Comments about oreilly Ubuntu Linux Toolbox: 1000+ Commands for Power Users, 2nd Edition:

I'm not a power user. I'm an an everyday user of Ubuntu who does not like to spend a lot of time tinkering with the computer.(I shifted to Ubuntu because I got fed up with all the problems I was having with Windows.)

I like this book because it is very clearly and succinctly written, very well organized, and very practical.

It's not just a list of commands with options but rather provides context, background and explanation for the commands and when and why you might use them.

For example, here's an excerpt of his discussion of compression commands:

"While compression can save a lot of storage space and transfer times, it can significantly increase your CPU usage. You can consider using hardware compression on a tape drive (see www.amanda.org/docs/faq.html#id346016).

In the examples shown in the previous section, tar calls the gzip command. But tar can work with many compression tools. Out of the box on Ubuntu, tar will work with gzip and bzip2. A third compression utility you can add to your toolbox is the lzop command, which can be used with tar in a different way. The order of these tools from fastest/least compression to slowest/most compression is: lzop, gzip, and bzip2.

If you are archiving and compressing large amounts of data, the time it takes to compress your backups can be significant. So you should be aware that, in general, bzip2 may take about 10 times longer than lzop and only give you twice the compression. However, with each compression command, you can choose different compression levels, to balance the need for more compression with the time that compression takes."

Comments about oreilly Ubuntu Linux Toolbox: 1000+ Commands for Power Users, 2nd Edition:

I have no complaints about this book, it is excellent as a desk reference when performing tasks that are a bit out of your daily routine. I'd not recommend this as the sole text for learning but along side a book designed for such it would be excellent.

Comments about oreilly Ubuntu Linux Toolbox: 1000+ Commands for Power Users, 2nd Edition:

Like a fruitcake, this book is very dense with information, but the layout convention makes it easy to get suck out just the colorful fruity bits. It's also probably better with a cup of rum, but that's a different topic.

Text is formatted to emphasize content discovery in increasing order of detail - command, explanation, output, notes/warning, purpose and supporting background info. I could go on about serif, bolding fonts and whitespace, but I'll just summarize - effortless reading.

Each chapter starts with a sidebar of contents/cmds and ends with a summary of the top three of four takeaway points. Thus it works at several levels - the novice will get the most value from the intro and summary, the intermediate will appreciate the judicious grouping of information so he can focus on areas of inexperience, the advanced user will find tips to squeeze a little more power from a few less keystrokes sprinkled throughout.

Personally, I have been a unix sysadmin for over fifteen years and yet every five to ten pages and I am highlighting tips - editing command history, ssh-tunneling and agents, remmina for RDP&SSH&VNC, network troubleshooting and more.

This book was written by pros at writing Linux books and the difference is clear - structure, format, tone, thoroughness, editing are all good. I have several classic sysadmin books. This stands out for its ease in quickly leading your eyes to the command that you need - the very definition of a reference book.