Linux Bible

by Christopher Negus, Christine Bresnahan (Contributor)

More than 50 percent new and revised content for today's Linux environment gets you up and running in no time! Linux continues to be an excellent, low-cost alternative to expensive operating systems. Whether you're new to Linux or need a reliable update and reference, this is an excellent resource. Veteran bestselling author Christopher Negus provides a complete tutorial packed with major updates, revisions, and hands-on exercises so that you can confidently start using Linux today. Offers a complete restructure, complete with exercises, to make the book a better learning tool Places a strong focus on the Linux command line tools and can be used with all distributions and versions of Linux Features in-depth coverage of the tools that a power user and a Linux administrator need to get started

This practical learning tool is ideal for anyone eager to set up a new Linux desktop system at home or curious to learn how to manage Linux server systems at work.

Genres: Technical, Programming, Technology, Reference, Computer Science, Computers, Textbooks

864 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

Reviews

[Krissy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Technically I'm still reading this and probably will be for the next year, but I wanted to give it a review for anyone who is thinking about buying this book! It's definitely worth it and it's very informative and helpful.

[Paul Drinnon · Rating 4 out of 5]

great book:
1. easy to read
2. concisely organized
3. great reference (I will be referencing this book for several years)

[Hidde · Rating 4 out of 5]

Introduction

The Linux Bible Is a handbook that will turn you from a Linux zero to a Linux hero in less than 800 pages.

Author

The author is named Christopher Negus.

“Christopher Negus has been one of the world's leading writers of Linux books for more than two decades. His Red Hat Linux Bible series sold more than one-quarter million copies worldwide. Chris also wrote the Linux Bible (2005 through 2020 editions), Linux Toolbox series, Linux Toys, Linux Toys II, and Linux Troubleshooting Bible for Wiley Publishing. For Prentice Hall, Chris wrote Docker Containers and created the Docker Live Lessons video demos.
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The Book

The book is essentially divided into 6 parts, that are subdivided in 30 chapters respectively. In a fast, but appropriate fashion you are taken by the hand to discover a broad variety of branches of the Linux world.

The book is pretty Red Hat distro based, although the author gives some attention to Ubuntu based distributions as well. It’s good to know the difference but I suggest you to have a Red Hat based distro at hand as you’re going through this book. Even if it’s just to go through the exercises presented at the end of each chapter.

Consider this book as a really long winded tutorial where you discover the history of Linux, setting up your own desktop environment, getting your hands dirty with the command line, learning about duties of a professional system/cloud engineer (even automation with Ansible) and the security practices that you have to consider if you want to be taken seriously as a hobbyist or an aspiring Linux Professional.

For the rest It's pretty hands on with the tools and websites that the author suggests you to use and install on your instance as you’re following along.

Recommendation

This book is for appropriate for absolute beginners, but also for people that are already quite familiar with Linux. See it as a advantage that the book is mainly revolving around Red Hat based distros, as those are the industry standard. Going through this book might land you a serious job as a system/cloud engineer in a Linux heavy workspace.

Maybe other books are better for this purpose, like handbooks that prepare you for Linux certifications like the LPIC1/2 or RHCSA/RHCSE.
As a counterargument you can argue that this book covers A LOT of the objectives that are being tested in those certifications.
The choice is up to you, but I argue that going through the curated topics and information of this book have been absolutely worthwhile for me and my personal development as a Linux user.

===============================================

Rating: 4 Stars

[Joseph Syverson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read the 8th Edition of this book. It is often mentioned in the same breath as the "Unix and Linux System Administration Handbook", but I think they're quite different.

This book is a sequence of tutorials from beginner to advanced in that order. It's a guide to using the operating system effectively. The "Unix and Linux System Administration Handbook" is, like the title states, a handbook. It organizes by topic and presents in very dry and sparse way.

If you want to learn how to use Linux, I recommend this book. If you need a heavy-duty reference for work or serious amateur computing, get "Unix and Linux System Administration Handbook". (I have both! Of Course.)

I should note that I didn't read every chapter of this book, because some of the sections were especially particular, like running a Samba Server, or using SE Linux to enhance Linux's already expansive security toolkit.

I encourage readers to read as they're interested, but also keep in mind that some chapters are pretty essential to understanding Linux, and you'll get a sense of what they are if you just start from the beginning.

I also encourage readers to read the intro about the incredible history of the completely free and open source operating system, Linux.

Moreover, the last chapter before the appendices is called "Securing Linux on a Network". In the last paragraph, the authors say "goodbye". I read this book on and off for about a year, just after finishing school and just before getting a job in IT. It was a long journey with talented and caring instructors. This last paragraph kind of choked me up. Definitely check that paragraph out when you're ready to quit, even if you don't read the whole chapter.

Final note: it might help to check out some Youtube tutorials before approaching this book. There are in fact many courses on sites like Udemy that can give you a quicker start. I nonetheless think that this book is filled with the gems of the most genuine experts. The specificity and appropriateness of each section, scripted shortcuts, diagrams, and other means of conceptualization, have no replacement in a standard video course.

If you're serious about Linux, definitely read. But if you just need the basics, a few videos might get you farther quicker.

I feel very fortunate to have encountered and read this book.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

No glaring issues such as typos or misconfigurations were found upon first pass.

Part I: Getting Started
The author did a good job at introducing Linux, the history and why it's important to learn.

Part II: Becoming a Linux Power User
Basically just showing how to navigate the file system, work with text files, manage processes and writing shell scripts.
All well and good, nothing too special in this section.

Part III: Becoming a Linux System Administrator
Here we finally install Linux and manage user accounts and software.

Note: All 3 parts above are covered in the Linux+ or LPIC-1 certifications. So you may just skip these sections if you already know it.

Part IV: Becoming a Linux Server Administrator
It was a tad confusing to follow along with, however just reading the steps for configuring different server services was worth the read.
Linux servers can do SO much!
A short chapter dedicated to the most popular services was nice, glad that it was included into the book.


Part V: Learning Linux Security Techniques

Chapter 22: Understanding Basic Linux Security was great! It had great recommendations and a few tools mentioned that are worth looking into, such as auditctl (audit daemon) for monitoring access to certain files.

Chapter 24: SELinux
No book I've read so far has covered SELinux as thoroughly as this one. It was a good read on the topic.


Part VI: Engaging with Cloud Computing
This section talked about containers, creating virtual machines, using cloud services, Ansible and then lastly Kubernetes.

The author did a pretty good job of going into each of these topics but not too deep.
I wish the Ansible chapter was a tad easier to understand.
Last chapter was all about Kubernetes, which is a good thing to include in a book about Linux. They pointed out a couple good resources to learn more about Kubernetes, which I found to be quite useful.


TL;DR - Great resource and a good read. Will definitely keep this book to refer back to whenever I need to

[Joe Devine · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first three parts were pretty informative and easy to digest. However, from that point forward things get a bit muddy and painful to get through. The author can't seem to decide if he wants to the reader to follow along or not through the majority of the book. Especially in the later two thirds. I think it's worth having to reference the first third, but the reader would be better served to just refer to online documentation for the content covered in later two thirds. The final section on cloud computing also seems a bit out of date already too now that so much cloud computing utilizes technologies like docker.

[Varun Pant · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book for users new to Linux. Concepts are explained simply with examples. However, even though I always prefer a book on paper, it would be better if you could sit at a terminal along with this book, so a digital copy would be better in this case. Another resource I would recommend is the Arch Linux Wiki which is an open source free resource and constantly updated. I would like to thank all those Linux users who take the time to make comprehensive guides and make it available to the average user.

[Bill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great introduction into mastering the linux system, or in my case the Mac command line. I was familiar with a lot of the commands that this book goes over, chmod, alias, sudo, etc. but I didn't really understand what they were doing. This book gives a much deeper understanding of exactly what is going on in the system. From breaking down the file structure to helping you write your own shell commands this book makes it all relatively simple and straight forward.

[Keyvan Bashash]

A good reference for starting Linux and master it. This book has an easy to understand explanation with many examples, though it is based on RedHat Linux, the later version is more general on linux distributions.

[Ajju · Rating 5 out of 5]

New to linux! Read it thoroughly at least once.

[Ayoub · Rating 5 out of 5]

glancing through this book gives an impression of outdated reference, however the author has supreme way of sorting out topics and command syntax, way to go Christopher (thumps up)

[Morgan Simonsen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Comprehensive book for beginners.

[Saleh Rahimzadeh · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great Linux book.

[Ben Rogers · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a great companion read towards my learning of the Linux system.

I got a lot out of the read and found it helpful.

4.2/5

[Alfred Dean Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good Starting point and reference book

Goes into concept and details. Written for all audiences beginners and seasoned users. Can't wait for next edition exploring new technologies.

[Richard Huang · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very handy book for learning about linux based operating systems. It goes from basic and general descriptions to very detailed explanations and guides. It's very handy as a reference book and is well organized. I would recommend this to anyone who wants to learn more about linux.

[mjb2kmn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very much focused on Red Hat with secondary mention of Ubuntu. Even being a Ubuntu user/admin, I found it moderately useful but mostly as an intro to Red Hat/CentOS.
Overall it's a good place to start for beginners, I wish I'd read it a few years ago.

[Andy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Actually took me a year and a half to finish this book but I am finally a Linux expert

[Marco Bitetto · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book definitely is a no holds barred look into the inner workings of the first most popular
operating system for server and web based interactions of networks of computers.

[Delhi Irc]

GG7 IRC
DL027645

[Javier · Rating 3 out of 5]

Focused in RHL, is still a good entry point to linux and a good reference.

[Michael Short · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is something I will keep on my desk permanently for reference.

[The Architect]

RIP KING CAPITAL STEEZ