I was misled by the many glowing reviews into buying this book. This book is n't really about how linux works. Its more like a reference or manual - with very barebones descriptions followed by instruction. It doesn't go into depth at all about the 'how' or the 'why' as the title claims. In fact its just a regurgitation of the standard linux docs and HOWTOs (some of which were written by this author), the only advantage being that here you have them collected here between a spine. But their are websites that do this for you and do it for free to boot. The intermediate and advanced lessons at Linux.org/lessons cover everything in this book and much more in a better organized fashion. I would go there instead of buying this book.

As a Linux user, How Linux Works is, I think, a "nice to have" technical book but certainly not an essential one.

I began using Ubuntu Linux just less than one year ago as my primary operating system. In addition to myriad online resources, I have about nine different Linux books stacked up near my desk.

However, only some of those books remain at or near the top of the pile. That is to say that one year later, a few of the books I've bought remain useful but most of them don't.

How Linux Works went to the bottom of the pile very quickly after I bought it and has remained there pretty much continuously since then. In fact, I only recently pulled it out of the stack to see if, now that I know a bit more about Linux, there might be anything interesting or useful to me. There wasn't.

So my take is that How Linux Works isn't a bad book, but it's one of the demonstrably least useful books I've ever owned...

The book had lots of useful information but it was hard to read and boring. I felt like I was in school.

This book was perfect for me. I use GNU/Linux at home and work, and I wanted to learn more about a wide range of topics (bootup, networking, kernel, etc.). For each section, "How Linux Works" gives a concise explanation of how things work, and covers a few commands and command-line options.

Brian Ward does a great job of choosing what to exclude, to keep the book technically useful but still readable. It's a very efficient way to move from beginner toward intermediate-level understanding.

I will use this book as a starting point for experimenting and learning more about GNU/Linux. I can get much more from man pages now that I know more commands, for example.

The title is a bit misleading. It covers much more than the Linux kernel, and would more aptly be named "How GNU/Linux Works." I also disagree that it's "what every superuser should know" - the discussion is aimed at intermediate-level users.

This would be a great learning tool for those who have had experience which some flavor of Unix and for those who have never seen Unix. I have experience with a proprietary Unix but wanted more specific details about Linux architecture and administration. It is a great review of basic unix concepts, processes, & commands with the added information that is Linux specific. The book uses a very organized approach with each chapter building on top of the previous one. Plus each topic is structured like a tutorial - so it is covered in a way that those who do not know unix - learn it. I am only half way through the book and have found it very beneficial. And my college age son who has only dealt with the Windows environment - is going to read it to get the basics about Unix and the details he needs for Linux usage.

With a name like "How Linux works," I was surprised to see how much I enjoyed this book. It filled in many holes in my Linux knowledge. I found myself saying: "oh yea, I was wondering about that" several times.

Finally, it doesn't hurt that Mr. Ward doesn't come off as impressed by his Linux knowledge. This book feels like an ernest attempt to lay a solid foundation of Linux knowledge for the reader to build upon.

With a name like "How Linux works," I was surprised to see how much I enjoyed this book. It filled in many holes in my Linux knowledge. I found myself saying: "oh yea, I was wondering about that" several times.

Finally, it doesn't hurt that Mr. Ward doesn't come off as impressed by his Linux knowledge. This book feels like an ernest attempt to lay a solid foundation of Linux knowledge for the reader to build upon.

I highly recommend "How Linux Works" to anybody who, like myself, has already dabbled in Linux and been overwhelmed by the sheer size of that mountain the name Linux encompasses. It provides a sense of order and priority which makes all those other books you have suddenly MORE useful because while those give you lots of particulars, this one tells you which ones matter.

I found the book reads very clear. It gives brief background on moving around and using the commandline then moves on to topics that can be diffcult for newer linux users (compiling your own kernal anyone?) but does a good job of bringing the reader along. The chapters on comipling programs were excellent and very helpful. The book does a great job of explaining Iptables in only 5 pages. Also does good review about start-up scripts, rsync, printing, networking, cron.

I would highly recommend to those with some limited exposure to Linux who are looking to dig in deeper.

There are three books that I am currently using to learn Linux and obtain a professional certification in this area. One of the books is "How Linux Works: what every superuser should know" by Brian Ward, published by No Starch Press. Indeed, the publisher name speaks for itself and the author did a great job covering many subjects in Linux administration without creating hunderds of "filler" pages as with many books these days.

There are roughly over three hundred pages in the book and 18 chapters that cover anything from the basics, file system, boot process, and network configuration to backups, kernel, samba and shell sripts. For instance, in the Network configuration chapter, along with the Linux-related information you need, will also cover things like network layers, routing, wireless security and so forth. Please remember, each topic by itself would easily cover thousands of pages and is very complex. However, the book will successfully give you enough to either encourage you to learn more or make you feel comfortable with concepts and bash commands.

I must admit though, there are certain areas I wish the author spent more time explaining the details. But I guess you could always use "man pages" or add another reference book to your home library. Overall, this is a very useful book to have; especially to those who feel comfortable with Linux GUI and would like to know more about the "under the hood" stuff.

Remember, CLI (command line interface) is your friend!

This book is about the inner workings of Linux. Whether you are a novice (suits perfectly), programmer, Sys Admin, home user or a researcher - if you are one of a kind who is always curious about the inner workings of the things, then this book is for you. Me being a programmer, I was drawn towards it as to better my understanding of Linux which I learned basically by reading online tutorials. The book is divided in three parts. 1. Part 1: Explains the basic layout & workings of Linux. 2. Part 2: Explains the programming tools available in Linux. 3. Part 3: Explains specialized information, such as Kernel, printing etc.


Part 1: The basics are covered in pretty much detailed. Even though I found that at some places I could use a man or info command to get a more detailed information about certain command, I can understand that this book has no intention of doing it. But for the reference, the author explores all the basic commands of Linux and gives a brief intro about them. The book explains a in a lot simple way of why and how of Linux file systems. I have always had some confusion about them. But this book clearly explained them for me. Along the path of explaining of basics of Linux, we venture into Linux boot loaders -- LILO & GRUB. The book also has some excellent writeup on Networking in Linux. I couldn't verify the ppp part of it, but the parts on Ethernet, iptables & NAT are dealt well. What more, you also get a stern warning about how to manage your wireless network security.


Part 2: The second part starts with a priemer on Shell scripting. I would suggest any other Oreilly's book on Shell scripting for this. But again, looking at the target audience of the book -- not everything in shell scripting can be taught in such a small book. The explanation on GCC, Make (I never got this till I read this book) are explained well. What more, Python gets a nod as scripting language! The most interesting part or could also be most annonying part of any linux system is compiling of the Kernel. A wholesome chapter is devoted to it and now I feel pretty confident about how I can recompile my system.


Part 3: This part can be read independent of the book order. It has all the special topics which can be dealt independently. Like how do you setup network printer? How can I run CUPSd? How do I use Ghostscript to convert from Postscript to PDF? All these questions are answered here. I had a perfect need to read and study SAMBA. My home network consists of windows machines and I used to use them when I need to access specific files on those windows machines. Now no more! I can very nicely browse all my files right here from my laptop with wireless connection. One constant complain about people who use Linux is about buggy hardware. This book has a whole chapter devoted on how to buy linux compatible hardware. It will come to you of immense help especially if you are trying to build your own machine with all the latest technologies. I can also see how it can be of immensely helpful to System admins in corporate environments. Overall, I would recommend this book to anyone who is curious enough to learn the inner workings of Linux. If you can maintain that curiosity for 330+ pages, you can get accustomed to inner workings of Linux. This book will not make you an Linux expert. It will give you a meaning as to how things work in Linux. You would have to gain the mastery built on top of that foundation though.

This book teaches you everything you need to know in order to maintain and adequately use the Linux OS.

However the book is only about medium build so it only able to touch on all the information and does not go into any deep excavation of knowledge. For example, the book explains how to compile a custom kernel, but it will not tell you about each of the options you check when making the custom kernel.

The book is still great nonetheless because it makes you aware of all the different parts of Linux. Before you can know everything about Linux you have to be aware of every part. Whether or not you want to go find an even deeper understanding of each little section is your own perogative. How Linux Work's gives you a strong start though.

The irony to this book however is that all the information in it is also avaiable free online. If you read the documentation and readme's for each of the things mentioned in this book you would get the same affect for free. This is an excellent tangible version though, I don't regret buying it at all because it saved me time from having to go to 2 dozen websites, 5 stars.

This book was not was I was expecting at all. This book lists great topics that it covers. However, it just bearly touches the surface of these topics and has been written in a way that assumes you already have basic or in some cases more than basic knowledge of the areas. Prime example of this is when the author gives you commands to try. He shows you the command to try but does not break down its components. so will have entered a lenghty command to execute as an example but you are not told why you have entered all the different components of that command. So it creates more questions than anything. This book has done an exellent job from the stand point of introducing you to these areas. I now have ideas of which topics I want to explore more and the author cites further readings on a lot of them. But be very aware they DO MENTION this book is geared toward superusers and or administrators. this is exactly what I found.. I do not regret my purchase, I just was expecting something more informal from the new user standpoint. The title may be a little misleading in that to benifit from how linux works more than I did, it assumes you have a prior knowledge of how linux works. LOL interesting, no?

I didn't know about this book until it showed up on my doorstep courtesy of the great folks at the O'Reilly LUG program. But I was interested in it from the moment I opened the box.

It's a basic guide to general Linux. It's new, fun and the author does a nice job of covering the basics. He doesn't dwell on any one distro, but covers all sorts of commands, issues, and questions that a lot of people who are switching to linux might have. He goes over basics of Networking, Printing, and touches upon more advanced options in linux. I was especially pleased with the referencing he did, if you want to know more about a subject he recommends a book to check out! Very nice.

I sat down on a Saturday afternoon, and by Sunday night I had read my way through it. Even as an experienced Linux user I was interested and picked up a few tidbits from this book that I didn't know about. Although it's aimed at the new user, it was fun and interesting for me to read.

I'd definately recommend this book to people wanting to get into the Linux world.

After several books and online help for linux I have finally put the pieces together. This boook aids you in really seeing how linux is put together. If you are a Windows admin or superuser you will really appreciate the way the author puts it together. This helped me fill in the blanks and made me excited to really get deep into linux.

This is the second Linux book you should buy.

First you need something a bit simpler to get the of off the ground (or off the CD perhaps). Perhaps the 'Linux For Non-Geeks' which even includes a distribution of the latest Fedora (RedHat) core.

But by the time you are getting ready to actually make the system do something, then you need this book. The sub-title is 'What every Superuser should know.' Maybe you're not going to be a super user, but you can bet that when you're behind schedule, trying to get that application working, you're going to be missing some little bit of knowledge that would solve the problem.

Changes are that the little knowledge you need is here, easy to find (supurb index), and clearly explained.

This is one of the best basic books on learning Linux and is written with the power user in mind. It takes a different approach to learning Linux than most other books. Other books typically focus on a section of Linux and go over it in detail. For example, it may cover the file system from selecting an appropriate one to how to mount disks, security, directories, links, and similar information until it has presented all the information on the file system. Instead this one divides the learning task up into basic stuff you need to know, intermediate knowledge, and more advanced levels. This is actually more consistent with the knowledge expected in the real world. While I would expect even a basic administrator to understand how to mount and unmount a drive I would not necessarily expect them to know how to interpret and change an fstab configuration file. To go over the whole file system from beginning to advanced levels leaving the student unknowledgeable in other basic tasks doesn't make as much senses. I would rather hire someone who knows the basics of the system including adding users and other administration than one who knows everything about one area. So, I really like the way it teaches basic knowledge in all areas, then intermediate knowledge in all areas, then advanced.

The focus is on the user or the person who has been assigned to administer an existing Linux system. If you need to add a peripheral device, setup or change printing, mount a CD for access by Windows based machines, or pretty much anything else that an administrator of a Linux file server needs to know its covered. There are better books for other type of servers like setting up a web server, MySQL, or other items. However, if you are completely new to Linux or a fairly novice Linux user and need to be able to administer a file server type system you will enjoy this book. Designed for the person who wants to really learn about Linux from the ground up "How Linux Works" is a recommended read.

This is a good techie overview of Linux. This is not the book you hand to Grandma (unless Grandma is a system admin), but it is a very well done Linux guide/introduction.

The first couple of chapters are old hat to any Unix user, being just basic overviews of how Unix in gneral works, but Brian quickly gets into the real meat of Linux with chapter 3 "How Linux Boots" and goes on from there with coverage of networking, printing and everything else you'd expect. If that were all there was, I'd be impressed and would recommend this book, but there is more. There are two excellent chapters on programming tools and compiling source code. These include troubleshooting compilation problems, an often ignored aspect of our Open Source world. A third related chapter covers kernel compilation specifically and again goes beyond the usual treatment.

Throughout the book, Brian gives useful hints and suggestions. He has obviously used and administered real Linux systems and has good experience and advice to share.

I like Brian's writing style and the definite techie orientation. If you are a tech person investigating Linux, this is a good book to read.