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1.  Peter van der Linden's Guide to Linux

1.1 2/5 Pass on This

Peter van der Linden
2006, Prentice Hall, ISBN 0-13-187284-2
$39.99 USD

1.2  Overview

There are plethora of introductory books on Linux just like any other computing topic. For example, suppose you want to know everything about HTML. You have rooms full of books to choose from. So which one do you choose? If you are a bargain hunter, you just find the $1.00 special. Maybe it's good enough... if not, it at least gets you started. When I first started reading this book... I felt I was reading that bargain basement quality text.

Especially early in this book the author makes many unsubstantiated claims, makes many, many, many, many, many "digs" at Microsoft and it just leaves you feeling that the author knows everything! The good news is that the latter half of the book is better written, though perhaps it contains a bit too much technical detail for a book targetting a non-technical audience.

I have read better discount books.

1.3  Preface

"As long as you have a PC that runs 800Mhz or more, with at least 256M memory, you're good to go."

Hmmm... the fact is that Linux runs on many platforms with much less... even today. The author fails to identify that these may well be the requirements of Linspire 5.0, but when you consider that my wireless router, a Linksys WRT54G, is running Linux, clearly this is not a true statement without some sort of qualification. But do not look for that qualification or even an explanation inside of this book. It makes statements, true ones and false ones, but you will not know the reasoning behind the statements, all is presented as being "true"... Why is it true? Apparently because Peter van der Linden says so.

1.4  About the Author

Let's face it, the guy's brief bio reads like any of the "gods" of geekdom. "For the last twenty years he has worked in Silcon Valley, for Sun Microsystems, Apple Computers, a storage start-up, and everything in between." He has written "Expert C Programming" and his "Just Java" was twice nominated for Java Book of the Year. "He gets a real kick out figuring out how things work, and explaining them more clearly than anyone else." I would like to make a small edit to that last quote from the book. In my honest opinion it should read, "He believes he can figure anything out and knows for sure that anything he writes is better than anyone else". That's my impression of his writing anyway. This book does contain some good material, but you do have to put up with many opionated asides and the occasional unsubstantiated "fact".

1.5  Hello Linux

"For several years, Windows was adequate for Josh. But lately, his system ran slower than it used to. He could see the modem 'in use' light flickering when he wasn't doing anything. Josh noticed that his virus protection software had somehow been disabled. Was someone interfering with his computer from across the Internet? When Josh discovered his password had been changed from under him, he called me for help.

Does any of this story sound familiar? With Linux, these Windows woes disappear completely."

While it is certainly true that Linux CAN be safer to use than Windows, it is still a tool that needs to be understood administratively, the same as any other network operating system, before many "woes" are dealt with. And even then, no one, NO ONE, should ever say, "With Linux, these Windows woes disappear completely."

"Since all current viruses spread automatically, the two terms virus and worms are synonymous these days."

The truth is that most virus infections are still loaded with the help of the end user. I am not saying that there are not remotely exploitable holes in Windows, but still, the most common way that a virus is spread is with user assistance, often times in the form of opening up an attachment that carries a virus payload.

"At work, you probably have fewer problems with Windows viruses. At work, there should be computer staff paid to look for and block viruses, to keep up-to-date with security software patches, to notice and solve problems before they get out of hand, and to make backup copies of vital data. Few users want to spend time and money taking the same precautions at home. Nor should we have to -- other operating systems don't have these problems."

Some very idealistic statements are made here, but I must take issue with the last statement. Other operating systems, even Linux CAN have these exact same problems. The benefits of Linux are in the knowledge and education that come with it. Linux users tend to be more educated and therefore, the chance that you will download and execute a malicious program are lessened, but certainly still possible. I had the displeasure of doing a post mortem on a hacked Linux computer. The computer was running Red Hat 6.0 (I think I just heard a loud "Ugh!") and it was root kitted. The root kit identified itself and it even had a copy of itself (the installer was very user friendly but full of bad language) just in case it need to be reinstalled. There was a cron job that checked and reinstalled it if necessary. Now, in all fairness, not all root kits are so friendly. This one certainly announced itself rather loudly. The reason it went months and months without being detected was because the administrators probably believe that "other operating systems don't have [the] problems [of Windows]."

I redesigned their infrastructure to make it more resistent to attack. It did mean taking away quite a bit of functionality. Functionality they have NO business having without a full time administrator (something that they lack). I still check on that infrastructure from time to time. It is still secure (meaning not hacked). But I will not kid myself into thinking that it's impervious because it is running Linux.

Oddly enough, Appendix A, "Malicious Windows Software", give a more honest treatment of the subject matter. Indeed this book seems to have two parts. Silly and serious.

"Every time you place a bid on eBay, you are using servers at eBay that run Linux."

That could be true. I do not know. However I do know that eBay says about itself, and I would think they'd know better than the author:

 eBay is Java™ Powered
 Running on powerful Sun Solaris™ SPARC® servers
 Supported by Sun services and solutions

 eBay has chosen Sun’s Solaris Operating System, the most
 advanced operating system on the planet and its Solaris
 servers and Java software to help power The World’s Online
 Marketplace. If you’re running a  business like eBay’s, or have
 similar aspirations, get some Sun.

http://sun.ebay.com/odcs/custom.htm?template=popup

So according to eBay, they use Sun Solaris. With that said, it's possible that there are still Linux hosts within the eBay infrastructure. I'm just telling you what eBay says. This information, by the way was present way before publication of this book. In the past, eBay used IBM's WebSphere using a combination of Microsoft Windows, Linux and Solaris. Is Linux still there? Perhaps. But the only thing that eBay wants you to know is that they run Solaris with Java technology.

One of my favorites:

"The city of Munich, Germany, is switching all of its 14,000 desktops to Linux. If non-technical council workers can switch to Linux, you can too."

(you may read into that statement yourself!)

Drivers? Not a problem... well... a problem.. no.. wait, not a problem.. but yes, a problem. BUT, you can blame it all on "the CEO of notorious Linux laggard Texas Instruments", that being Tom Engibous... snail mail address is in the book. I'm sure Tom appreciates the mention! Funny, Texas Instruments probably would not have been my first pick (and Peter's ONLY pick) with regards to poor integration with Linux. I just looked at the T.I. web site. Apart from Tom, I didn't recognize the other names of the executives. Tom has been there a long time. He was there when I was there between 1985-90. I don't think it was appropriate to single out Tom and T.I. the way the author did.

1.6  Into the Meat of the Book

Fortunately we're out of the woods with regards to the misinformation and highly opionated, and often charged statements by Mr. van der Linden, right? Nope. Any chance he gets, he takes aim and fires. Usually without substantiation (did I say usually?... I don't know if he ever backs up anything he says).

The KDE Desktop

KDE is the desktop of choice in Linspire. But there are some pretty glaring mistakes in the text. For example, on a section describing how to change to a different "folder" inside of the Konqueror browser, the caption on the screenshots is labeled "Moving Konqueor to a new location." That's a very confusing statement. The secton is titled "Moving Konqueor to Display a Different Folder," which is not that much better, but definitely better. Why not use that for the caption? This may just be an editing mistake of course.

With regards to using Windows folders from your Windows partitions, he states correctly that you might not be able to reliably write to NTFS. This is true. But is the following true? "Microsoft keeps secret the details of its NTFS file system to hinder Linux people working for greater interoperability." I did not know that was the main reason why NTFS details were being kept secret. I just figured that Microsoft kept it secret because they believe that "Intellectual Property" is defined by that which is inherently kept secret (an idealogy that I personally believe is flawed).

Onto the Net

One of my favorites from this section is the probabilities list that your network choice will work with Linux: "Somewhat more than 0% that a dial-up modem will just work. But perhaps not a whole lot more than zero. All modems that contain true modem hardware will work fine. But the most common modems today are cheap and nasty Winmodems, which rely on Windows-only software to operate." Don't get me wrong. I do not like those "nasty Winmodems" either. But the truth is that many are now supported in Linux. Nasty? :)

Several paragraphs detail out the problems caused by not having your broadband modem plugged in. You'll learned that the best way to test your connectivity is by trying to browse to google.com. You'll learned that if that doesn't work, you don't have a working network connection. :)

As an aside. This book is written for stupid Americans (but obviously smarter than Munich council workers). I say this because the examples are targeted from a USA point of view. This is especially true in the network section where the examples will differ greatly in other regions of the world. This is not the only book that has this limitation though.

1.7  Book Gets Better

The chapters detailing more about Linspire and package management and brief tutorials on various applications are actually pretty good. There's less unsubstantiated claims, less slamming of Microsoft... he actually tells you some things that are interesting. In fact, he even goes into greater detail about protocols and formats... which is interesting since that would qualify as support "substance". I guess there are some resonable chapters in the text after all. But I found quite a bit of it to be humorous... but in a sad way.

Unfortunately the "better" parts don't last long, and we quickly find ourselves in the chapter dealing with Windows share/network connectivity... and more of the anti-Microsoft rhetoric I have come to enjoy! Fortunate for us, Peter is one of the few people that "read the Microsoft support bulletins" and he figures most will find out about a particular flaw in WinXP SP2 when "their systems are penetrated." There is a whole lot of arrogance expressed throughout this book.

1.8  Conclusion

There is some good information in this book. However, I felt that some of the better parts contained perhaps too much technical detail. But, the more introductory sections of the book, especially early on, contain too much unsubstantiated claims and opinion.

The book is barely "ok" IMHO. You can do much better than this one. Back to Review View Today