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Ubuntu Unleashed (2nd Edition) ReviewI received 3 Ubuntu titles and thought it might be useful to compare them. Ubuntu is a fairly recent Linux distribution that strives to be usable out of the box, with strong support. It has deep pockets and a thriving community behind it. I admire a lot of the design choices that went into Ubuntu, such as limiting the use of the all-powerful root account, which can get people into trouble. The bare-bones server install is the cleanest Linux server I've seen - *no* open ports, minimal services. Just enough to log in at a console and then install what you want. On the other hand, if you want a LAMP server (Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP - the most popular combination on the internet), that's a one button install! Brilliant!
I think all three books are pretty good, and your choice will depend on your technical level and religious ferver. If you are uncomfortable with computers, I think _Moving to Ubuntu_ is your best choice. If you are somewhat comfortable and into the philosophy behind Ubuntu, _the Official Ubuntu book_ is your best choice. If you are unintimidated by the topic, _Ubuntu Unleashed_ has the most detailed technical coverage. You can get a free, fully-functional installation and livecd just for asking, or downloading. The only thing I don't like is the iptables firewall. A "linux for everyone" needs an easier firewall to deal with. (I love pf, written for OpenBSD and now showing up on other systems.)
Ubuntu Unleashed - Andrew Hudson, Paul Hudson
This is the most detailed of the three titles. It's aimed at a more technically proficient audience than the other two. It has the highest page count, and there's more print on the page. It also has the most demanding writing style; the other two are more conversational (especially MTU). It's perfectly clear, but the tone is not as reassuring to newbies. I think a Linux newbie who was fairly technical would still be comfortable, and it presupposes very little knowledge. It's mostly a matter of tone.Part I, Installation and Configuration is about 260 pages.
Part II, System Administration, is about 170 pages.
Part III, Ubuntu as a server, is about 175 pages. It introduces Apache, Postfix, and other services.
Part IV, Programming, introduces Perl, Python, PHP, and some tools to use with C/C++ (but nothing on those languages themselves)
Part V, Housekeeping revists and amplifies Part II.
The good: I really like the organization. The other books are laid out for someone who has just installed, or is about to install,Ubuntu. This one expects that you will read much more material before hitting the keyboard. That's not a bad thing, for its audience. Home users won't have a lot of use for the mass deployment advice, for example, but IT folks might. In particular, this is the only book of the three to cover using Kickstart to automate installation.
I like how it gives two tables of contents, one brief, one detailed. (The detailed table of contents is 23 pages! The index is 62, but misses some keywords.) Each chapter recaps important commands, and provides links for further information. That's a great template I wish other books would adopt.
It briefly covers the history of Linux and the Ubuntu distribution of Linux. The other two books are a bit more evangelical about Ubuntu. This intro is more for the "Just the Facts, Ma'am" crowd. It is enthusiastic about Open Source and Linux in general.
They lift material from other books, especially Fedora Core Unleashed. That's not a bad thing - is it necessary come up with a new way to describe how TCP/IP works for each book you write? There's a lot of generic information that applies to most distros. A book that was only about Ubuntu and not general system administration would be pretty weak, in my opinion. This has a lot of good information about
running your system.
It introduces servers like the Postfix email server, and programming languages like Perl. Huge books are written on some of these topics, so you might wonder whether there was any point in a short chapter on them. In most cases, I'd say there is some point. You may not master Perl with what they give you, but you might be able to figure out some things. The Sguid proxy server treatment is short but could be very useful.
The Bad: The book was hastily thrown together, lifting or adapting a lot of material from Fedora Core Unleashed. As I said earlier, the repetition of material is not bad if the material is generic. But I don't expect to hear a lot about obtaining RPMs (software packages used by Fedora, among many other distros, but NOT by Ubuntu) in an Ubuntu book. At one point, they actually refer to Ubuntu Core! I'd lay odds there was a search and replace function used to swap "Ubuntu" for "Fedora" when it should have been for "Fedora Core." At another, they refer to different backup applications being available to the "business oriented" version. Ubuntu doesn't segment itself this way - that's a Redhat characteristic. There are tools mentioned that just aren't part of Ubuntu, as well.
The Security Chapter is terrible. It even describes itself as "all you need", but it isn't remotely enough. I give the other two books a pass because they are mostly aimed at users, not system administrators. This book needs a third coauthor who is well-versed in locking down internet-facing linux boxes.
A minor thing - the book is riddled with examples that will be dated before it goes out of print: hard drive prices and capacities, etc.
Chapter Notes - lots of nit-picks. Like I said, this is a good book overall.
Chapter One: Good short history, covers the bases of why this Matters.
Chapter Two: Good hardware compatibility resources. Useful USB incompatibility warning. Partition info is good - hint on partition for laptop suspend.
Chapter Three: it's customary when providing an example password to advise against using the example on your own systems - the examples often wind up in password cracking databases.
Chapter Four: Post-Install Config. Good tip on making a backup copy of each
Chapter Five: really nice description of the file system layout.
Chapter Six: X-Windows. It misses a chance to show how to set up a remote session. This is handled elsewhere, but why not here?
Chapter Seven: Software. This chapter is missing a section on dpkg, which is the underlying package management tool used by the other tools they talk about. They discuss it much later.
Chapter 8: Browsing/Email - good discussion of using mail from the command line (useful for scripts!)
Chapter 9: Productivity. Glosses over the use of Open Office, which is probably o.k. The audience can figure that out or get an Open Office book. Overstates coverage of groupware in Chapter 8 - it wasn't "in detail". Good call to plug Codeweavers for running native MS Office. Some people have to...
Chapter 10: Multimedia. This chapter suffers most from its origins in Fedora Unleashed. It's riddled with references to RPMs. Installing a t.v. card requires editing kernel modules, should refer to Chapter 35.
Chapter 11: Image Manipulation. VERY BAD ADVICE telling people to enable remote X sessions by entering xhost+ This is unfathomable!
Chapter 12: Printing. Pretty much just a UI run-through.
Chapter 13: Games. Good coverage, nice to know that the main first person shooters are available natively. Also good to know about Cedega, a games-oriented emulation package. Another Redhat-ism: Cedega is "not available via Yum"
Chapter 14: Users. Good coverage of user accounts, including those used by system services. Learned some stuff. User disk space quotas are mentioned, but I found the discussion unclear. User Accounting is a useful tool for security as well as old-fashioned timeshare billing, and they cover it pretty well. Really odd advice that you can edit /etc/shadow with a text editor. This is unsound.
Chapter 15: Automating Tasks. This was great. I learned new stuff, like scheduling jobs for a list or range of times. I liked the shell script introduction. There's an odd reference to Tripwire and Logwatch being included. You can install them, but they aren't included by default. Maybe another Fedora leakage? I liked the shell
script examples, but would have liked to see a few more, especially for the If clauses.
Chapter 16: System Monitoring. I learned good stuff about Top, time, and watch. Vmstat is a new one to me.
Chapter 17: Backups. It's arguably out of scope, but I think that they should mention that these days backup tapes have to be handled like evidence, with a chain of custody and logged distruction/wiping/disposal. Really liked the coverage of tar,
learned about incremental backups with it. dd coverage good, especially the warning about confusing source and target. Odd discussion of KDE gui backup tools - "archive has...function of system administrator...no GUI necessary" This applies equally to the Gnome tools like File Roller. Why say this in section on KDE tools? Liked the mc tool, but there is no package available for Ubuntu. They refer to obsolete rcp command, and say they previously mentioned it. I don't think they did! The index doesn't cover it. Big confusion in ext2/ext3 undelete: you can't undelete in
ext3 file system! ext2fs doesn't have the information available to do that. They need to make that VERY CLEAR, rather than misinforming you about undeleting. Good recovery information. GRUB boot floppy -great idea.
Chapter 18. Networking. Good explanation of purpose and use of loopback. Chapter needs editing. Private IP space handled twice, once incorrectly. They...Read more›
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