Rating: 
Summary: The penguin is cute
Review: This hefty paperback consists of two parts, four appendices, a glossary
and an index, 1013 pages in all. The preface opens : "This book is *practical* because.... It is a
*guide* [author's emphasis] because it takes you from logging on your system (Chapter
2)...through... and administrating a system (Chapter 15)...it
assumes some experience with a PC or a Mac". The back cover quotes a
reviewer: "In a book primarily and successfully aimed at new users...".
On the strength of those statements, having just installed Caldera
OpenLinux on a 500M partition of my hard disk, and deeming myself a new Linux user
but with some 16 years of PC experience, I bought it.
Had I not become briefly acquainted with Unix ten years ago, I would
still be looking for a way of accessing my floppy drive. "Floppy
diskette" in the index refers you to p.603, in the last chapter, System
Administration, where you learn that "If you have a one gigabyte disk on
your system, you would need more than 600 floppy diskettes to do a full
backup". Period. I could find only one fleeting reference p.625: "For
example, if you have inserted a floppy disk that holds a DOS
filesystem... you can use that filesystem using the command
# mount -t msdos /dev/fd0 /mnt
No amount of searching through the contents or the index will take you
to that page, and if it did, what sense would a new user make of that?
The first chapter, 17 pages long, is a historical presentation of Linux.
Skip it for the second chapter "Getting Started", where you are told,
p.20, "Before you get started, you should know the answers to most of
the following questions", and refers you to pp.929-930. Page 929, in
answer to "What Is My Login Name?" refers you to p.582, "The System
Administrator and Superuser", chapter 15, the very last chapter to
which this "Practical Guide" was supposed to lead you by the hand.
Chapter 6, "What Is a GUI?" deals with X-Windows after 7 pages of
jargon-laden, barely comprehensible introduction, including almost a
whole page on... how to use a mouse! This for an audience with "as a
minimum... some experience with a PC or a Mac" (you are even treated to
a picture of a keyboard, p.929, in case you had never seen one before).
This book, by its title, by the unfulfilled promises in its preface, falls barely short of
fraudulent. The foreword by Linus Torvalds, announced on the front
cover, does nothing to dispel this impression. It is not a foreword to
"A Practical Guide to Linux" at all; it is a mercifully jargon-free
history of how Linux was conceived and developed. Lacking a zero
rating, I give it 1 for the cute penguin on the cover.
Rating: 
Summary: a quality introduction to linux
Review: After reviewing few Lunix book, This book is the best one in its class from a very limited choice in the linux domain. Sobell wrote this one for novice to intermediate level. Advanced user will find some chapters useful. The topic coveres a wide range of HOW TO USE LINUX. If you are new to Unix or Linux and want to get start quickly, this book is a right one for you. It gentle introduces and guides you to Linux usage. It covers in detail many issues, commands, usages or Shell programming. This book, like most books from Allison Wesley, use the high quality paper. Much higher quality than books that cost up to $100.00. The paper simply feels good in the hand. So, what you can expect from this book? It show you how to use Linux, program bash/zsh, use popular utility commands, admin the system, and some introductions to programming in C and debugger tools. In summary, a high quality Linux book with high quality paper. I gives it 5* for the clear writing from Sobell. And I have read many many Unix books in the last 10 years.
Rating: 
Summary: Too Unorganized
Review: Although "A Practical Guide to Linux" is comprehensive,it isn't focused or organized.I can't use it as a reference for that reason-it's too much of a bother to gather all the bits and pieces of information scattered about the book.I instead reach for O'Reilly's "Running Linux",which i would recommend you do also.
Rating:
Summary: Great book by Mark Sobell! Highly recommended!
Review: Before I read this book, I had nil knowledge of Linux and only knew how to install the RedHat distribution of Linux (easy).
Not a foreigner to OS (certified in NT), I knew I had to get over the initial learn curve.
Using this book, I was able to learn the basics and I got everything running (dialin to ISP, upgrade packages...) and it opened up a new world to me. I am very happy with Linux thanks Mark Sobell for showing me the ropes.
Rating:
Summary: Sobell's, A Practical Guide to Linux, is truly first-rate.
Review: Excerpted comments from my USENIX ;login: column, The Bookworm by Peter H. Salus. I've received an abnormally large number of really good books over the past few months. Even three on Java that made me relent a bit. Perl, Tcl, C++, Icon, AWK, intranets, extranets, Linux and security are among the other topics. ...Linux: Linux books are sprouting as though they were Java. Most of the ones I've seen are less than wonderful. However, Sobell's, A Practical Guide to Linux, is truly first-rate. After introducing the system and the file system, Sobell proceeds to shells and (wonder of wonders!) actually discusses zsh intelligently. He also does a fine job on the utility programs.
Rating: 
Summary: This book is very useful.
Review: First, a disclaimer: I'm quoted on the back cover, but I don't benefit financially from this book's success, yadda yadda yadda. This is the only 1000-page "tome" about Linux I have found that I find technically trustworthy. All the others that I have looked at so far (and I have looked at most of them, I think) have had significant errors of fact and noticable errors of ommission. I am of the opinion that this book has far fewer errors of either type than any book in this market. Mark's focus is USING Linux, including doing simple programming tasks. One of the advantages of the Linux platform is that programming tools are available to every user, and Mark spends considerable space showing users how to take advantage of them to save themselves time. His focus is also clearly tutorial. This is not a reference book. Even the command reference at the end of the book is not a complete reference, but DOES contain useful tutorial examples. I use the vi editor. I would not use this book to look up how to do a task in vi, but I did read the chapter on vi carefully, and did learn how to use it better. Again, I wouldn't use it as a reference for shell programming, but I did read the shell programming chapter through and learned several things that I didn't know before. While there is one chapter on System Adminstration, it covers only the basic system administration tasks required on any Linux machine. It is not a replacement for the manual that came with your version of Linux, which should have more specifics that relate to your particular version. One of the great challenges that this book faces is one of organization. It is impossible to write a guide that neither assumes prior knowledge nor has forward references; this book seems to me to do a better job than most of making chapters understandable without reading all the forward references. Most of the errors I have found in the other "tomes" will not cause problems for someone who just wants to use a Linux system that someone else maintains for them to do a few simple tasks. However, I think that this book is best for readers who wish to learn about the operating system. This is the best book of its kind for teaching you to become independent of the book in practice. I don't mean to say that after you have read the book once, you will no longer want to read it. Rather, as you use this book, you will find that it teaches you effectively, by example, to use Linux intelligently even when you don't have access to this book. This book taught me several things as I was reviewing it, and I'm fairly expert in Linux. It is not perfect, but it is useful even to folks with a fairly limited amount of knowledge and also to those who know more. I should probably rate this book as a 10, since I believe that it is currently the best tome on Linux. I have instead rated it as an 8 so that when later editions correct some of the minor lacunae, I can raise my rating. :-)
Rating:
Summary: This book is very useful.
Review: First, a disclaimer: I'm quoted on the back cover, but I don't benefit financially from this book's success, yadda yadda yadda. This is the only 1000-page "tome" about Linux I have found that I find technically trustworthy. All the others that I have looked at so far (and I have looked at most of them, I think) have had significant errors of fact and noticable errors of ommission. I am of the opinion that this book has far fewer errors of either type than any book in this market. Mark's focus is USING Linux, including doing simple programming tasks. One of the advantages of the Linux platform is that programming tools are available to every user, and Mark spends considerable space showing users how to take advantage of them to save themselves time. His focus is also clearly tutorial. This is not a reference book. Even the command reference at the end of the book is not a complete reference, but DOES contain useful tutorial examples. I use the vi editor. I would not use this book to look up how to do a task in vi, but I did read the chapter on vi carefully, and did learn how to use it better. Again, I wouldn't use it as a reference for shell programming, but I did read the shell programming chapter through and learned several things that I didn't know before. While there is one chapter on System Adminstration, it covers only the basic system administration tasks required on any Linux machine. It is not a replacement for the manual that came with your version of Linux, which should have more specifics that relate to your particular version. One of the great challenges that this book faces is one of organization. It is impossible to write a guide that neither assumes prior knowledge nor has forward references; this book seems to me to do a better job than most of making chapters understandable without reading all the forward references. Most of the errors I have found in the other "tomes" will not cause problems for someone who just wants to use a Linux system that someone else maintains for them to do a few simple tasks. However, I think that this book is best for readers who wish to learn about the operating system. This is the best book of its kind for teaching you to become independent of the book in practice. I don't mean to say that after you have read the book once, you will no longer want to read it. Rather, as you use this book, you will find that it teaches you effectively, by example, to use Linux intelligently even when you don't have access to this book. This book taught me several things as I was reviewing it, and I'm fairly expert in Linux. It is not perfect, but it is useful even to folks with a fairly limited amount of knowledge and also to those who know more. I should probably rate this book as a 10, since I believe that it is currently the best tome on Linux. I have instead rated it as an 8 so that when later editions correct some of the minor lacunae, I can raise my rating. :-)
Rating: 
Summary: Not for the unix expert
Review: Got this in last night and sent it back today. Appears to be a very good book for the beginner. If you are a unix expert already its not for you. You, like me, are probably looking for the quickie knowledge transfer book.
Rating:
Summary: Fine details well documented
Review: Great step by step tour of the details of the
many distributions of the Linux OS.
A lot of great details - like a play-by-play
of many of the files in the /etc directory.
It has not left my side. Plenty of good info
in a level that isn't too thick to progress through. Excellent for someone who is acquainted
to Linux and looking to get a more intimate knowledge.
Rating:
Summary: A first Reference for Linux
Review: Great work from Mark Sobell... this man is really good! . I'm constantly returning to this book as a reference. It's more recommended for newbies , as it goes through all unix world (concepts,basic commands,shells,etc..) but after you get experienced you'll use it as good reference for some doubts. the main commands are all there with all those -xxxxxx options indeed. I also agree with one of the reviews that said that it needs some new review as it was written is 1997, but it's still a very good value book. Every admin should have one in the shelf.
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