Product Description

Praise for The Official Ubuntu Book

". . . this one (Ubuntu Linux book) is at the head of the pack for getting started with your penguin experience. . . ."

—Tom Duff

"Benjamin Mako Hill et al. have produced an excellent book that speaks to everyone who uses or is considering using Ubuntu."

—James Pyles, Reviewer, "The Linux Tutorial"

"Well written in an easy-to-follow format. Full of information for folks new to Linux or just new to Ubuntu. Even nontechnical users would find this a very helpful resource."

—Ben Gerber,Arsgeek.com

"I'd recommend picking it up if you are running Ubuntu."

—Tony Lawrence, owner of aplawrence.com

Ubuntu is a complete, free operating system that emphasizes community, support, and ease of use without compromising speed, power, or flexibility. It's Linux for human beings—designed for everyone from computer novices to experts. Ubuntu 7.04 (a.k.a., "Feisty Fawn") is the latest release—more powerful, more flexible, and friendlier than ever. The Official Ubuntu Book, Second Edition, will get you up and running quickly.

Written by expert leading Ubuntu community members, this book covers all you need to know to make the most of Ubuntu 7.04, whether you're a home user, small business user, server administrator, or programmer. The authors cover Ubuntu 7.04 from start to finish: installation, configuration, desktop productivity, games, management, support, and much more. Among the many new topics covered in this edition: Ubuntu's expanded multimedia functionality and Edubuntu offerings geared for schools and educational settings.

The Official Ubuntu Book, Second Edition, covers standard desktop applications, from word processing, spreadsheets, Web browsing, e-mail, instant messaging, music, video, and games to software development, databases, and server applications. In addition, you'll

• Learn how to customize Ubuntu for home, small business, school, government, and enterprise environments
• Learn how to quickly update Ubuntu to accommodate new versions and new applications
• Find up-to-the-minute troubleshooting advice from Ubuntu users worldwide
• Learn Ubuntu Server installation and administration, including LVM and RAID implementation
• Learn about Edubuntu—Ubuntu optimized specifically for classroom

The DVD includes the complete Ubuntu Linux operating system for installation on PC platforms, preconfigured with an outstanding desktop environment for both home and business computing. It can be used to install other complete variants of Ubuntu including Kubuntu (with the KDE environment), and Edubuntu (for use in schools).

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #327726 in Books
• Published on: 2007-07-12
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 512 pages

About the Author

Benjamin Mako Hill serves on Ubuntu's Community Council governance board, which helps advise the Ubuntu Foundation. He works at the MIT Media Lab and on the One Laptop Per Child project.

Jono Bacon, Ubuntu community manager, was formerly an open source consultant in the United Kingdom. He is the author of Practical PHP and MySQL(R).

Ivan Krstić, Ubuntu Server Team administrator, develops software architecture for the One Laptop Per Child project

David J. Murphy recently jointed Canonical as a developer for Launchpad.

Jonathan Jesse serves on the Ubuntu Documentation Team, contributes to the Kubuntu documentatiation, and tests for the Ubuntu Laptop Testing Team.

Peter Savage, developer of the Edubuntu's Thin Client Manager software, created the Edubuntu Schools Advocacy documentation.

Corey Burger serves on Ubuntu's Documentation and Laptop Testing Teams, and is deploying Ubuntu at non governmental organizations across Vancouver Island.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

As we write this, it is one year since we penned the first edition of The Official Ubuntu Book. The last year has seen Ubuntu continue its explosive growth, and we feel blessed by the fact that The Official Ubuntu Book has been able to benefit from, and perhaps in a small way even contribute to, that success. Ultimately, that success paved the way for the second edition of the book that you’re reading now.

Being Official has carried with it a set of rights and responsibilities. Our book’s title means that we must attempt to reflect and represent the whole Ubuntu community. While we, as authors, are expected to put ourselves into the book, it is understood that it can never be to the detriment of the values, principles, technologies, or structures of the Ubuntu community.

Often the effects of this added responsibility are wonderful. While most book publishers and authors struggle with the decision to release a book under a free license that allows uninhibited redistribution, reuse, and revision, our situation was clear: Any official book needed to live up to the Ubuntu community’s stated philosophical standards of freedom for sharing and reuse. Prentice Hall was willing to take the risk, and the community has responded in typical fashion by making the book a great commercial success.

Other times, the pressure to live up to our title has been a little more difficult. Since certain groups within the Ubuntu community expanded in the last year, we have an obligation to update our text to reflect this. While the authors of other books might have the luxury to pass on an Edubuntu chapter because Edubuntu is not geared toward the market they’d envisioned for their book, we can’t use this excuse. The scope of an official book is the entirety of the Ubuntu project, and as that project grows in size and in scope, our goal of building an accurate, honest, and representative summary of and introduction to that community and its product—in several hundred pages, no less—becomes increasingly challenging.

Meanwhile, as for the first edition, we needed to write this book about a new release of Ubuntu while that version was under active development and was being redesigned, rethought, and rebuilt. Every day, Ubuntu grows in different, unpredictable ways. Our book’s development process had to both match and track this process as our content was crafted, rewritten, adjusted, and allowed to mature itself.

As in the previous edition, the contributors to this book go well beyond those listed on the book’s cover. As last time, the recipes included in Chapter 6 have been elicited from and designed in consultation with the community. But while the community contributions are sometimes less visible in other chapters, they are no less present. Invisible to most readers, dozens of members of the community left their mark on different parts of the text of this book. Although this process led to a writing process that was as hectic, and frustrating at times, as the one that builds Ubuntu, we hope we can remind readers of the level of quality that this process inspires in our book’s subject. In the places where we achieve this, we have earned our book’s title. With that goal in mind, we look forward to future versions of Ubuntu and editions of this book wrought through the same community-driven process.

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Customer Reviews

Great informaiton
This book combined with the LINUX bible are a must have for anyone just beginning to learn LINUX. They will walk you through the whole transition from VISTA (viruses, intruders, spyware, Trojans, and adware) or any other MS products.

Not difficult to understand
Very easy reading, although I thought the history was a bit too long. Everything explained not just in Linux/Ubuntu but also the comparison phrasing from windows.

Good first book
Good first book for new to computer and Linux types. Lots of history, purpose, flavors and what they do. Touches on most subjects well enough to get you started and help you focus on what you will need help on next. As a long term computer/system user I've ordered more specific books already. Looking online will get you most of what's here, but this concentrates it.
Also you will find lots of info online and most of it is excellent.
Good book to recommend to decision making users/managers to help them decide Windows isn't the only choice. Has a ver 7.04 CD.