Product Description

Praise for Mark Sobell's Books "I keep searching for books that collect everything you want to know about a subject in one place, and keep getting disappointed. Usually the books leave out some important topic, while others go too deep in some areas and must skim lightly over the others. A Practical Guide to Red Hat(R) Linux(R) is one of those rare books that actually pulls it off. Mark G. Sobell has created a single reference for Red Hat Linux that cannot be beat! This marvelous text (with a 4-CD set of Linux Fedora Core 2 included) is well worth the price. This is as close to an 'everything you ever needed to know' book that I've seen. It's just that good and rates 5 out of 5." --Ray Lodato, Slashdot contributor"Mark Sobell has written a book as approachable as it is authoritative." --Jeffrey Bianchine, Advocate, Author, Journalist"Excellent reference book, well suited for the sysadmin of a linux cluster, or the owner of a PC contemplating installing a recent stable linux. Don't be put off by the daunting heft of the book. Sobell has striven to be as inclusive as possible, in trying to anticipate your system administration needs."--Wes Boudville, Inventor"A Practical Guide to Red Hat(R) Linux(R) is a brilliant book. Thank you Mark Sobell." --C. Pozrikidis, University of California at San Diego"This book presents the best overview of the Linux operating system that I have found...It should be very helpful and understandable no matter what the reader's background is: traditional UNIX user, new Linux devotee, or even Windows user. Each topic is presented in a clear, complete fashion and very few assumptions are made about what the reader knows...The book is extremely useful as a reference, as it contains a 70-page glossary of terms and is very well indexed. It is organized in such a way that the reader can focus on simple tasks without having to wade through more advanced topics until they are ready." --Cam Marshall, Marshall Information Service LLC, Member of Front Range UNIX Users Group FRUUG, Boulder, Colorado"Conclusively, this is THE book to get if you are a new Linux user and you just got into RH/Fedora world. There's no other book that discusses so many different topics and in such depth." --Eugenia Loli-Queru, Editor in Chief, OSNews.comThe Most Useful Linux Tutorial and Reference Ever, with Hundreds of High-Quality Examples Covering Every Linux Distribution!To be truly productive with Linux, you need to thoroughly master the shells and the command line. Until now, you had to buy two books to gain that mastery: a tutorial on fundamental Linux concepts and techniques, plus a separate reference. Worse, most Linux references offer little more than prettied-up man pages. Now, there's a far better solution. Renowned Linux expert Mark Sobell has brought together comprehensive, insightful guidance on the tools system administrators, developers, and power users need most, and an outstanding day-to-day reference, both in the same book. This book is 100 percent distribution and release agnostic: You can use it on any Linux system, now and for years to come. What's more, it's packed with hundreds of high-quality examples: better examples than you'll find in any other Linux guidebook. This is Linux from the ground up: the clearest explanations and most useful knowledge about everything from filesystems to shells, editors to utilities, and programming tools to regular expressions. And when you need instant answers, you'll constantly turn to Sobell's comprehensive command reference section--organized and tabbed for easy, fast access!Don't settle for yesterday's Linux guidebook. Get the one book that meets today's challenges--and tomorrow's! A Practical Guide to Linux(R) Commands, Editors, and Shell Programming is the most useful, most comprehensive Linux tutorial and reference you can find.It's the only book to deliver *Better, more realistic examples covering tasks you'll actually need to perform *Deeper insight, based on Sobell's immense knowledge of every Linux nook and cranny *More practical explanations of more than eighty core utilities, from aspell to xargs *Techniques for implementing secure communications using ssh and scp--plus dozens of tips for making your system more secure *A superior introduction to the Linux programming environment, including make, gcc, gdb, CVS, and much more *Expert guidance on basic and advanced shell programming using bash and tcsh *Tips and tricks for customizing the shell and using it interactively from the command line *Thorough guides to vim and emacs, designed to help you get productive fast and maximize your editing efficiency *Dozens of exercises to help you practice and gain confidence *Instructions for using Apt, yum, and BitTorrent for keeping your system up to date automatically *And much more, including coverage of gawk, sed, find, sort, bzip2, and regular expressions

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #17969 in Books
• Published on: 2005-07-11
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 1008 pages

From the Back Cover

Praise for Mark Sobell’s Books

“I keep searching for books that collect everything you want to know about a subject in one place, and keep getting disappointed. Usually the books leave out some important topic, while others go too deep in some areas and must skim lightly over the others. A Practical Guide to Red Hat® Linux® is one of those rare books that actually pulls it off. Mark G. Sobell has created a single reference for Red Hat Linux that cannot be beat! This marvelous text (with a 4-CD set of Linux Fedora Core 2 included) is well worth the price. This is as close to an ‘everything you ever needed to know’ book that I’ve seen. It’s just that good and rates 5 out of 5.”
—Ray Lodato, Slashdot contributor

“Mark Sobell has written a book as approachable as it is authoritative.”
—Jeffrey Bianchine, Advocate, Author, Journalist

“Excellent reference book, well suited for the sysadmin of a linux cluster, or the owner of a PC contemplating installing a recent stable linux. Don’t be put off by the daunting heft of the book. Sobell has striven to be as inclusive as possible, in trying to anticipate your system administration needs.”
—Wes Boudville, Inventor

“A Practical Guide to Red Hat® Linux® is a brilliant book. Thank you Mark Sobell.”
—C. Pozrikidis, University of California at San Diego

“This book presents the best overview of the Linux operating system that I have found. . . . It should be very helpful and understandable no matter what the reader’s background is: traditional UNIX user, new Linux devotee, or even Windows user. Each topic is presented in a clear, complete fashion and very few assumptions are made about what the reader knows. . . . The book is extremely useful as a reference, as it contains a 70-page glossary of terms and is very well indexed. It is organized in such a way that the reader can focus on simple tasks without having to wade through more advanced topics until they are ready.”
—Cam Marshall, Marshall Information Service LLC, Member of Front Range UNIX Users Group FRUUG, Boulder, Colorado

“Conclusively, this is THE book to get if you are a new Linux user and you just got into RH/Fedora world. There’s no other book that discusses so many different topics and in such depth.”
—Eugenia Loli-Queru, Editor in Chief, OSNews.com

To be truly productive with Linux, you need to thoroughly master the shells and the command line. Until now, you had to buy two books to gain that mastery: a tutorial on fundamental Linux concepts and techniques, plus a separate reference. Worse, most Linux references offer little more than prettied-up man pages. Now, there’s a far better solution. Renowned Linux expert Mark Sobell has brought together comprehensive, insightful guidance on the tools system administrators, developers, and power users need most, and an outstanding day-to-day reference, both in the same book.

This book is 100 percent distribution and release agnostic: You can use it on any Linux system, now and for years to come. What’s more, it’s packed with hundreds of high-quality examples: better examples than you’ll find in any other Linux guidebook. This is Linux from the ground up: the clearest explanations and most useful knowledge about everything from filesystems to shells, editors to utilities, and programming tools to regular expressions. And when you need instant answers, you’ll constantly turn to Sobell’s comprehensive command reference section—organized and tabbed for easy, fast access!

Don’t settle for yesterday’s Linux guidebook. Get the one book that meets today’s challenges—and tomorrow’s!

A Practical Guide to Linux® Commands, Editors, and Shell Programming is the most useful, most comprehensive Linux tutorial and reference you can find. It’s the only book to deliver

• Better, more realistic examples covering tasks you’ll actually need to perform
• Deeper insight, based on Sobell’s immense knowledge of every Linux nook and cranny
• More practical explanations of more than eighty core utilities, from aspell to xargs
• Techniques for implementing secure communications using ssh and scp—plus dozens of tips for making your system more secure
• A superior introduction to the Linux programming environment, including make, gcc, gdb, CVS, and much more
• Expert guidance on basic and advanced shell programming using bash and tcsh
• Tips and tricks for customizing the shell and using it interactively from the command line
• Thorough guides to vim and emacs, designed to help you get productive fast and maximize your editing efficiency
• Dozens of exercises to help you practice and gain confidence
• Instructions for using Apt, yum, and BitTorrent for keeping your system up to date automatically
• And much more, including coverage of gawk, sed, find, sort, bzip2, and regular expressions

About the Author

Mark G. Sobell is president of Sobell Associates Inc., a consulting firm that specializes in UNIX/Linux training, support, and custom software development. He is the author of many best-selling UNIX and Linux books and has more than twenty-five years of experience working with UNIX and Linux.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

A Practical Guide to Linux^® Commands, Editors, and Shell Programming explains how to work with the Linux operating system from the command line. The first few chapters quickly bring readers with little computer experience up to speed. The rest of the book is appropriate for more experienced computer users. This book does not describe a particular release or distribution of Linux but rather pertains to all recent versions of Linux.

Command line interface (CLI). In the beginning there was the command line (textual) interface (CLI), which enabled you to give Linux commands from the command line. There was no mouse or icons to drag and drop. Some programs, such as emacs, implemented rudimentary windows using the very minimal graphics available in the ASCII character set. Reverse video helped separate areas of the screen. Linux was born and raised in this environment.

Naturally all of the original Linux tools were invoked from the command line. The real power of Linux still lies in this environment, which explains why many Linux professionals work exclusively from the command line. Using clear descriptions and lots of examples, this book shows you how to get the most out of your Linux system using the command line interface.

Linux distributions. A Linux distribution comprises the Linux kernel, utilities, and application programs. Many distributions are available, including Debian, Red Hat, Fedora Core, SUSE, Mandriva (formerly Mandrake), KNOPPIX, and Slackware. Although the distributions differ from one another in various ways, all of them rely on the Linux kernel, utilities, and applications. This book is based on the code that is common to most distributions. As a consequence you can use it regardless of which distribution you are running.

Overlap. If you read A Practical Guide to Red Hat^® Linux^®: Fedora Core^™ and Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Second Edition, or a subsequent edition, you will notice some overlap between that book and the one you are reading now. The introduction, the appendix on regular expressions, and the chapters on the utilities (Chapter 3 of this book--not Part V), the filesystem, and programming tools are very similar in the two books. The three chapters that cover the Bourne Again Shell (bash) have been expanded and rewritten for this text. Chapters that appear in this book and but not in A Practical Guide to Red Hat^® Linux,^® Second Edition, include those covering the vim and emacs editors, the TC Shell (tcsh), the gawk and sed languages, and Part V, which describes 80 of the most useful Linux utility programs in detail.

Audience. This book is designed for a wide range of readers. It does not require programming experience, although some experience using a general-purpose computer is helpful. It is appropriate for the following readers:

• Students taking a class in which they use Linux
• Power users who want to explore the power of Linux from command line
• Professionals who use Linux at work
• System administrators who need a deeper understanding of Linux and the tools that are available to them
• Computer science students who are studying the Linux operating system
• Programmers who need to understand the Linux programming environment
• Technical executives who want to get a grounding in Linux

Benefits. A Practical Guide to Linux^® Commands, Editors, and Shell Programming gives you an in-depth understanding of how to use Linux from the command line. Regardless of your background, it offers the knowledge you need to get on with your work: You will come away from this book understanding how to use Linux, and this text will remain a valuable reference for years to come.

Features of This Book

This book is organized for ease of use in different situations. For example, you can read it from cover to cover to learn command line Linux from the ground up. Alternatively, once you are comfortable using Linux, you can use this book as a reference: Look up a topic of interest in the table of contents or index and read about it. Or, refer to one of the utilities covered in Part V, “Linux Utility Programs.” You can also think of this book as a catalog of Linux topics: Flip through the pages until a topic catches your eye. The book also includes many pointers to Web sites where you can get additional information: Consider the Web an extension of this book.

A Practical Guide to Linux^® Commands, Editors, and Shell Programming offers the following features:

• Optional sections allow you to read the book at different levels, returning to more difficult material when you are ready to tackle it.
• Caution boxes highlight procedures that can easily go wrong, giving you guidance before you run into trouble.
• Tip boxes highlight places in the text where you can save time by doing something differently or when it may be useful or just interesting to have additional information.
• Security boxes point out ways that you can make a system more secure.
• The Supporting Web site will include corrections to the book, downloadable examples from the book, pointers to useful Web sites, and answers to even-numbered exercises.
• Concepts are illustrated by practical examples found throughout the book.
• The many useful URLs (Internet addresses) identify sites where you can obtain software and information.
• Chapter summaries review the important points covered in each chapter.
• Review exercises are included at the end of each chapter for readers who want to hone their skills. Answers to even-numbered exercises are available at www.sobell.com.
• Important GNU tools, including gcc, gdb, GNU Configure and Build System, make, gzip, and many others, are described in detail.
• Pointers throughout the book provide help in obtaining online documentation from many sources, including the local system and the Internet.

Contents

This section describes the information that each chapter covers and explains how that information can help you take advantage of the power of Linux. You may want to review the table of contents for more detail.

Chapter 1: Welcome to Linux

Presents background information on Linux. This chapter covers the history of Linux, explains how the GNU project helped Linux get started, and discusses some of Linux’s important features that distinguish it from other operating systems.

Part I: The Linux Operating System

Part I introduces Linux and gets you started using it.

TIP: Experienced Users May Want to Skim Part I
If you have used a UNIX/Linux system before, you may want to skim or skip some or all of the chapters in Part I. All readers should take a look at “Conventions Used in This Book,” which explains the typographic conventions that this book uses, and “Getting the Facts: Where to Find Documentation,” which points you toward both local and remote sources of Linux documentation.

Chapter 2: Getting Started

Explains the typographic conventions that this book uses to make explanations clearer and easier to read. This chapter provides basic information and explains how to log in, change your password, give Linux commands using the shell, and find system documentation.

Chapter 3: Command Line Utilities

Explains the command line interface (CLI) and briefly introduces more than 30 command line utilities. Working through this chapter gives you a feel for Linux and introduces some of the tools you will use day in and day out. The utilities covered in this chapter include

• grep, which searches through files for strings of characters;
• unix2dos, which converts Linux text files to Windows format;
• tar, which creates archive files that can hold many other files;
• bzip2 and gzip, which compress files so that they take up less space on disk and allow you to transfer them over a network more quickly; and
• diff, which displays the differences between two text files.

Chapter 4: The Linux Filesystem

Discusses the Linux hierarchical filesystem, covering files, filenames, pathnames, working with directories, access permissions, and hard and symbolic links. Understanding the filesystem allows you to organize your data so that you can find information quickly. It also enables you to share some of your files with other users while keeping other files private.

Chapter 5: The Shell

Explains how to use shell features to make your work faster and easier. All of the features covered in this chapter work with both the bash and tcsh. This chapter discusses

• Using command-line options to modify the way a command works;
• How a minor change in a command line can redirect input to a command to come from a file instead of the keyboard;
• How to redirect output from a command to go to a file instead of the screen;
• Using pipes to send the output of one utility directly to another utility...

Customer Reviews

Book Review: A Practical Guide to Linux Commands, Editors, and Shell Programming
I recently was fortunate enough to receive a review copy of this book from Prentice Hall publishers, and am happy to submit this review. I found this very large volume (1008 pages!) to be quite interesting and a valuable source of information for both Linux beginners and veterans alike. As the title may suggest, it covers some of the most commonly used Linux commands, the two main editors (Vim and Emacs), and some shell programming techniques with the Bash and tcsh shells. I found it to be quite "distro-neutral", as the material presented should be available on virtually any Linux system, and does not reference distro-specific tools. The book seems very well organized into Parts and Chapters, and there are also some excellent appendices and additional matter at the end of the book, which I'll discuss later in this review.

Part I is entitled "The Linux Operating System", and starts out with some introductory "welcome" and "getting started" material which is good reading for newbies but can easily be skipped by others. The next chapter in this part covers how to use the more commonly used commands such as ls, cp, rm, and tar. This is followed up by a chapter on the Linux filesystem, including the hierarchical layout, directories, pathnames, permissions, and file links. There is a nice section in this chapter which describes what is found in nearly all of the standard directories such as /boot, /etc, /home, /usr, and so on. Also notable here was an excellent description of how to set (and understand!) file and directory permissions. The final chapter in this part provides an introduction to the shell and command line. It covers standard input/output, redirection, pipes, and backgrounding of commands. Most of the information in these first 5 chapters will probably be a review for more experienced Linux users, but they are outstanding reading for newcomers. One thing I did notice as a great feature of the book is that there is a "Chapter Summary" at the end of each chapter which is really excellent, and a list of "Exercises" to help you see and use the information in a more hands-on way.

Part II is called simply "The Editors", and devotes about 60 pages each to Vim and Emacs. A brief history of each is provided, and a pretty good tutorial of basic usage is walked through. Both chapters include a command referance/summary, and some customization tips. Even the well known "debate" about which editor to use is mentioned, although no preference is indicated. For the record, this writer prefers Vim... J There are more in-depth books available to explain each editor in greater detail, but these chapters provide a good introductory lesson.

Part III contains two chapters, one each on the "bash" shell and the "tcsh" shell. Some of the procedures and concepts in this part may well be more information than is desired by many Linux users, but command-line types will want to read all of this material. The differences between these two shells are discussed, and the fact that most users will only need to learn about "bash", as it is normally the default shell on most modern Linux distributions. I found some good information on customizing your shell, and using the "dot files" such as .bash_profile and .bashrc to control things like aliases and your environment variables.

Part IV covers "Programming Tools". The first chapter here discusses programming in C, including the basics of the gcc compiler, using shared libraries, debugging procedures, system calls, and source code management (CVS). It should be noted that this chapter describes the process of writing and compiling programs with C, but is not intended to teach C programming if you don't already understand most of it. The next chapter (11) is a quite extensive (about 100 pages) discussion of programming with the Bash shell. It covers control structures, parameters, variables, loops, arrays, expressions, functions, and builtin commands. Numerous examples are shown to help with understanding the concepts. I would recommend this particular chapter for those wishing to increase their ability to write effective shell scripts for system administration. The final two chapters in Part IV cover the "gawk" and "sed" utilities, which are essential for more advanced text processing and shell scripting. Again, there are numerous excellent examples given which really aid in understanding the material, followed by some suggested excercises for putting your new knowledge to work. This part should be required reading for any system administrator.

Part V is the "Command Reference" section. This is a very complete reference (240 pages) on how to use virtually all Linux utilities and shell builtins, from "at" to "xargs". The layout for each command is presented in the manner of a man page, only much more readable and including excellent notes and examples which are not found in a man page. All options are well explained, and there is extensive use of tables and summaries. This may be the most useful portion of the entire book, and serves both as a great refresher for veterans, and a nice learning process for beginners. The material here is presented in "plain English", which helps a lot.

The remainder of the book is made up of three appendixes, a glossary, and an index. Appendix A is an excellent presentation of "regular expressions", an often little-understood but important skill for system administrators to have. Spend some time reading this one. Appendix B is simply called "Help", and tells you about the wide array of help resources available to a Linux user. Helpful websites are listed, and mailing lists and newsgroups are described. The final Appendix C touches on keeping your system updated, although it is quite limited by only discussing the "yum" and "apt" utilities. This could have been done a little better by including some additional distro tools, and/or more generic ideas for updating. The final two sections of the book are a 50 page Glossary and a 50 page Index, both of which seem quite complete.

Overall I found this book to be quite excellent, and it has earned a spot on the very front of my bookshelf. It covers the real "guts" of Linux - the command line and it's utilities, and does so very well. It's strongest points are the outstanding use of examples, and the Command Reference section. Highly recommended for Linux users of all skill levels. Well done to Mark Sobell and Prentice Hall for this outstanding book!

Guide to becoming a Linux guru and not just a user
For some people knowing how to do something through a graphical interface is akin to knowing how to drive without knowing how an engine, transmission, etc. work together to make the car run. For them knowing how to get down to the command line and get things done that either the graphical interface does not allow or does not do the way you want it done is a matter of pride and represents the dividing line between a user and a power user. If you want to become a real Linux guru and know how to work the command line to do whatever you want including commands, editing, shell programming, and scripting this is one of the better books available. Readable, straight-forward, educational, it is a one-of-kind reference that blends the educational aspect of a typical book on learning Linux with a typical book of command line references. A Practical Guide to Linux is highly recommended.

Good for Newbies who want to Program
I found this book to be very understandable. I have no experience with Linux but I was writing scripts without any trouble.