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issue167:critique_litteraire

Ceci est une ancienne révision du document !


Web Page: https://www.packtpub.com/cloud-networking/learn-linux-quickly

Price: 27 USD to 39 USD

Blurb: “This Linux book is a practical guide that lets you explore the power of the Linux command-line interface. Starting with the history of Linux, you'll quickly progress to the Linux filesystem hierarchy and learn a variety of basic Linux commands. You'll then understand how to make use of the extensive Linux documentation and help tools. The book shows you how to manage users and groups, and takes you through the process of installing and managing software on Linux systems. As you advance, you'll discover how you can interact with Linux processes, and troubleshoot network problems, before learning the art of writing bash scripts and automating administrative tasks with Cron jobs. In addition to this, you'll get to create your own Linux commands and analyze various disk management techniques.“

This book should have been named: working at the terminal, your first 100 commands. Thankfully, the “Linux history” is kept to one page.

The book tries a bit too hard sometimes, that it almost ends up in confusion. Let me give you an example. This spaghetti (below) illustrates the ‘.’ and ‘..’ files in the directory structure. Should I frown?

That said, this is not a ‘read’ book but a ‘do’ book. You gain nothing from reading the book alone. This book covers about 100 bash commands, and a few pages on editors and other packages. Though I looked forward to this book, it turned out very dry and semi-formal (and a horrible font to boot). Technically, the information is correct and covers the basic usage, yet I felt a bit skimped, compared to other books on the subject. No insights, no fun, four lines of text explaining what was next, and printed examples of directory listings and screen outputs. Here and there I found a few nuggets, but I also felt like a prospector. After a few chapters I caught myself skimming.

As for the Quickly part, I am not quite convinced, but I can say that it is faster than using the “Linux Bible”. I would place this one as a book for someone who has some Linux experience, but it is his first or second year with the OS. It is not quite a “reference” book either, and not as quick as “Learn Linux in 24hrs”. What I did like was that the book did not have four warnings and four tip blocks per page – breaking your stride, which is why I like Packt and No Starch Press books.

I am going to pick a spot and tell you what is there and what is missing. Under the heading: “Corrupting and fixing filesystems”, you are shown how to corrupt a filesystem and how to fix it. What you are *not told, is why you need to unmount the filesystem. You are just told to unmount it. I am a why person; as a kid, I took things apart not only to see what was inside, but why it was the way it was. Once I understood, even more or less what was going on, I could repair it. Everyone thought it was a ‘smart’ kid fixing their radio’s at seven years old, but I knew why it was broken and smart had nothing to do with it. The same principle applies here; if you tell your readers why, they will put two and two together and the “how” will be a lot easier. I realise there is a section on man pages, but just a little more explaining and a little less directory listing is what this book needs. Yes, almost every page has either a directory listing or a few terminal outputs. I suppose you could say that this is for people who do not have a Linux computer or VM, but I would counter by saying that if you do not have these things, you should not pick up this book.

As this book covers mainly bash commands, it follows that once you have learned these commands, a good idea would be to bring it all together in bash scripting at the end. Maybe do something useful or “real world” examples, like automating docker or something. One would think, but the scripting is squirrelled away in the middle somewhere, and has “hello friend” and “hello world” over it instead of scripts deploying users or filling a database with dummy info or whatnot. The exercises at the end of each chapter are short ‘n silly, like a few true/false questions. I did not really care for them. As for “creating your own Linux commands”, it’s just alias. I can say I was disappointed.

At the end of the day, the book teaches you bash commands with some sides, like meat and salad, no veggies or starch. It does not do what it says on the label. Grab this book on discount for a fiver, but I would not pay full price for it.

As an alternative, I would suggest “Learn Linux in 5 days” by Jason Canon, Which is basically the same book, with clear-to-read fonts, lots of screenshots, and only about 200 pages.

I will put this book in the back of my Linux bookshelf.

Was I unfair, did I make a mistake? Let us know on: misc@fullcirclemagazine.org

issue167/critique_litteraire.1616924149.txt.gz · Dernière modification : 2021/03/28 11:35 de auntiee