Book review: Beginning Ubuntu Linux, Fourth Edition

This is a book review of Beginning Ubuntu Linux: From Novice to Professional, Fourth Edition. The print ISBN is 978-1-4302-1999-6 and the web ISBN is 1-4302-1999-8.

I read the contents of this book almost cover to cover; I only skipped the multimedia section. I read this because I was interested in reading Automating Linux and Unix System Administration, which apparently is last in a sequence that starts with this book, Beginning Ubuntu Linux.

In short, Beginning Ubuntu is an above average introduction to the world of Linux. Anybody who's a windows power user can probably poke around and figure out most things on there own, but parts 4 and 7, The Shell and Beyond and Keeping Your System Running, should be mandatory reading for new Linux users. Part 3, The No Nonsense Starting Guide has some parts which only apply in specific situation, but it's worth reading once.

Part 4, The Shell and Beyond, is a concise and clear introduction to the BASH shell, the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard, and in general, the UNIX way of doing things.

It's not the kind of book I would want to keep around as a reference, at least not for very long. It's not thorough enough on any one subject to make it a good reference. The tone is easy and almost conversational. If you are savvy enough to keep a Windows installation running virus free, and perhaps if you feel comfortable re-installing windows from scratch, then you could probably digest this book pretty easily.

There are two things I think are missing from this book. One is a procedure for surviving a major upgrade. Every ubuntu user is going to do this sooner or later. A novice could use some advice interpreting the various dialogs that will pop up during a distribution upgrade.

The second missing piece is a guide about compiling programs from source. Even if it didn't get a full chapter, novices deserve an overview of how programs are built.