Hi Mike,
On Tue, 19 Jan 1999, Mike Bilow wrote:
>
>
> Karl F. Larsen wrote in a message to Mike Bilow:
>
> KFL> Rick from our Linux User Group bought a few books on
> KFL> Linux and decided "A Practical Guide to Linux", Mark G.
> KFL> Sobell, 1997 was best. I tried Walden Books but they had to
> KFL> order it. I bought it for $39.95 but it took 5 days to get
> KFL> to New Mexico.
>
> This is actually a Linux-specific revision of a classic book by the same author
> which has been used for years as a standard Unix college textbook.
>
Exactly. In fact Linus Torvalds wrote the forward to this book and
said he used the earlier UNIX book in college.
> KFL> It has 1.000 pages. It has a forward from Linus Torvalds.
> KFL> It has 4 chapters on Shells and shell programming. It is
> KFL> very well written in plain english. All the jargon of Unix
> KFL> and Linux is discussed in plain english. There are questions
> KFL> at the end of every Chapter.
>
> Personally, I think that Sobell's book is not a good choice for a first book,
> since the newbie user is usually a year or so away from worrying about how to
> write shell programs. In general, Sobell assumes that the reader has some
> nodding familiarity with using Unix, although the book certainly can be used as
> a bare introductory text.
>
Disagree. The first 10 chapters are written to a rank newbie. They
are graduated and a guy brand new burned out at page 70 without any help
from a group. My pacing will see us at page 70 in about 3 months from now.
> Some of the free books in the LDP ("http://metalab.unc.edu/mdw/ldp.html") are
> very good and should not be overlooked, especially Matt Welsh's "Installation
> and Getting Started Guide" and Larry Greenfield's "Linux User's Guide."
>
I have both books printed out and in my library. I would still be
fighting Windows 98 if I missed Matt Welche's book. I also printed out
Larry's book and have used it far less.
> KFL> Linux in a Nutshell has all the information in a great
> KFL> resource format. No explanation, but here it is. Of course
> KFL> you need to know what your looking for. This book tells you
> KFL> why you need it.
>
> I have doubts that "Linux in a Nutshell" will tell you any more than the man
> pages on the console, and in a less convenient format.
Agreed.
>
> KFL> A person who reads the book and does all the home work
> KFL> will be properly trained to sysop a Unix computer system at
> KFL> some company.
>
> I strongly disagree with that. Sobell, in particular, does not touch upon
> system administration or networking in any serious way. His focus is on
> teaching the reader how to be a shell power user, a reasonable thing but hardly
> training for employment. My concept of the target niche for Sobell's book is
> the non-computer academic who needs to use Unix to do some sort of serious
> scientific or engineering research work.
>
I disagree again Mike. Many students at NMSU have obtained paying
jobs on UNIX computers after getting good with Linux. Most had to learn
quckly about Cisco Routers and such but it was with skill levels at or
below that reached when finishing this book.
> Another book worth mentioning, if someone wants to take it a little further, is
> "Unix Power Tools" from O'Reilly, which is in many ways what their "Linux in a
> Nutshell" should have been.
Haven't seen that book. I'm buying a SQL database book today so my
book money is spent.
>
> -- Mike
>
>
>
Best wishes
- Karl F. Larsen, 3310 East Street, Las Cruces,NM (505) 524-3303 -
