--and then help you log on for the first time.

Next, Linux for Dummies explains elementary commands, including those used to traverse directories and to copy and move files. The book then explores storage issues, detailing how to install and configure a new hard drive in excellent detail. Shells, such as bash and X Windows, get cursory coverage (but adequate, considering the purpose of the book). Linux for Dummies also includes information on certain applications (including vi and emacs) and a guide to tuning and customization that sadly lacks much about shell programming. Internet services, including WAIS, FTP, and Gopher, get their due, but the Apache Web server gets slighted. Overall, this is the best user-lever Linux guide available.

From the Author:

Please note the fact that the reviews associated with this book are from the first edition, on. You'll have to look at the base of each review to see what edition the reviews actually reply to. You'll find that many apply to the first and second edition of this book. For the third edition, the author team was replaced, and the book was rewritten from the bottom up using reader feedback to help guide the new version. From there, we updated for the fourth edition by using the third edition's reader feedback. At the time I (the author, Dee-Ann LeBlanc) wrote this, there were in fact no reviews posted about the fourth edition. Posting reviews or emailing the author is a great way to help us know what you want to see in the next edition, so please let me encourage you to do either! --Dee-Ann LeBlanc

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