No Starch Press How Linux Works, 3rd Edition: What Every Superuser Should Know

Good book to know the fundamentals of linux

his book is excellent and very underrated. It manages to explain complex processes in a very simple and clear way. The author does a great job breaking down complicated topics from the world of the Linux kernel, as well as general computing and networking concepts, using both theoretical explanations and helpful illustrations. I’m looking forward to continuing reading it, and I’m very happy that I decided to buy it. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone interested in Linux or low-level computing.

I have several problems with this book... First, it wasn't written from a server perspective. This book was written as if the reader is a superuser in a private pc, not in a server for several users. I state this because many topics would be missing otherwise, and the detail is lacking. I also didn't really like the style. The definitions are not clear nor precise. Also, too many times the author raises details, and sometimes writes whole subsections, just to say that the reality is much harder, and we don't need to worry about these aspects... Then why raise the topic in the first place. If the author would remove those sections in the 1st place, the text flow would not be lost. They are just a waste of space in the book. Second, and this is what really bother me... When the author talks about fsck, the curious reader, like me, may be tempted to follow the commands shown in the book... WHen I tried, the shell warned me that I could damaged the data, since fsck will not guarantee data integrity, only consistency, and may not even work if the file system was being used... How the () does the author show a bunch of commands, and not warn the reader about the consequences... Only AFTER these commands does the author in a note state that they should not 'be done lightly' (my wording). I'm grateful for the bash warnings. It's like showing the reader that there's a command like (don't run this!!!) 'rm -r *' and only then warning the reader of its consequences... Third, I don't think I really learned much... Most explanations I found superficial.

If you use Linux... get this book. In line with the open source mindset of DIY... this book will instruct you on the inner workings of the Linux OS. Highly highly recommended!!

Excellent livre, bien écrit et très agréable lire ; le seul, semble-t-il, qui décrive la face cachée de toutes les distributions LINUX, à savoir les process ou "démons" qui sont lancés en arrière-plan (systemd, dhcp, smtp,ntp etc.), et leur rôle : c'est très souvent leur mauvais paramétrage qui ruine le fonctionnement d'une installation. Ce texte fournit les détails du bootloader (GRUB, LILO), explique la différence entre UEFI et MBR, etc. Il décrit clairement le principe des firewalls ; il ne rentre, par contre, pas assez dans l'architecture des courrielleurs et le fonctionnement des e-mails (postfix, sendmail), mais du moins il en expose les principes. Pour comprendre la couche graphique et les fenêtres, vous pouvez compléter ce livre avec "X Power Tools" de Tyler.