Publisher Description

You may be contemplating your first Linux installation. Or you may have been using Linux for years and need to know more about adding a network printer or setting up an FTP server. Running Linux, now in its fifth edition, is the book you'll want on hand in either case. Widely recognized in the Linux community as the ultimate getting-started and problem-solving book, it answers the questions and tackles the configuration issues that frequently plague users, but are seldom addressed in other books. This fifth edition of Running Linux is greatly expanded, reflecting the maturity of the operating system and the teeming wealth of software available for it. Hot consumer topics such as audio and video playback applications, groupware functionality, and spam filtering are covered, along with the basics in configuration and management that always have made the book popular. Running Linux covers basic communications such as mail, web surfing, and instant messaging, but also delves into the subtleties of network configuration--including dial-up, ADSL, and cable modems--in case you need to set up your network manually.The book can make you proficient on office suites and personal productivity applications--and also tells you what programming tools are available if you're interested in contributing to these applications. Other new topics in the fifth edition include encrypted email and filesystems, advanced shell techniques, and remote login applications. Classic discussions on booting, package management, kernel recompilation, and X configuration have also been updated. The authors of Running Linux have anticipated problem areas, selected stable and popular solutions, and provided clear instructions to ensure that you'll have a satisfying experience using Linux. The discussion is direct and complete enough to guide novice users, while still providing the additional information experienced users will need to progress in their mastery of Linux. Whether you're using Linux on a home workstation or maintaining a network server, Running Linux will provide expert advice just when you need it.

Author Biography

Matthias Kalle Dalheimer works as an independent author, translator and software consultant in Northern Germany, where he lives in a tiny village with his wife and son. After studying computer science and general linguistics, he first worked for Star Division, where he was responsible for porting the office suite Star Office to Linux. In spring 1997, he quit his job and became a happy freelancer. Kalle mainly uses Linux for his development work and uses XEmacs 20.4 for most of his programming and writing tasks. In his spare time, he plays with his son, hikes in the surrounding forests, reads books about history, and helps develop the K Desktop Environment, a free desktop for Unix systems. He has written Programming with Qt for O'Reilly & Associates, and has written and translated a number of O'Reilly books in German. Matt Welsh is a computer scientist with research interests spanning many aspects of complex systems, including operating systems design, distributed systems, networking, and parallel computing. Matt is a long-time Linux advocate and developer, a role in which he has fielded questions from thousands of Linux users over the years. He was the original coordinator of the Linux Documentation Project and author of the original Linux Installation and Getting Started guide. He completed his Ph.D. at UC Berkeley and is currently a researcher at Intel Research Labs in Berkeley, and will be joining the faculty of the Computer Science department at Harvard University in July 2003.

Table of Contents

Preface Part I. Enjoying and Being Productive on Linux 1. Introduction to Linux About This Book Who's Using Linux? System Features About Linux's Copyright Open Source and the Philosophy of Linux Sources of Linux Information Getting Help 2. Preinstallation and Installation Distributions of Linux Preparing to Install Linux Post-Installation Procedures Running into Trouble 3. Desktop Environments Why Use a Graphical Desktop? The K Desktop Environment KDE Applications The GNOME Desktop Environment GNOME Applications 4. Basic Unix Commands and Concepts Logging In Setting a Password Virtual Consoles Popular Commands Shells Useful Keys and How to Get Them to Work Typing Shortcuts Filename Expansion Saving Your Output What Is a Command? Putting a Command in the Background Remote Logins and Command Execution Manual Pages Startup Files Important Directories Basic Text Editing Advanced Shells and Shell Scripting 5. Web Browsers and Instant Messaging The World Wide Web Instant Messaging 6. Electronic Mail Clients Using KMail Using Mozilla Mail & News Getting the Mail to Your Computer with fetchmail OpenPGP Encryption with GnuPG 7. Games Gaming Quake III Return to Castle Wolfenstein Unreal Tournament 2004 Emulators Frozen Bubble Tux Racer 8. Office Suites and Personal Productivity Using OpenOffice KOffice Other Word Processors Synching PDAs Groupware Managing Your Finances 9. Multimedia Multimedia Concepts Kernel and Driver Issues Embedded and Other Multimedia Devices Desktop Environments Windows Compatibility Multimedia Applications Multimedia Toolkits and Development Environments Solutions to Common Problems References Part II. System Administration 10. System Administration Basics Maintaining the System Managing Filesystems Managing Swap Space The /proc Filesystem Device Files Scheduling Recurring Jobs Using cron Executing Jobs Once Managing System Logs Processes Programs That Serve You 11. Managing Users, Groups, and Permissions Managing User Accounts File Ownership and Permissions Changing the Owner, Group, and Permissions 12. Installing, Updating, and Compiling Programs Upgrading Software General Upgrade Procedure Automated and Bulk Upgrades Upgrading Software Not Provided in Packages Archive and Compression Utilities 13. Networking Networking with TCP/IP Dial-Up PPP PPP over ISDN ADSL Cable Modems Network Diagnostics Tools 14. Printing Printing Managing Print Services 15. File Sharing Sharing Files with Windows Systems (Samba) NFS and NIS Configuration 16. The X Window System A History of X X Concepts Hardware Requirements Installing X.org Configuring X.org Running X Running into Trouble X and 3D 17. System Start and Shutdown Booting the System System Startup and Initialization Single-User Mode Shutting Down the System A Graphical Runlevel Editor: KSysV 18. Configuring and Building the Kernel Building a New Kernel Loadable Device Drivers Loading Modules Automatically 19. Text Editing Editing Files Using vi The (X)Emacs Editor 20. Text Processing TeX and LaTeX XML and DocBook groff Texinfo Part III. Programming 21. Programming Tools Programming with gcc Makefiles Debugging with gdb Useful Utilities for C Programmers Using Perl Java Python Other Languages Introduction to OpenGL Programming Integrated Development Environments 22. Running a Web Server Configuring Your Own Web Server 23. Transporting and Handling Email Messages The Postfix MTA Procmail Filtering Spam 24. Running an FTP Server Introduction Compiling and Installing Running ProFTPD Configuration Part IV. Network Services 25. Running Web Applications with MySQL and PHP MySQL PHP The LAMP Server in Action 26. Running a Secure System A Perspective on System Security Initial Steps in Setting Up a Secure System TCP Wrapper Configuration Firewalls: Filtering IP Packets SELinux 27. Backup and Recovery Making Backups What to Do in an Emergency 28. Heterogeneous Networking and Running Windows Programs Sharing Partitions Emulation and Virtual Operating Systems Remote Desktop Access to Windows Programs FreeNX: Linux as a Remote Desktop Server Appendix: Sources of Linux Information Index

Review

"Eine sehr gut gelungene Einführung in die vielfältige Welt der Linux-Distributionen. [...] Als Einstiegsbuch und zum regelmäßigen Nachschlagen ist der Titel absolut geeignet. Wer das Buch wirklich komplett durcharbeitet, eignet sich fundiertes Grundwissen über das Linux-System an." - Pocket-PC Benutzergruppe Ortenau, Februar 2007

"1995 hat O'Reilly die erste Ausgabe von Running Linux veröffentlicht. Im Dezember vorigen Jahres konnten Matthias Kalle Dalheimer und Matt Welsh die fünfte Auflage in den Händen halten. Die distributionsunabhängige Einführung eignet sich gleichermaßen für [...] Einsteiger wie Systemverwalter, die Kleinigkeiten nachschlagen wollen." - Henning Behme, iX 5/2006

Long Description

You may be contemplating your first Linux installation. Or you may have been using Linux for years and need to know more about adding a network printer or setting up an FTP server. "Running Linux," now in its fifth edition, is the book you'll want on hand in either case. Widely recognized in the Linux community as the ultimate getting-started and problem-solving book, it answers the questions and tackles the configuration issues that frequently plague users, but are seldom addressed in other books. This fifth edition of "Running Linux" is greatly expanded, reflecting the maturity of the operating system and the teeming wealth of software available for it. Hot consumer topics such as audio and video playback applications, groupware functionality, and spam filtering are covered, along with the basics in configuration and management that always have made the book popular. "Running Linux" covers basic communications such as mail, web surfing, and instant messaging, but also delves into the subtleties of network configuration--including dial-up, ADSL, and cable modems--in case you need to set up your network manually. The book can make you proficient on office suites and personal productivity applications--and also tells you what programming tools are available if you're interested in contributing to these applications. Other new topics in the fifth edition include encrypted email and filesystems, advanced shell techniques, and remote login applications. Classic discussions on booting, package management, kernel recompilation, and X configuration have also been updated. The authors of "Running Linux" have anticipated problem areas, selected stable andpopular solutions, and provided clear instructions to ensure that you'll have a satisfying experience using Linux. The discussion is direct and complete enough to guide novice users, while still providing the additional information experienced users will need to progress in their mastery of Linux. Whether you're using Linux on a home workstation or maintaining a network server, "Running Linux" will provide expert advice just when you need it.

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