ISBN 0-13-091762-1 Price approximately £20 UK
Kathy Miles and Ethan Metsger
20 Chapters and index in 370 pages
Contents
ForewordSynopsis
Preface
Note from the author1 Before you Install
2 Installation
3 The Basics of Use and Setup
4 GNOME
5 Beginning Systems Administration
6 Maintaining your System
7 Managing your files
8 The Command Line Interface
9 Some internet Applications
10 Text viewers and editors for Linux
11 Star Office basics
12 Star Writer
13 Star Calc
14 Star Office Presentations
15 Wordperfect 8
16 Scheduling and Productivity
17 Graphics, Image Editors and Drawing Programs
18 The GIMP
19 Playing Audio and Video files
20 Games on LinuxAppendix A
Troubleshooting
Appendix
Glossary
Index
GNU/Linux has become more popular in the past few years due to the fact that Microsoft or MS Windows software is found to be more and more unreliable at the same time as the cost of that kind of software have risen at an exponential rate. Free software or low cost software that is reliable is easily found on CDs or on the internet. Most of this is covered by the GNU public licence and can be copied without fear of infringing any legal arrangement that any programmer of large multinational corporation or monopoly might wish to inflict upon the individual computer user.
Review
Everyday Linux gives a detailed account of how to install and use Red Hat Linux. It does give other publishers books a certain amount of competition due to it's easy to understand words and pictures.
The authors are Kathy Miles who is a columnist for the Daily Local News in West Chester in Pennsylvania and Ethan Metsger who is an undergraduate student at Ohio State University. They met whilst working for a community based internet service provider and have worked on a few things together since then.
The foreword is written by Eric S. Raymond. To quote his own words..
" Help stamp out bad software in your lifetime ! " You can use this book
to escape the Microsoft monopoly's predatory clutch, and turn your computer
more to being an enjoyable tool and less of an irritation." I think that
says it all. If only RMS could have added a few of his own words. The preface
gives a useful and down to earth introduction to what Linux is and what it
is that we should know about it. An example.......
"What Is Linux?
Linux is an operating system. An operating system is the software
that runs your computer and controls how various
elements of it act. For instance, an operating system recognizes that
you can pass data between your computer and
monitor or printer, and allows the programs on your computer to do so.
Most personal computers today use the Windows operating system, created
and maintained by Microsoft Corporation. The
next contender is the Macintosh OS, or MacOS, though it owns only a small
portion of the market share.
More recently, with the advent of better marketing by Apple Computers,
the evidence brought against Microsoft
indicating actions that violate United States anti-trust laws, and the
activities of the Open Source community,
Microsoft has experienced more competition, much of which is vested
in the form of the Linux operating system.
Most Windows users I'm acquainted with are frustrated with using Windows
its programs are mammoth, often expensive, and
they frequently crash. It is an industry expectation that each version
of Microsoft will have enough bugs to warrant a
"second edition" or some other program to patch the holes in the system.
And with recent e-mail viruses targeting
Windows programs like Microsoft Outlook, users are more aware than ever
that security is not Windows' strong point. "
You might get the impression from this that the author of the book might
not be someone who uses MS Windows.
Chapter one gives an introduction to a few ideas about installation. It is a little bit dated. Since Red Hat 7.0 came along it's a good idea to use a faster machine with a larger hard disk. Chapter two finishes off where chapter one started and is extremely useful. The following chapters give an account of how things used to be on Linux systems. If you get hold of a CD from Linux Emporium you can use the latest KDE and Red Hat updates at low cost without damaging your pocket.
Chapters six and seven give some very useful help with system maintenance and managing files. The part about internet applications and text viewers gives some useful help as well. Probably the best part of the book is about Star Office and how to use it. Prentice-Hall have produced a separate book about Star Office which is well worth reading if that is all you need. The section about Wordperfect 8 is a bit dated now. However, the fact that a very fast computer is needed to use later versions of Corel office suites means that it might be better to use version 8 anyway.
The GIMP is covered at chapter 18. Well worth a read. Prentice-Hall have now published a separate book called Essential GIMP for web professionals. You might want to have a look round for that as well ? The games section is very good. Kind of thing that would draw anyone into using Linux.
I enjoyed it as a good read. I'm sure that someone else would get
lots of help from this book if they needed it.
Review by Richard Ibbotson
