The Linux Cookbook Second Edition review

ISBN 1593270313

Pages 576

For this second edition of The Linux Cookbook, Michael Stutz has completely revised and expanded his original book of hints and tips to take into account how Linux has evolved since the first edition in 2001.

The book is divided neatly into logical parts, which are split into detailed sections covering everything from Linux basics to productivity tasks and beyond. There is an overview table of contents as well as a more detailed listing to help the reader negotiate the sheer amount of information. Along with genuinely useful tricks such as how to find the differences between two similar files and customising the Vi text editor, there are more quirky topics. These include using Emacs to generate long sections of random but seemingly readable text based on what has been previously entered.

This is a big book packed with information, but it's possibly just a little too packed. Some tips have more than one method; for example, it shows four ways of displaying the hexadecimal values of a piece of text. For the less-skilled system administrator, this information overload could lead to confusion.

That said, the book includes sections that few other volumes of general Linux tips touch on in quite the same detail. The section on sound is particularly interesting. It starts with playing and recording sound in different formats and quickly advances through to editing and encoding sound and adding effects. It would have been nice to see something about the increasing number of music-creation applications, too.

This is a great book and one you'll dip into often. Packed with information, it will see extensive use and should inspire those wondering what to do with their first Linux system.

Author: Jon Thompson