This is a good paper Linux reference for system administrators and (to some extent) software developers. If you are using Linux as a desktop system this is probably not the book for you, because you will do everything through a GUI and will never need anything in this book.

Despite initial appearances, this is not just a dump of all the Unix man pages. Each command entry is considerably condensed, with less-used options omitted and most of the more verbose option descriptions shrunk to one line. On the other hand it gives lengthier and more useful synopses than the man pages do. Some of the more complicated programs such as gawk and cvs have their own chapters with detailed introductions to the tools.

This is almost totally a reference, with no tutorial information and some scattered examples. The introductory sections on each tool are good. The book has a good functional index which helps find the relevant commands.

I have mixed feelings about the level of coverage in this book. It's perched in an awkward place between a really comprehensive reference (which would have to be multiple volumes) and an overview that alerts you to the capabilities and where to find the commands, without giving you the parameters and options. I think I would like it better if it had less detail, so I could quickly get an overview (without rummaging through 942 pages) and then delve into the man pages for the details. Think of the present book as a desktop encyclopedia: it gives you a good overview, and if you already know an area it can remind you of the parameters, but it's neither a tutorial nor a complete reference.

When you need to know what a Linux command does and all the options you can use with it, this book is the one to buy. I have two other books on how to install and use Linux. They teach you about the integrated software and some of the operating system commands for specific actions. This book details the commands and syntax in depth.

This book has a LOT of technical info. However, finding info by keyword in the index of the book was for myself kind of frustrating. That's why I gave it 3 instead of 5 stars. Plus, this is not what I would call a beginners book. As I move along in Linux though, I believe this book will become valuable.

As my experience suggests this highly useful book does very well as a companion for "UNIX Essentials and UNIX Core" DVD. While it is nicely written it is a pleasure to read and follow. As I followed someone's review, I have coupled it with the DVD and they supplement one another quite nicely! Concise format makes it easier to find topics as required.

Hiya!
this book is a waste of money and space. what kind of an idiot would carry this book around? when all the information is in the linux system itself?? MAN pages and INFO pages.

observe. you can search for utilities in the Linux system by using APROPOS. can you automatically search for the utility you want in this thick thick book? lets say i want to use an editor. all you do from the command line is...

x@y:/$ apropos editor

the linux system automatically searches the database and man pages for the keyword "editor" and you get a whole list of editors you can choose from. try that with this book, all the utilities in this book are listed alphebetically... very good filtering / indexing system indeed *sarcasm*

you have to have pretty good knowledge and know the command and what you're looking for from the beginning to find this book useful. the irony of this is that once your knowledge level is at that level all you really need are the MAN pages.

Title: Linux in a Nutshell: A Desktop Quick Reference (5th Edition)
Authors: Ellen Siever, Aaron Weber, Stephen Figgins, Robert Love, Arnold Robbins
Publisher: O'Reilly
Pages: 925
ISBN: 0-596-00930-5

Linux in a Nutshell: A Desktop Quick Reference is exactly what it says in the subtitle. The book is geared almost exclusively to someone sitting at a machine, looking for how a command is used. If you're just starting with Linux and are looking for something to get you started, this is not the book you want. If you want something that will teach you how to use Linux, the introduction recommends Learning Red Hat Linux or Running Linux, both of which are also from O'Reilly. Pick up Linux in a Nutshell if you already have at least a basic understanding of using Linux and want a good book for looking up how specific commands work.

The book starts off with a brief introduction that is equal parts extolling the virtues of Linux and description of the books content. The introduction is followed by a short section (5 pages) listing commands a beginning user might need, followed by a slightly longer (18 pages) list of common System and Network administration commands. These sections contain just enough description to know why and how you might use these commands. But you don't need to wait long before you get more detail. In the next chapter you hit the meat of the book, which is a 500 page alphabetized list of Linux commands. They provide the syntax for the command, along with a list of any options that are available. For me, the value here is not having to swap back and forth between looking at man pages and what I'm trying to work on.

Chapters 4-6 are divided into task related sections. These sections all follow about the same format: a brief description of the process involved, followed by a list of related commands, their syntax, and options. The first of these (Ch 4) describes how to setup a Dual boot machine. They cover the use of LILO and GRUB, providing the commands and options used by each. Chapter 5 covers Package Management, the process used to install and update applications. They cover the use of RPM (Redhat Package Manager) and Debian style packages. They go into detail about various methods using apt, rpm, up2date, yum, and synaptic. They also cover building packages for those developing their own applications. Chapter 6 goes in depth into the functionality of the Bash and Korn shells. It covers both commands that can be issued at a prompt and the use of shell scripts.

Chapters 7-11 cover some of the text manipulation utilities in Linux. Chapter 7 goes over pattern matching and the use of regular expressions. There's also a handy chart of what metacharacters work in which utility. Chapter 8 talks about the text editing functions of Emacs, including a 13 page list of commands and the associated hotkeys. Chapter 9 covers the same for vi, ex, and vim. Chapter 10 covers the application sed and its use as a script based text editing tool. Chapter 11 describes awk/gawk and how they can be used for text processing and as a scripting program language.

Chapters 12-14 address Source code management in Linux. Chapter 12 gives a brief overview of the concepts of multiple developers, code versions, and source code repositories. It also introduces several code management systems. Chapters 13 and 14 go in depth about two of these, CVS and Subversion, respectively.

Finally, there's a comprehensive index of both topics and commands. One of my pet peeves, especially with reference books, is a weak index. That is definitely not the case here. This book makes it easy to find what you're looking for. As far as I can tell, all the commands are indexed, and a random sampling of topics always netted me the correct page number.

In conclusion, Linux in a Nutshell does an excellent job of providing you the commands and utilities available in your typical Linux installation. If you know what you're trying to do, this book is handy for looking up the command and syntax required to do it. The entries are clear and concise, but still provide a good level of detail on the commands, switches, and options they're describing.

over half of this book consists of material already available in the "man" pages on a linux system.

the book boasts how it includes many many examples on how to use each command, this is utterly false. there are infact too few examples included.

100% of the material in this book can be found on the internet, on the linux system's info and man pages.

this book will not be friendly for the linux newbie. the title is misleading, "in a nutshell" usually means "the basics of a working system". this book is merely acts as reference for the abundance of reference freely available.

Linux in a 900+ pages "nutshell" is a very well designed and most useful reference book. It includes the following sections:

* Linux commands
* Boot methods
* Package Management
* Bash and Korn
* Pattern Matching
* Emacs
* Vi
* Sed
* Gawk
* Source code management
* CVS
* Subversion

From this listing you can tell what this book is and what it is not. It is *not* a GNU/Linux tutorial or HOWTO. It is a "how do I do this" reference book for somebody who already understands GNU/Linux but who need to get something done with a non-favorite tool, like somebody used to Bash sitting in front of a Korn shell, or a EMACS user having to get something done with vi. It is also a "portable man page" for most GNU/Linux commands.

I find this book extremenly valuable and it would be one of those that I would keep handy at all times.

Linux in a Nutshell is well worth its price tag. I've found it very useful while I learned Linux from various sources because other sources leave out information and act like the reader already knows the command, its options, and what it will do. When I read the Debian GNU/Linux Bible I was often perplexed at times when they mentioned commands that were never mentioned before; however, I would just open up Linux in a Nutshell and voila, there was the necessary information.

I found it indispensable for text editors. Ever get completely stuck in a Linux program because an author told you to do this and that? Well, I have and I've even tried accessing the built-in "help" only to get stuck there too. And my only solution was to reboot. Not a great solution. This quickly cleared up any problems.

Overall, it's useful for the beginner, the intermediate, and the experienced user. A beginner needs to figure out what a command does and how to use it, an intermediate user may need to refer to a specific command from time to time, and an expert can easily find use in its excellent ability to act as a reference book (just leave it next to the monitor for when you need to look something up). In the case of the expert, however, the man pages might be a better alternative. The beginner and intermediate may find it easier to read off the screen while working, which is what I recommend (and do).

Do you need quick access to information on a wide range of tools? Well, you're in luck! Authors Ellen Siever, Aaron Weber, Stephen Figgins, Robert Love and Arnold Robbins, have done an outstanding job of writing the fifth edition of a book about Linux. This is a freely available clone of the Unix operating system whose uses range from embedded systems and PDAs to corporate servers, web servers, and massive clusters that perform some of the world's most difficult computations.

Siever, Weber, Figgins, Love and Robbins begin by explaining Linux's strengths and the key aspects of working with Linux, and lay out the scope of this book. Next, the authors introduce TCP/IP networking and the Linux commands used for system administration and network management. Then, they present a reference listing of hundreds of the most important shell commands available on Linux. The authors continue by covering the commands used to control booting on Linux and dual-booting, particularly LILO, GRUB, and initrd. In addition, the authors next explain the apt series of commands that manage updating and installation on Debian, and the RPM system used by Red Hat/Fedora, Novell/SUSE, and several other distributions of Linux. They also document the default command-line interpreter on Linux, Bash, and another popular interpreter, ksh. Next, the authors introduce regular expressions and explain how different tools interpret these powerful tools for searching and text processing. Then, they provide reference information on Emacs, a text editor and full-featured development environment. The authors continue by describing the classic vi editor that is the most popular text-manipulation tool on Linux. In addition, the authors then describe the Stream editor that is useful for processing files in standardized ways. They also document another valuable tool for processing text files, the GNU version of awk that is the default on Linux systems. Next, the authors provide the background for understanding CVS and Subversion, which are valuable tools for tracking changes to files and projects. Then, they provide a description of a popular source code management and version-control tool. Finally, they describe what is generally considered the next generation of CVS.

With the preceding in mind, the authors have also done an excellent job of writing a quick reference guide for the basic commands and features of the Linux operating system. So, at the end of the day, with this book, you'll know what you want to do and how to do it with the correct command or option!

Linux in a Nutshell, now in it's fifth edition, is one of the classic works of Linux documentation. Much has changed with Linux in the two years since the fourth edition was published, and Linux in a Nutshell reflects those changes with several major changes to the book, while keeping the parts that worked from previous editions.

What's new?

Linux in an Nutshell has grown since the early days of the first edition, not the least of which is the number of pages the book comprises of (924 pages). Linux in an Nutshell reflects the constantly evolving and morphing changes that comprise the Linux distributions of today. Both GNOME and KDE are radically different from their 2003 versions, so the authors wisely decided to remove those chapters from this edition. They also removed the chapter dealing with FVWM. (I've never understood why GUIs are documented in a Linux book anyways, as the GUI is the component most succeptible to change.) TCSH is no longer covered in this edition, favoring expanded coverage of both bash and ksh. Reflecting the changing needs of revision control in the Linux community, the authors also decided to drop the chapter on RCS in favor of a new chapter on Subversion. Not all changes involve deletions, though. The chapter for package management now includes yum and up2date (both methods for keeping a Linux machine updated from a remote repository), as well as updates for the newer versions of RPM and apt. Many of the commands have also been updated to reflect new functionality (one useful command I found as a result of this book is diff3, which compares three different files at the same time), while others have been removed because they're not generally useful (imake, anyone? :) ).

What's good?

Linux in a Nutshell is quite simply an excellent reference for useful commands in Linux. The layout makes it easy to find a command in a hurry. The command descriptions are informative, and the command line options are well balanced to provide just the right amount of information without overloading the reader with useless functionality. The specialized chapters for vi, Emacs, sed, awk, bash/ksh, CVS and Subversion go into more depth than the other commands, and give an excellent insight into the methods, capabilities, and pitfalls of each of these commands.

What's the verdict?

If you're currently using an older edition of Linux in a Nutshell, it's time to upgrade. Linux in a Nutshell remains true to the original spirit of the Nutshell series, while expanding to reflect the realities of the current Linux distributions. Beginners and experts alike will find this book informative, useful, and well-thumbed. It's a difficult task to take Linux and distill it into under a thousand pages, but the authors have once again risen to the task to make a reference that everyone will enjoy using.

One week ago i got this book Linux in a Nutshell. I started reading it night after finishing my dinner. i was greatly impressed by the author approach at the matter covered. its a great reference book
for all linux professional and for beginers too . The way author
has explained complicated Unix commands and terms its a great help
for newbies.
While working i too forgot some linux commands especially while
working over sed awk and emacs but know i can turn on some pages
and get back to my machine without wasting time on google.
I do recommend all linux professionals to include this book
in their library

I guess this book is the best Linux commands reference available. Should you need anything beyond it, man will be your last resort.

This is not a how to or a cookbook about Linux (for this kind of book, search Amazon for the Linux "how", "bible", "unleashed", "discover" and so on; there are many of them). It is not, as well, a book about Linux internals (for them, search the "kernel" and "device drivers" Linux books).

If you do not like to use man or would rather have some paper reference, this book is probably your best purchase.

This is O'Reilly at it's best, thorough and well research, concise and well produced. This is the lookup reference for everything you need to know about Linux commands. It should be on the bookshelf of any sysadmin or user, and placed so that it's easy to reach.

If you're an administrator or developer who works with Linux on a regular basis, it's time to bring your reference books up to date. This 5th edition reflects important changes and improvements to the Linux and its key utilities, including commercial network services and community update services. Bequeath your 3rd edition to someone just getting his or her feet wet.

Since it's not possible to remember all of the Linux commands, a nice, big user's guide is very useful. This one is the best, since it's clearly written and all of the commands are covered in alphabetical order. The level of writing exceeds most other computer manuals. With this manual at your side, you can use Linux with ease.

Unless you are a seasoned Linux guru who never forgets anything, then you should buy Linux in a Nutshell. This is quite possibly one of the most essential books for anyone working with Linux. If you are like me, reading documentation online can be tedious and having a handy reference volume is better than stumbling through Google search results. Linux in a Nutshell covers major user, programming, administration and networking tools for popular Linux distributions. At over 900 pages, this hefty volume can save you time and prevent you from making mistakes. Have you ever gotten regular expression wrong and deleted a bunch of files? This handy reference can help prevent future mistakes!

At first glance Linux in a Nutshell may appear to be nothing more than Linux's manual pages in print form - but it's much more. The whopping 400-page third chapter provides a comprehensive reference guide to almost any standard Linux command you will need. Hundreds, possibly thousands, of commands are covered in this chapter. Arranged alphabetically for quick reference, you can easily find the proper documentation for a command. For example, consider the simple shell command 'ls' used to list contents of directories. Often you may find yourself wanting to list items in a specific way. If you pull up the man pages on your console terminal or SSH window, you will find yourself scrolling through a myriad of pages. Or with this book next to you, you could turn to page 258 and quickly run through all of the various listing options. There are nearly 50 different command options for the seemingly simply listing command. With this reference volume, you can scan through them all in seconds.


Another excellent chapter covers package managers. It provides a solid introduction to Red Hat's rpm format and Debian's deb format. If you use Linux, then you probably grab packages frequently and install them. This chapter will guide you through many aspects of the package manager. Especially useful on Red Hat is rpm's verify command. If you suspect your system has been hacked, using rpm to verify md5 checksums can be a very quick way to check on specific files.

Learning to use a text editor is essential to becoming a good system administrator. Linux in a Nutshell covers Emacs and vi. Linux text editors can be very powerful when you know the right commands. Also editors like vi tend to preserve a files format better than simpler editors like pico. Though these chapters will not replace a dedicated reference volume they are certainly handy when you need to find a quick way to change a text file.

Linux in a Nutshell is an excellent reference volume. At first, you may not think you will use it, but once it is at your side, you will find yourself referring to it often. Even if you're a seasoned Linux user, you occasionally run across some command that you may not know well. Rather than stumbling though man pages and often-inappropriate online documentation, you could use this book and have your answer in seconds. In short, if you use Linux, buy this book.

I bought this book to understand and to know some very usefull linux commands. What I didnt knew was that this book is awesome, it brings mostly commands you will ever need explaining to you how to use them. Very Cool Book!

This is a good overall reference on Linux. The bulk of the book summarizes the Linux commands (over several hundred pages). The remaining sections deal with system and network administration issues, various shells and editors, version control, and GUI interfaces. I found the book to be quite readable and the index complete. It is a very good complement to many "Learning Linux" type books by filling in details. Heartily recommend it.

It is essentially printed MAN pages. If you are looking for a beginners' course try "UNIX essentials" DVD it is one of the kind and very helpful. This book can be a nice reference when you KNOW already what are you looking for.

This book is basically the MAN pages included with Linux, and all versions of UNIX. But it's in a form that can be held and browsed through making it much more usable and convenient.

This is a great reference book. In my opinion, THE Linux desktop reference.

It is well written, concise, clear and complete. If your budget is limited to one Linux reference, this is the one.

If you understand what "in a nutshell" means, then you shall be pleased with this book. It is not a tutorial, it is not a beginners' guide, it is not a theory book... it is a reference book, featuring entries that are succinct, to the point, sparse in places, but complete in breadth and indispensable.

I don't use Linux for my work station (Mac OS X) or for my servers (BSD UNIX) and so when I need to do something on a Linux box the UNIX commands at my fingertips sometimes don't work; then I turn to this book. Very handy.

I've used Unix on and off for over 20 years, and I've never gotten an appreciation of the on-line documentation. So when I decided to dabble with Linux, I went searching for a command reference. This is the one! All you need to know about the command line programs as well as additional chapters on the top window managers, editors, shells, resource control, boot managers, and other topics that seem to come up frequently. O'Reilly comes through again!

After spending a fair bit of time with FreeBSD and needing some information regarding Linux installations I thought this book would be a good way to speed things along. Wrong. It's not that this book is too expensive, or poorly put together, but it's little more than a cursory overview of the Linux operating system and a listing of the commands to get things done with a terminal. But even to find the commands to do simple things such as renaming files, is too time consuming to be bothered with. Simply doing a Google for the stuff you want to know is much quicker and more comprehensive.

Whole chapters are committed to such stuff as Emacs and KDE. But, yet again, there are specific websites with HTML help manuals for this, and more.

These Open Source books are pretty much a waste of paper, simply because, being Open Source, it's all available online, or in the manuals provided with the distros.

I had the 3rd edition of this book, and the 2nd, and was really hesitant about getting this latest edition. After all, linux is pretty mature these days, isn't it?

Then I read the other reviews, and decided to get it. Glad I did so! Linux is still rapidly expanding, and it really helps to get the latest authoritative scoop, thanks to OReilly.

How many times have you been trying to find a particular command but just can't remember what it was called. How many times have you been typing in a command and forgot the options available?

Through this book, the author has taken many of the substaintial commands for users, admins, networking and programming and rolled them into a dictionary of sort for Linux users.

Sure, you can find out a lot about any command through the online man pages, but the author has taken the somewhat cryptic man pages and broken them down into simple, to the point, references laid out much like you would expect to find in a dictionary.

In addition, you'll find handy reference manuals for common utilities, such as emacs, vi, CVS, sed and awk. While each of these could fill a book in themselves, the author has broken them down to the bare basics to help you get up and running and understand basic operation of each.

All in all, a wonderful reference manual that will compliment more in-depth manuals on actual use and administration of a Linux system.

This is a book that you should keep handy while working with Linux. Every time I had a doubt in commands, this book always had an answer.

If you are looking for a tutorial on Linux, or detailed installation or other step by step tasks, this is not for you.

This is an excellent book for you to have buy your side when you're busy working on the terminal.

400 pages of the 900 pages are a reprint of the man pages. Other parts of the book can be found online. For example the chapters on shell programming, you can find similar stuff online.

I would like to know how to change task priorities. I heard about the nice command. I look it up in the book and it is just a reprint of the man pages. The man documentation isn't very helpful.

If you don't like to read online, then this is book for you. If I purchased this book from a local book store, I would return it. Anyone know of a better book for experienced people coming from the MS Windows world?

Daniel

I have used Linux (nearly every major and some minor distributions) and I cannot tell you how many times this book has saved me. It is also great because a huge percentage of the commands covered also work just fine in UNIX (though I recommend UNIX in a nutshell too. I also have never bought a book from O'Rielly that was less than top notch. If you are a newbie or want to learn Linux in general BUY THIS BOOK WITH ANOTHER BOOK. Like all of the ....in a nutshell books it's reference book not a read cover-to-cover book....

I'm one of the authors on this book and I figured I should point out what's new in the 5th edition, and how we improved it over the 4th one.

My favorite improvement is that in the reference section, we put in lots more examples, so it's easier to see the most common uses of commands. Also, we got kernel developer Robert Love to write a lot of the developer and kernel-related sections, so you know that they're applicable to real-life developer tasks.

Changes to content for the 5th edition: power management now covers ACPI, printing covers CUPS, and the kernel section now focuses on kernel 2.6. The subversion version control tool and the GRUB bootloader get a lot more coverage, too.

In my humble opinion, this is an indispensable reference, and in addition to being an update, it's an improvement in style and substance over the previous edition.

This book is a good choice if you've ever asked questions like: What's a shell script and how do I write one? How do I use a version control system? How do I select an arbitrary rectangle in Emacs? How do I write a makefile? How do you build an RPM, anyway? This can also be good to have as a reference for new users-- read the introduction, read up on the tools you're using, then keep it there by your side, and you'll grow into this book as you learn to do more with Linux. (You may also want to consider "Running Linux," which is an overview and introduction, with more focus on GUI applications and end-user tools).