A Practical Guide to Ubuntu Linux

r3lody writes "Finding a single book that encompasses what you want to learn can be difficult. Most cover a few portions of a subject in depth and skim over (or omit) others. Other books will cover each topic at about the same level: high enough to give an impression of what can be done, but not with enough depth to do it without a lot of effort. In A Practical Guide to Ubuntu Linux, Mark G. Sobell has created a single volume that gives the reader enough information to effectively install, configure and run workstations and servers using Ubuntu Linux. He has come the closest I have seen to containing all of the necessary information without being too shallow. Granted, to include everything you would want to know about Ubuntu Linux would take several books of this size, but this particular one provides most users the best bang for the buck. A DVD with the Gutsy Gibbon release of Ubuntu in a directly bootable form is included with the book." Read below for the rest of Ray's review.

A Practical Guide to Ubuntu Linux
author	Mark G. Sobell
pages	1200
publisher	Prentice Hall PTR
rating	10/10
reviewer	Ray Lodato
ISBN	013236039X
summary	A complete guide to installing and running Ubuntu Linux for beginning to intermediate users

With over two decades of experience related to Unix and Linux, Mark G. Sobell has authored almost two dozen books on the subject. I had previously read and reviewed his book A Practical Guide to Red Hat Linux: Fedora Core and Red Hat Enterprise Linux (Second Edition) and found it the highest quality book I had yet read on Linux. This, his latest book, bears many similarities to the other text, including its high quality. The overall structure is like that of a textbook, providing a summary and exercises at the end of each chapter, as well as copious cross-references.

A Practical Guide to Ubuntu Linux is broken up into five parts containing 27 chapters in all. After providing the now obligatory history of Linux and the GPL, Part I uses two chapters to provide an overview of, and step-by-step instructions for, installing Linux. The overview provides information about the process including how to try Linux with the Live DVD supplied, planning your hard disk layout, acquiring a newer version of Ubuntu, and the install process in general. The step-by-step chapter goes into great detail on each step of the process, using both the graphical and textual installation paths. It also throws in additional detail on how to configure the X server.

Now that you have Linux in a runnable form, Part II provides higher-level information that shows newer Linux users what they can do. Four chapters serve to introduce basic Linux to the user. Topics include how to update, install and remove program packages, how to use the command line (and some basic utilities such as cat, ls, more, less, etc.), how the filesystem is laid out, shell concepts such as pipes and job control, and where to find additional documentation.

Part III uses another four chapters to dive deeper into the Bourne Again Shell (BASH), the GUIs, and networking. First the X Window System is described, followed by the GNOME and KDE desktops. BASH is covered in two separate chapters, inexplicably separated by the chapter on networking. The first BASH chapter provides the reader with information on startup files, command history, redirection, etc. The other BASH chapter goes into depth regarding programming BASH scripts. The intervening networking chapter provides a basic understanding of network protocols and some utilities such as ping, traceroute, host and dig.

Up to this point, Mark has been showing the user how to use Ubuntu Linux with little modification. Starting with Part IV, he describes how to perform the more common configuration tasks. Using seven chapters and over 200 pages, Part IV provides a great deal of detail regarding system administration. Starting with some core concepts (running as root, sudo, startup scripts, wrappers, recovery mode, etc.), Mark then leads the reader into the nooks and crannies of the filesystem. The following chapter shows how to add and remove applications using apt, aptitude, dpkg, wget and BitTorrent. Printing using CUPS is given its own chapter next, as is the (at least to me) daunting task of rebuilding the system kernel. The last two chapters in Part IV cover the miscellaneous administration tasks of adding, changing, and deleting users and groups, backing up and restoring files, managing the various logs, and setting up your network connections (both wired and wireless).

The final section, Part V, uses nine chapters to go into depth on set up various servers and use their clients. OpenSSH, FTP, exim4 (for mail), NIS, NFS, Samba, DNS/BIND, the firewall (firestarter and iptables), and finally Apache. Each of the chapters provides Jumpstart sections to help you install and configure each server quickly, and enough detail to handle the more common configuration changes.

There are five appendices covering regular expressions, where to get help, general security considerations, the Free Software Definition, and a bullet list of major items added to the 2.4 kernel to form the 2.6 kernel. These are followed by a fairly comprehensive glossary and index.

Overall, A Practical Guide to Ubuntu Linux by Mark G. Sobell provides all of the information a beginner to intermediate user of Linux would need to be productive. The inclusion of the Live DVD of the Gutsy Gibbon release of Ubuntu makes it easy for the user to test-drive Linux without affecting his installed OS. I have no doubts that you will consider this book money well spent.

You can purchase A Practical Guide to Ubuntu Linux from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Don't underestimate the value of a plain unix book

[uigrad_2000]

Often, someone who is new to linux looks for all the books they can find with "linux" in the name.

Generally, if you are new to unix in general, you should get a good unix reference. I'd suggest Unix Power Tools by O'Reilly.

If you are an experienced unix user, and want to learn the specifics of Ubuntu linux, then this book seems very useful. It has both the gory details of the inner workings, and a guide to some of the application candy you may install for home use.

Re:Don't underestimate the value of a plain unix b

[N1ck0]

I'm just waiting for Prentice Hall to publish 'A Practical Guide To Practical Guides'.

I wonder if they give their writers a Practical Guide To Writing Practical Guides

Re:

[sootman]

I'm hoping for The Complete Idiot's Missing Manual to Teach Yourself Practical Guides in 24 Hours Unleashed.

Re:

[blair1q]

I got mine used from an Amazon reseller on an eBay link on Google Shopping.

Okay, I lied. I snarfed it using Limewire (which I got using Kazaa).

Shell coverage in the Sobell book

[dmarti]

This new book has a pretty solid intro to shell scripting, enough to get you started, along with some other basics such as Apache configuration and something that's vital for new users who actually want to use their Linux box on real projects: ssh. (Here's another review [linuxworld.com] of the same title, which I wrote.)

Re:

[sootman]

Agreed. Or, I'd love to see a book like this with things divided into big chunks, clearly separated--maybe with a different background color or something: "This is UNIX stuff that has been around for five/ten/thirty years and will work on any distro (or OS X or Solaris)" and "This is stuff that's particular to Ubuntu."

In any case, I love how permanent this stuff is. It's not quite a general UNIX book, but I still find myself turning to my decade-old horsey book [google.com] from time to time.

Re:Don't underestimate the value of a plain unix b

[joe 155]

When I was looking to learn more about how to use linux a little while after I'd started doing so I asked on the Fedora forum what they would recommend and someone sent me a link to a really great online book which contained so much information of such high quality that I felt like I really learned loads. It's also really easy going for complete n00bs, but I suspect that if I went back I'd still learn new things and have new interesting stuff to look at... you can check it out at http://rute.2038bug.com/in [2038bug.com]

Re:Don't underestimate the value of a plain unix b

[Breakfast Pants]

I'm going to second Unix Power Tools as an excellent book for learning the whole shebang, but point out that you might as well get Linux Power Tools.

Re:Don't underestimate the value of a plain unix b

[bwcbwc]

For that matter, Sobell himself has various editions of "plain old Unix" books going back to the 1980's. The Ubuntu edition sounds like a useful update to my earlier editions of "A practical guide to the Unix System". Combine these with the Advanced Bash Scripting guide and the other online documentation at tldp.org, and you're good to go.

Re:Don't underestimate the value of a plain unix b

[mgblst]

I thought it was the fact that people can't get enough of linux, so when they aren't using it, they want to read about it (on the plane, or in meetings, etc...)

Ubuntu

[flynt]

Every few years, I take a stab at installing whatever 'user friendly' distro of Linux exists at the time. I actually just installed Ubuntu 7.10 on a laptop of mine two nights ago. Overall, the experience is much improved. Actually, drastically improved over my last attempt several years ago. My wireless card just worked, which used to be the main hassle (I know why.).

The only problem I now have is with dual monitor support. It seems like a hodge-podge of ideas, nowhere very clearly defined. I don't know if I need Xinemara, TwinView, or both? I've tried countless combinations of "vsync to blank" (3 different locations), setting the vertical refresh rate (3 different values depending on where I look), none of which are 60 hz. There are many lockups while trying to change these settings through the nvidia driver settings.

I realize none of this is Ubuntu's fault, per se. Still, my multiple monitors works flawlessly in Windows without any fuss. It just seems obvious what to do there for me.

So while there have been great strides, I am excited to see the continual improvement in areas like these.

I did keep Ubuntu on the laptop and plan on using it, just with only one monitor for now.

Re:

[jellomizer]

Linux Distros Still need a lot of polishing up. Open Source Software really needs a Good QA Department or group to check the software and enough authority to tell the developers this stinks do it again. The overall problem with Linux Distros is not Lack of good Ideas or Bad Coding. Just not a Good connection between the both and giving a good Big Picture Application. Person A is so focused on Making te CD Buring Software he has no care what Person B is doing for the File System Browser, which doesn't care w

Re:

[Knuckles]

Seems you haven't used a recent distro, really. In, for example, Ubuntu, the CD Burning Software, File System Browser, and Windows Manager certainly work more consistently together than on your average Windows desktop with its hodge-podge of UI styles. The OEM versions of Roxio and Nero, for example, certainly are no pinnacles of UI design and integration.

Re:

[jellomizer]

Once again a member of Slashdot ignores the general concept and focuses on the details used for an example. I used CD Burning, File Systems Browsers and WM as just examples. That I have noticed with Older distros, Ubentu latest version from what I have seen has fixed a some of the issues but compared to OS X it is still fairly segmented in its design.

Re:

[Knuckles]

Well maybe you should choose examples that illustrate your point instead of examples that contradict what you are saying. It's really not my fault if you are unable to make your point convincingly.

Re:

[Al Dimond]

There certainly are disadvantages to the independence of projects there are advantages too. How many times has WinFS been promised and then retracted since it was first conceived? As an independent project it wouldn't have its resources and schedule determined by an overseeing body trying to put a whole operating system together.

This advantage is seen in Mozilla vs. IE. Mozilla is concerned with making a browser, whereas the IE team is serving the goals of Windows at large. Which for a long time meant d

Re:

[jedidiah]

If you don't like something, complain to the relevant developer.

He might actually listen.

Re:

[mrraven]

I had the opposite experience my Dell D400 with crappy intel graphics will drive a 20 inch widescreen LCD under Ubuntu and not under XP. Too bad I can't run my crucial Adobe apps under Linux. And no Wine isn't the answer it really slows down productivity for me for example to not have a save dialog with clean access to the whole file system, not to mention instability of Adobe apps under wine.
I know it's not the fault of Linux developers that Adobe hasn't ported it's apps and that Microsoft has a closed A

Re:

[mrraven]

Yep Dreamweaver. Yes I know that doesn't make me a hard core coder, I am a visual person, you know the sort of art nerd that hangs out at http://colorblender.com/ [colorblender.com]

And yes we do have a purpose and that is making readable easy to navigate web sites something hard core coding skills does not guarantee.

Re:Ubuntu

[dvice_null]

You won't always get help as some problems are just too difficult to solve from remote location, but in most cases you get help and save yourself several hours of work if you just ask. So I strongly suggest you to ask help (if you already have not) as solving your problem in here is much harder than it is in a forum dedicated to solve your problems with Ubuntu:

http://ubuntuforums.org/forumdisplay.php?f=132 [ubuntuforums.org]

Re:

[knewter]

Yeah, in 8.04 dual monitor support for the most part Just Works. Me, I tended to (pre-8.4) do a ctrl+alt+backspace after plugging in a CRT. In more recent ATI/nvidia drivers, it's also just on-the-fly switching via a GUI these days.

Re:

[strider44]

You pretty much want Twin View. Xinerama is sort of buggy.

Definitely, though, if you have any problems then http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=14&order=desc [nvnews.net] is the place to ask.

Re:

[bfields]

The only problem I now have is with dual monitor support.

In the 8.04 beta, the System->Preferences->Screen Resolution dialog (gnome-display-properties) is aware of multiple monitors. I've used that only once, very briefly (for a projector), so while it was adequate for my purposes, I can't say whether this problem is completely solved yet.

Re:

[burner]

If you've got an nvidia chip (and are using the binary drivers), install nvidia-settings and run that program with your second monitor attached.

If not, you can use grandr or wait for hardy, which has a multi-screen configuration tool built into System/Preferences/Screen Resolution.

Re:

[Knuckles]

ATi has a similar thing in the upcoming Ubuntu 8.04.

Re:

[Hatta]

The real trick is when you have 2 different cards from different vendors. I'm not sure you can do that without hacking your xorg.conf still.

Re:

[burner]

Heh... yeah, I did that a _long_ time ago (2002?) with Debian. I had an nvidia geforce 2 and a 3dfx addon card (one of those that lacked 2d support and required a cable to connect to your day-to-day graphics card). There was an X driver that supported the 3dfx card as a regular 2d X display. They could then be put together with Xinerama (or even x2x!).

Re:

[PitaBred]

xrandr. Use version 1.2 or later, and you can have multiple monitors switching pretty easily. I have a T61 with an X3100 in it... it's not fast, but it's certainly no slouch. I have Fn+F7 set up to cycle between Laptop Only, Presentation (1024x768 on both outputs) and multi-monitor, which is the automatic resolution of all connected displays (1440x900 on the laptop, and 1024x768 on my currently connected CRT). The only change I had to make was to put "Virtual 2720 1024" into my xorg.conf file so

Re:

[Breakfast Pants]

You haven't needed to run nvidia-settings as root for a while; there is an nvidia-config or something along those lines that actually writes to your xorg.conf that requires super user privledges, but it is quite outdated.

Bulletproof X, Hardy, and Dual Screens

[SEMW]

Don't worry though, Ubuntu 8.04 will have "Bulletproof X" which will make things loads easier I believe. Better support for multiple monitors and video cards too I believe.

Bulletproof X doesn't make getting the setup you want any easier; it just automatically drops you back to VESA drivers if whatever configuration you've just tried doesn't work. Unless you're happy to stick with 640*480 and 256 colours indefinitely, the only advantage is that you can try to fix whatever went wrong in gedit rather than pico. Kinda like Windows safe mode.

Regarding the better support for multiple monitors in Hardy, it comes in the form of an xrandr front end applet. Having had a rather b

Why Gutsy?

[CSMatt]

Considering that Hardy will be coming out in a few weeks, and will be supported for 3-5 years as opposed to 18 months, wouldn't it have been a smarter idea to write a book on 8.04 Hardy Heron instead?

Re:

[brouski]

Considering that Hardy will be coming out in a few weeks, and will be supported for 3-5 years as opposed to 18 months, wouldn't it have been a smarter idea to write a book on 8.04 Hardy Heron instead?

And this is why Linux and dead trees seldom mix.

Re:

[jedidiah]

There are Unix books that predate Linux entirely that are
still relevant and useful when it comes to Linux.

Re:

[webmaster404]

# Paperback: 1200 pages # Publisher: Prentice Hall PTR; 1 Pap/Cdr edition (December 28, 2007)

From http://www.amazon.com/Practical-Guide-Ubuntu-Linux-R/dp/013236039X [amazon.com] considering that Ubuntu 7.10 hasn't been out until October of 2007 and when this was published in December it was only out for 2-3 months, that's still 3 months till Hardy stable comes out. This is just a late review of it.

Re:

[KlausBreuer]

Well, let's put it like this: the book first came out, say, this week. That means it was handed to the publisher several months ago.
It contains 1200 pages - ergo, it wasn't written in two months, either.
Finally, Hardy is only coming out in a few weeks.

Thus we can assume that, unfortunately, this book was not written in the future and posted backwards in time in order to use the Latest And Greatest version.

Re:

[CSMatt]

If I wanted to sell something that related to another product, I'd consider the planned obsolescence of that product before timeliness.

Think of it economically:
Window of profitability of book on normal release: 18 months
Window of profitability of book on LTS release: at least 3 years

Considering the time and expense involved in writing and publishing a book, it makes far more sense to make the "profitability window" as large as possible rather than trying to get the product on the shelves as soon as you can.

Re:

[Bitmanhome]

Window of profitability of one of each: 4.5 years. As a bonus, some customers will buy both books.

Oddly enough, this info is hard to find

[Overzeetop]

Most howtos focus on basic installation of the OS and getting around the GUI. No basic administration, no information about installing new apps, no map of the file system so you know where your programs store shit. It's as bad as Microsoft, except that I happen to have lived with MS OSes since '85 and have mostly followed where the keep hiding the useful stuff (i.e. I know it's there, I just have to find the new widget they've hidden it under).

I installed Ubuntu for my daughter, and it worked well. Then I tried to figure out how to install a wireless driver. I gave up and bought a different wireless card that was supported out of the box - it was far easier and cheaper than the hours spent on line. Then I tried to install an application. I was stuck. You either had GUI howtos or you were into forums with power users.

Of course I had to bail on the install - a program I got from school (which she really likes) is windows only. There's no way I'm going to fight with wine on a full-screen DX app that barely plays nice on native software.

If this book really does tell me where everything is stored, and how it runs, and can take me from newbie (old-school CLI apple/ibm/ms) linux to power user that can troubleshoot the OS, I'm in.

Re:Oddly enough, this info is hard to find

[Anonymous Coward]

You either had GUI howtos or you were into forums with power users.

Mod parent up.

Linux/open source has come a long way from when I first started playing around with it in the '90s. Back then most of the help you ran across was of the "read the source, n00b" variety. "User friendly" distros like Mandrake (back in the day) or Ubuntu did a lot of good extending Linux to the non-elite user.

However, what I see these days is a too-narrow concentration on the novice-friendly line. As soon as you stray from "Aunt Tillie mode", you're dumped into power-user central, with arcane syntax options and a maze of twisty forum posts, all alike.

I think the next frontier in Linux/user interaction is to address this intermediate level chasm. Linux apprentices eventually become Linux journeymen, and it would be nice to have a way to seamlessly transition along the learning curve. The middle-grounders do have some resources currently, but support is threadbare compared to the "utterly clueless" and "master hacker" extremes.

Re:

[uniquename72]

I had the same problem as gp when I first installed Ubuntu (1st time using Linux). Synaptic IS dead easy, but a Windows user isn't going to have a mental model of using a repository, so any description of it is fairly nonsensical (usability is also somewhat poor -- you click Mark in Synaptic and nothing is actually marked.)

And apt-get? HTF would this make any sense to the average Windows user. Get what? From where? And what does 'apt' mean? It doesn't take special empathic abilities to see where people w

Don't you see why cmd line is hard for a newbie?

[KWTm]

I honestly don't see how "apt-get install program" is ... complex in any way.

A few years ago, I would have found your statement hard to believe; I would have labeled you as some sort of troll, deliberately provoking a response. More recently, I have come to learn that some people, like you, have a great deal of difficulty seeing things from the newbie point of view. This is not meant to be disrespectful, but at the same time I'm going to use you as an example to point out a flaw in many geeks, of which they are themselves unaware.

The problem with using the command line is NOT fear of the text-based interface.

Imagine for a moment that you have just been seated at a restaurant serving ethnic food that is new to you --say, for example, that your new girlfriend (who's dying to learn Linux from you) wants to try out that new Thai restaurant with you (replace "Thai" with any type of cuisine with which you are not familiar).

The waiter comes up to you and, instead of handing you a menu, says, "So, what do you want?"
"Well, what do you have?" you ask.
He shrugs. "Anything," he says.
"What do you mean, 'anything'?"
"It means exactly what I said," he answers. "You can order anything you want. We cook hundreds of different dishes, any way you like."
"Okay, I'll have a steak."
"That's not a Thai dish."
"But you said *anything*."
"But this is a Thai restaurant. When I said 'anything', I meant anything *Thai*, of course."
"Okay, I'll have a typical Thai entree dish."
"No such thing as 'Thai entree dish'. You have to tell me which Thai entree dish."
"Well I have no idea."
"Well, order anything. Anything *Thai*," he adds pointedly.
"Such as?"
The waiter becomes exasperated. "Well, you can have Pad See Ew, or Tom Yum Gong, or--"
At this point, your girlfriend wisely cuts in and says, "Could we have a menu?"
The waiter rolls his eyes. "All these newbies wanting to order from a menu! I honestly don't see how 'Tom Kha Khai' is master chef like or complex in any way. Our clients who consider 'Tom' confusing are the ones that will blank-face any illustrated menu for any type of food. For these people, we have the choice of two preset menus."

The point, I'm sure you'll have seen, is that when the command line asks the newbie, "Okay, what do you want to do now?" the newbie has absolutely no idea. There are too many possibilities. Sometimes the newbie will gamely try a command like "check my email" or "email", but the stony response of "bash: email: command not found" quickly puts him in his place. Hell, even *I* forget the ins and outs of some commands with their options (is it "find [directory] [target]" or "find [target] [directory]"?).

A common mistake, of which I will make yours an example (but you're certainly not alone in this), is that you think the newbie fears text mode. Now you see the difference? With apt-get, you could type any sequence of characters for a package name and there would be nothing to stop you except some cryptic message, "No such package as 'Thai entree dish'." The GUI, or text-based menu, limits your options so that it guides you to what you want. You can select packages. It doesn't matter whether the interface is graphical, ncurses, or just "Press 1, 2 or 3". Of course, newbies are more likely to warm up to the GUI, but that's secondary.

Now, I realize that you did say Synaptic would fill the void, but that doesn't necessarily help guide the newbie onto the command line.

I would love to have a tool that showed a menu of choices, either in a GUI or a ncurses text interface, that let me choose common commands, like that confusing "find" command I mentioned earlier. On the "find" window would be a form with a space to fill in "Enter directories to search" and "What filename are you looking for?" with perhaps some radio buttons or checkboxes for various command-line parameters. When you click OK, not only does it execute the command, it also tell

Re:Don't you see why cmd line is hard for a newbie

[Overzeetop]

I know this is a bit late, but thank you for your response. It was possibly one of the best analogies I've seen (and it didn't even involve a car!). I can make the common user's head spin in the windows CLI (being an old DOS man, myself), and I can _navigate_ through the linux file system, but trying to _do_ anything is dicey at best. It has, to some extent, been made "worst" by windows - everything has an installer these days, so you double click the pre-packaged executable and it installs the program.

Hey, wanna be the poster boy for Geek-In-Denial?

[KWTm]

Hi, Mr. Coward. Boy, you post a lot of comments. Some are insightful. This particular one was not.

What you're looking for is apt-cache search [terms].

In that case, in order for the command line to be the equal of the "guided" interface, the error message should suggest this. Something like: "apt-get: error- no such package. Use apt-cache search [package] to look for a package."

If you would take two seconds and ask instead of throwing your hands up and saying "oh noes! too many commands" we would've tol

Got the book

[OldChemist]

I've got it and it is a great book. Anyone who knows Sobell's work would tell you that his stuff is of keeper quality. I think I first ran into one of his Unix books around 1990. Why would you want a book for Ubuntu? If you are a little more into it than the casual user, it will make your life a lot easier in terms of networking, etc., etc. Of course you MIGHT find the info on the web but this will save you a lot of time. If your time is worth $25/hr and this saves you a couple of hours, it's worth it

Great idea

[Dunbal]

Kudos to the the guy for writing a book. But honestly ubuntu is so damned easy one is not exactly necessary. But then again neither are all those other "Getting the most out of Windows (version whatever)" books. Nice to see linux getting some shelf space. Even if it is just one space.

After my initial problems with ubuntu (mostly having to do with a buggy BIOS and figuring out I needed to use the "noapic nolapic" commands - now fixed after reflashing my BIOS to a newer version), I have had no complaints. My

Obsolete in a year?

[smolloy]

My main problem with all "Linux for Dummies" books is that, although they may be useful to begin with, they become almost entirely obsolete withing one or two major releases of the distro. The stuff that doesn't become obsolete is all stuff you can find in a shell scripting guide.

Forums, despite their low signal:noise, don't have this problem.

My recommendation would be to buy a good shell scripting book and read a few online tutorials on configuring whatever distro you have.

I'm oddly sort of tempted by this.

[seebs]

I am familiar with a lot of the material in the book, presumably, but I'd like to see what he did for coverage of Ubuntu, especially now that I'm using it fairly regularly.

(Background; I was involved with the Practical Guide for OS X 10.4.)

Re:

[myowntrueself]

(Background; I was involved with the Practical Guide for OS X 10.4.)

How practical is that book in practice?

Because I got a copy of "OSX; the missing manual" and I feel like taking it back to the shop and asking where in hell the missing chapters are...

I'd like a *book* on OSX "under the hood" and Apple seem to be hell bent on keeping people away from that sort of thing :(

Re:

[seebs]

I liked the Practical Guide. Down side, Leopard's out so some of the material's dated, but I think it was one of the first books to really talk at all about what launchd is and why you might care. I don't have one of my copies immediately handy, but I think it actually covered plutil.

Oh! I found a draft. Yes. It actually talks about plutil and launchd and such.

It was an interesting project, and I learned a lot from working with Mark Sobell on it.

Pfff meh

[Keith_Beef]

About twelve years ago, when I was living in France, I bought a 300 page book with a Slackware CD in the cover. OK, so at the time Slackware was not exactly forgiving... and the CD woudln't work. But the book was sort of useful. I managed to get hold of redhat, with no printed docs, and installed it and was a happy monkey for the next three years. In that time, I bought great thick book with a blue cover, with a entitlef "Linux Undercover" with a RedHat logo... it turned out to be not much more than a se

My practical guide to any linux distro...

[Tarlus]

Google.

Re:

[Trigun]

The first chapter is about where the name comes from.

The next three are defending their choice.

Installation comes in at chapter 18.

The rest of the chapters are self fellating, or taking potshots at Gentoo.

Re:

[earthbound kid]

I thought your comment was funny. It's a shame about the moderation.

Re:

[Digi-John]

1. Insert disc and hit "Enter" until things stop happening
2. Clean drool from keyboard
3. Post on Ubuntu forums

Re:A book?

[PopeRatzo]

since Ubuntu doesn't support ATI cards.

You know, I'd heard that too, but since then, I've successfully installed and run Ubuntu Studio on several systems with ATI video.

Please understand that there are some of us that don't get too exercised over running proprietary video drivers. Maybe that makes us traitors to the "cause" but we just want to get our work done.

Re:A book?

[Beardo the Bearded]

I have a Radeon 9200. I'd run any Ubuntu driver that's available, but there aren't any. Obviously, if I'm willing to run a Windows driver, I'm willing to put up with a proprietary driver. I use my computer for work. I don't have any games installed on either my work or home machines.

The forum response was, "lol get a better video card". I'm done with buying video cards. That's the extent of the support I got. On /., I got the response ATI is a bunch of amateurs and it's all their fault.

I installed the proprietary drivers, the auto-loading GPL equivalent, etc. Nobody wanted to help or explain. I gave up.

The best part was how when you tested the settings, it would display as "fine" then when you'd apply the new settings, you would get a blank screen and you'd have to reboot.

Other than that, I liked Ubuntu. It detected a lot more than Win2k did, and the setup was really easy. Having said that, I'm done. Linux fails me every time I try it. (Just for the record, I've successfully set up servers using Linux before, and those have worked. I can use a command line just fine, thank you.)

Re:

[severoon]

I've run Ubuntu up on 3 machines, two with ATI video cards, and never had a problem. Perhaps the latest version of Ubuntu would go on your system ok? (I don't know, I don't think either of my experiences were with that particular card.) Don't give up on linux altogether though. I had given up and when Ubuntu came along, I thought...one last time. Now I'm more productive and I can sleep at night. :-)

Re:A book?

[darkonz]

try this: Installing ATI Drivers [ubuntuforums.org]. It is a post I made a LONG time ago, since i had the same problems (and graphics card) as you :)

Re:

[BlueParrot]

I have a Radeon 9200.

I have a Radeon 9200 and I get 3D acceleration with the reverse engineered drivers that are in X out of the box. Compiz ran fine. It even plays the proprietary games that I bought before I dumped Windows ( Warcraft III under wine, Neverwinter Nights with the native client, etc... ). I never got ATI's binary driver to work however...

On my Laptop the Intel card works just fine except for using dual screens with different aspect ratio. I'm not sure if this is a limitation of the card, driv

Re:

[burner]

Weird... I've got a Mac Mini running Ubuntu over in the corner, playing video just fine. It's got a Radeon 9200.

I've also got a few older Thinkpads that run Radeon 7500s. They all work out of the box with the opensource drivers that have supported these chips for many years.

I don't mean to invalidate your experience, but Ubuntu does indeed support ATI cards, both old and new, with the opensource driver where possible and the binary driver (installable via the Restricted Driver Manager) where not.

And I suppo

Re:

[Magada]

You can get at least working VESA mode with a Radeon 9200 (I should know, I used to have one - and a crappy third-party board, at that). You're SOL because ATI are bastards - they've stopped supporting the R400 and R500 chipsets a while ago, but didn't release any info. There was (is?) a decent free driver in-kernel that could get accelerated 2d on that card. I was able to get 3d accel running with ati's linux driver (can't remember the version though), but it's buggy as hell, again, probably because the ca

Re:

[Beardo the Bearded]

That was my point.

Win2k -> 1280 x 1024 @ 70Hz
Ubuntu -> 1024 x 768 @ 60Hz

That Ubuntu resolution is basically unusable. 60Hz = flicker-o-matic vision and about 15 minutes of usable time.

I don't care what excuses you make about ATI being bastards. You work with the bastards.

Look at what MS had to do for SimCity. Go ahead, look it up.

Re: Ubuntu and ATI video cards

[transporter_ii]

I built an Ubuntu 6.06 system that happened to have an ATI card in it. I was so impressed with the system that I decided to build a new system. Happy with the ATI card, I ordered an identical, brand-new card...only I installed Ubuntu 7.10 on my new system because the SATA drives required a driver that wasn't in 6.06. I fought with the ATI drivers for over a week and never could get it to work. And I'm not the only one that had the problem between 6.06 and 7.10. The forums were running over with complaints,

Re:

[xSauronx]

maybe in some time ATI will have better support, theyre working on it, but itd be a long time before i bought an ati card to use with linux.

however, my T40 has a radeon 7500 mobile in it, and runs compiz great. however, its old, and uses open drivers :P /victory, sucker.

Re:

[d3ac0n]

This isn't terribly surprising. I have had similar experiences with ATI and Linux (Ibinti, Fedora, Open Suse, Mandrake (pre-mandriva), Etc. Sometimes they worked flawlessly, other times not at all. However, Nvidia has worked flawlessly EVERY time, regardless of Distro, for the over 6 years now that I have been using and abusing Linux in it's various flavors and forms.

Unfortunately, the situation is not improved with the Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron). This distro dumps the Open Source XGL driver that works f

Re:

[d3ac0n]

Note to self:

Make sure to SPELL CHECK your posts using preview. "Ibinti" above was supposed to be "Ubuntu". Dang fumblefingeritis.

Re:

[jedidiah]

That's rather a shock considering the 64-bit Gutsy machine sitting
next to me is running an ATI Video card. This machine has been running
some version of Ubuntu since it was originally built.

        Please try again.

Re:

[Almahtar]

It actually doesn't do too poorly with them. I have an ATI chipset on my laptop. I've been using Ubuntu since 2005 with this machine.
history:

• October 2005 - Ubuntu 5.10: very hard to get working
• June 2006 - Ubuntu 6.06: Worked out of the box, full acceleration took manual tweaks, but wasn't hard.
• October 2006 - Ubuntu 6.10: Worked, but needed manual tweaks for full acceleration, as above.
• April 2007 - Ubuntu 7.04: Worked flawlessly. Upon first boot a prompt in the task bar said I had restricted d

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Broadcom wireless

[dmizer]

This is a troll, but I'll bite anyway. Since when has a $20 piece of computer equipment been a show stopper for an entire OS?

Re:

[compro01]

to "use" it, correct. typical tasks (defined as stuff that "typical users" tend to do ;)) are highly accessible and a manual shouldn't be needed.

however, to USE it, anything with a depth greater than that of a parking lot puddle needs a manual.

ubuntu is nice in the fact that you can largely start by dipping your toes in the shallow end and move out from there (or not) as one wishes. while at a point one may want to move to a "deeper" distro, you've gained the experience and general know-how needed to comf

Re:

[wonnage]

Unfortunately, for any nontrivial problem the forums just send you in circles. Ubuntu is easy to use - if you don't do anything. As soon as you do something out of the ordinary, it's back to the commandline. For example, the version of gstreamer-ffmpeg in the repositories right now chokes on h264 files. Your average user has no idea why this happens, they just think, "oh, ubuntu is slower than windows". In reality, you can go download the newest release and compile from source, but it's not just a simple .

Fight ./configure && make && make

[Zombie Ryushu]

End users should ever EVER do ./configure && make && make install. We really need to fight that mentality, its unacceptable. There should be packages, RPM or DEB or both, of EVERYTHING, and if a bug is discovered; there needs to be a new packages ASAP. ./configure && make && make install of end users really needs to stop. For good.

Now, ./configure && make && make install for developers as a stage in developers should be mandatory. And a baseline SPEC for the production of package for any given application or library. We are in the fight for our future people, and Microsoft is going at us like a sack of doorknobs, End users should NOT be doing ./configure && make && make install.

Re:

[dave562]

Thank you for saying this. I've been using computers since DOS 3.3 so I'm comfortable with the command line, but other than a short tryst with Slackware in the early 1990s I haven't really gotten into Linux. I'm sure that once you've done /configure make and install enough times it is fairly intuitive. However coming from a world where all that was required to get a program to install was to run the associated .com or .exe file, it seems pretty cryptic and clunky to have to feed source into gcc and wait

Re:

[Zombie Ryushu]

I would never ever advocate the concept of running a program from an application vendor to install a program. That gave us our adware industry. DOS and Windows's methods are bad too.

Re:

[dave562]

I guess we all pick our poisons. I've never had a box compromised in fifteen plus years and I've been running vendor supplied installation programs all along. Sometimes I think Linux users like going through the make/install process simply because it lets them feel involved with what is going on.

Re:

[jsoderba]

Why are you compiling your own software? What's wrong with the packages in the Ubuntu repository?

Re:

[dave562]

Way to change the subject. The matter at hand is the necessity of compiling programs by hand when a package installer isn't available. The GP said that there isn't really any excuse for not having a package installer in this day and age, and implied that in order to get up to speed with the rest of the world (read, MS and Apple), package installers are necessary. I was agreeing with him.

Re:

[jsoderba]

If there is no package the software may as well not exist. I suggest searching the package repository for an alternative application.

Re:

[dave562]

Thanks for the suggestion. I'm probably going to get a new computer in part with my "economic stimulus check" and will definitely be putting an Ubuntu partition on there.

Re:

[jedidiah]

Why compile from source?

Just run a non-gstreamer movie player.

The only reason I even know about this problem is the fact that you
are whining about it on Slashdot and I have been running Ubuntu
since 6.06.

This isn't Windows where if the "one true app" has a problem
you're screwed.

Try a solution that's not unecessarily complicated.

Re:

[burner]

Agreed. totem-gstreamer has a high degree of suckiness. totem-xine and its attendant plugins do a much better job of playing h264 and other high def videos.

Re:

[eln]

Ah, but the point of any new technology product is to allow "experts" to publish books about it. Most people believe that the technical publishing industry was created in order to provide support for new technologies, but in fact new technology is created in order to provide more topics on which to write books.

It's a little-known fact that the earliest versions of Unix actually included an incredibly intuitive interface that actually made it possible for 90 year old grandmothers to go from novice to kernel

Re:

[dave562]

I think you're trying to be funny? I know it can seem like you say it is at times. The technical publishing industry is there so that people don't have to bug their friends or go "learn it" themselves. For every person out there who can "just do it" because it's "so simple", there are ten or hundred who don't really have any clue how to get the job done.

Re:

[pugugly]

To *use* it sure.

My *mom* is using Ubuntu, and doing pretty well at it, thanks for your concern.

On the other hand, to be able to use it to it's full potential - that's different - a good guide gives you answers to questions you didn't think to ask. My mom in perfectly capable of doing lots of things, once she has a concept that, well, oh . . . you can *do* that. Doesn't mean she'll think to ask me that, or remember to ask me that next time she see's me.

For that - yeah, I'm looking for a good book.

Pug

Re:

[MrNougat]

I would love to have a desk reference, and not have to parse through forum searches that don't turn up the result I'm looking for, or are smattered with smug disregard for people who ask questions, or which are heavily laden with questioners who can barely compose a sentence.

Of course, this book should be available as a PDF for free.

Re:

[ShieldW0lf]

I have never understood why the organizations that release operating systems don't buy the license to a couple of good books such as these and release them free online for everyone. I would think it would get you more market share than advertising budgets.

Re:

[spxero]

Got any links to back that up?

I have had nothing but help from the folks on the IRC channels, and although I have yet to post in a forum, the tone of the messages have overwhelmingly been positive. However, my experience is limited to Ubuntu and Debian, so I cannot comment on other distributions.

If you're looking for help with Ubuntu, ubuntuguide.org is always a good reference. That, or the IRC channels if you want to speak to someone hands on. Last time I had trouble I went on there and got my LVM fixed wi

Re:

[MrNougat]

Community support forums for anything are worthless - Linux, Microsoft, toasters, anything. I've been searching online for solutions to problems for twelve years, and this has always been the case. When community support forums are the only hope to find a solution, it's worse.

Re:

[spxero]

I think you're right, to a certain extent. I have never found help by asking in a forum, but I have found plenty of solutions by searching Google and then the results happened to be in a forum.

Re:

[spxero]

Yes, I do have the IRC logs to back it up. The scenario I needed help with was that I added a drive to the LVM, but the size of the LVM didn't expand with it. Since I don't know if I would remember the command, I saved the IRC chat. The Post non-AC and I will post them under you.

Re:

[mrbluze]

A DVD with the Gutsy Gibbon release of Ubuntu in a directly bootable form is included with the book.

Wow, absolutely free! And let me guess, the user is greeted by a friendly looking free steak-knives wallpaper on logging in?

Re:

[PopeRatzo]

I thought the point of Ubuntu is that you don't need a book to use it.

That's silly. There are few things in the technical world that a good book can't make better.

Tell you what, go to Amazon or Google Books and search for "OS X". There are thousands of books about an operating system that is universally hailed for its user-friendliness.

Hatta, I'm sure you're a nice guy and all, but you gotta think these things through before you blurt them out.

Re:

[EdelFactor19]

and if not there is of course "the ubuntu book" that they themselves write and which got a fantastic review on /. only a handful of months ago :-)

Sadly not.

[goldcd]

I'm fine with windows, but feel I should at least try switching to Linux. I try - and say Ubuntu installs perfectly. Web, email, file shares all easy to work out. I can use the nifty little wizards to install new apps - but that's about it. All the complexity is still there, it just takes you a little bit longer to hit it now. For example I was trying to get MythTV to work. Asks me for my mysql db settings, which I give and then it tells me that the db isn't available. I check the 'Services' program on the

Re:A book?

[Trigun]

The book business is very, very lucrative, and don't even get started on school books. Find a weird subject on wikipedia (use the "random" feature), then look it up on Amazon. Chances are there's a book about it, regardless of how irrelevant, simple, or plain stupid the subject is.

I just got a new hobby.

Lateral Consonant: [wikipedia.org] Check [amazon.com]
1672 Gezelle: [wikipedia.org] Check [amazon.com]
Palala River: [wikipedia.org] Check [amazon.com]

Re:

[webmaster404]

I don't think the purpose of the book was for just a newbie to learn how do everything via the GUI because that is easy. But, if you really want to learn how Ubuntu works I think this book is more geared towards that audience.

Re:

[element-o.p.]

IME, you can find the answer to just about any question you have with google, forums and man pages.

However, sometimes it is nice to have a reference manual on your bookshelf. When I first installed Linux, I used the "Slackware Linux Essentials" book to help with the install, then pored over another book (I forget the title now) that gave an overview of various services common to Linux distros (Apache, Sendmail, Bind, Samba, etc.) to start my education. *THEN* I started hanging out on forums t

Re:gnath

[Dragonslicer]

yhf9ew89 99 9 9 yu yfy yu uy 0 0 0 hfdyu hhyYHIIH 7fy7e77w ak k k sj f jdshk k '; ' ' ' fey us u ihu UH HUH HO feuhfhhhhhh fhsofhaho fhop woppopopopo fyyhhyh

Yes, emacs and vi are both available in the Ubuntu repositories.

Re:

[PitaBred]

I don't know why this isn't modded up higher. It made me laugh :)