Spring Into Linux

Here is my review of my latest book.
I will break the review into two major sections: what I liked about the book, and what I wish the
author would revise before the next edition.

This book was a comprehensive overview of three Linux distros. I never thought I could learn and
review so much about an operating system from such a small book. This book covers everything from
installing Linux to using OpenOffice to writing your own shell scripts. I would highly recommend
this book to any experienced Windows or Macintosh user who is comtemplating on migrating to Linux.

Even though I was passingly familiar with Linux, I learned a lot from reading this book. I learned
how to import templates into OpenOffice. I learned how to use styles as formatting show more shortcuts in
OpenOffice. I learned how to allow and forbid certain actions on files just by manipulating group
and owner permissions.

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Spring Into Linux is an excellent book but there were some quirks I wish would be addressed before
the next edition. The author gives a great description of how email works and how email clients
work. I wish the author would have taken it a step further. I wish the author would have discussed
"email relaying" and how email administrators try to stop it. Those security practices affect
people who travel with their computers to hotels or to bookstore hotspots or to public computer
labs. I work in such a place and I often tell people that they need to use web mail (or VPN) if
they want to send messages while there on the road. It's only a matter of time before Linux
becomes just as popular on laptops as other operating systems. lol...

I thought I also noticed some minor grammar and shell scripting mistakes, but I kept on reading.
The author put so much work into the various subjects that I was merely thankful for the
information.

I also wish that that in the next edition the author would cover Fedora Core 3 and 4. I also wish
that the author would have explained up2date a little more and explained that Red Hat has a list
of "Fedora prepared" packages on their web site. I tend to think that is where Fedora users should
first look for their extra packages.

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Book Review - "Spring Into Linux" by Janet Valade, Addison Wesley

Background
I'm not a techie. I wanted a beginner's guide to Linux to learn some of the basics. I'm running Fedora, version 5. I read the first half of the book, the chapters on Installation through File Management, stopping where the book began to cover applications and programs.

Review

I thought that the book was a useful introduction, particularly for someone used to a Windows environment, which appears to be the book's targeted audience. One of its strength lies in the way the chapters are consistently laid out: a short 1-2 page intro to the topic at hand, a more detailed section covering the highlights on the topic at hand, and then a wrap-up of what was covered. I didn't feel I needed to read the later chapters on applications figuring that I would learn what I needed about individual applications by working with them directly.

The book is an easy read. However, I think most readers will want to quickly move on to something more robust. show less