At 02:45 PM 11/12/02 -0500, Paul Kraus wrote:
Alice in Wonderland, A Farewell to Arms, The Great Gatsby, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Goodnight Moon ... oh wait! You want computer books. See below.What books would you recommend?
OK. Seriously now. Technical books are not good in the abstract; they are useful for particular purposes. Without a better understanding of your needs, anyone here who makes recommendations is shooting in the dark. With that warning ...If it seems broad it is supposed to be :) I want recommendation on newbie, intermediate, advanced, scripting, programming, and security :)
newbie -- haven't been one in a long time. Back in 1993, there were no books for Linux beginners (there barely was Linux itself ... I never did manage a successful install of Yggdrasil). I still have the O'Reilly Essential System Administration from those days (actually, I replaced my original copy with the second edition), and though I never refer to it any more, in the early days, struggling with early versions of Slackware, it was an everyday tool. It's probably too out of date for use today (unless I missed a 3e), but I'd look for something like it. I'd also look closely at some of the book-level materials available from the Linux Documentation Project (the URL keeps changing, so google the phrase). Every beginner-level "Intro to Linux" book I've ever read (I used to review them for an online site) was junk, as were most "Intro to Unix" books.
intermediate, advanced -- here you move into specifics too quickly for a general answer. I find the O'Reilly Internet Core Protocols book almost indispensible (I refer to it at least weekly), and I still occasionally use the O'Reilly TCP/IP Network Administration. Among the others I keep around (offered not as suggestions for you, but illustrations of how quickly this area moves into esoteric specifics) are the PostScript Red, Blue, and Green books; several texts on data structures and algorithms; several books on user-interface design; and a book that discusses the details of the PPP protocol. (I rarely consult any of these, but when the occasion arises, I find their availability a real timesaver.) I also liked Elias' suggestion here, but I don't actually own the Tannenbaum book he recommended, since I don't do a lot of OS development.
scripting, programming -- I'm not a good bash scripter, so I'll pass there. This area is, of necessity, language specific. I program in Perl, C, and C++ on Linux, and I actually use these books:
Perl -- Programming Perl and Perl Cookbook (both O'Reilly publications).
C -- Practical C Programming (O'Reilly) and Linux Application Development (Addision-Wesley). Beware of the original K&R C book that Elias suggested; it predates the ANSI C spec by many years, and the spec departed from it in ways that matter. I also like Kernighan and Pike's The Practice of Programming. The Stevens set Elias suggested is a classic, but I don't actually own it either.
C++ -- Practical C++ Programming (O'Reilly). I also like Bulka and Mayhew's Efficient C++ ... but it is a couple of years old now, and there are probably better, newer books.
security -- it's a jungle out there, and security moves too fast for books to keep up. I do like Schneier's Applied Cryptography ... but every other security book I've ever bought seemed outdated within 3 months. Your best resource here is the Internet -- start with your Linux distro's security mailing list, perhaps add in a general-purpose list like bugtraq, and follow the leads they offer.
--
-------------------------------------------"Never tell me the odds!"--------
Ray Olszewski -- Han Solo
Palo Alto, California, USA [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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