For use with all versions of Linux, including Ubuntu,™ Fedora,™ openSUSE,™ Red Hat,® Debian, Mandriva, Mint, and now OS X, too!
- Get more done faster, and become a true Linux guru by mastering the command line!
- Learn from hundreds of realistic, high-quality examples
- NEW! Coverage of the Mac OS X command line and its unique tools
- NEW! Expert primer on automating tasks with Perl
The Most Useful Linux Tutorial and Reference, with Hundreds of High-Quality Examples for Every Distribution–Now Covers OS X and Perl, Too!
To be truly productive with Linux, you need to thoroughly master shells and the command line. Until now, you had to buy two books to gain that mastery: a tutorial on fundamental Linux concepts and techniques, plus a separate reference. Now, there’s a far better solution. Renowned Linux expert Mark Sobell has brought together comprehensive, insightful guidance on the tools system administrators, developers, and power users need most, and an outstanding day-to-day reference, both in the same book.
This book is 100 percent distribution and release agnostic: You can use it with any Linux system, now and for years to come. Use Macs, too? This new edition adds comprehensive coverage of the Mac OS X command line, including essential OS X-only tools and utilities other Linux/UNIX books ignore.
Packed with hundreds of high-quality, realistic examples, this book gives you Linux from the ground up: the clearest explanations and most useful knowledge about everything from filesystems to shells, editors to utilities, and programming tools to regular expressions. Sobell has also added an outstanding new primer on Perl, the most important programming tool for Linux admins seeking to automate complex, time-consuming tasks.
A Practical Guide to Linux® Commands, Editors, and Shell Programming, Second Edition, is the only book to deliver
- Better, more realistic examples covering tasks you’ll actually need to perform
- Deeper insight, based on Sobell’s immense knowledge of every Linux and OS X nook and cranny
- A start-to-finish primer on Perl for every system administrator
- In-depth coverage of basic and advanced Linux shell programming with bash and tcsh
- Practical explanations of 100 core utilities, from aspell to xargs–including Mac OS X specific utilities from ditto to SetFile
- All-new coverage of automating remote backups with rsync
- Dozens of system security tips, including step-by-step walkthroughs of implementing secure communications using ssh and scp
- Tips and tricks for customizing the shell and using it interactively from the command line
- Complete guides to high-productivity editing with both vim and emacs
- A comprehensive, 286-page command reference section–now with revised and expanded indexes for faster access to the information you need
- Instructions for updating systems automatically with apt-get and yum
- Dozens of exercises to help you practice and gain confidence
- And much more, including coverage of BitTorrent, gawk, sed, find, sort, bzip2, and regular expressions
Praise for the First Edition of A Practical Guide to Linux Commands, Editors, and Shell Programming
“First Sobell taught people how to use Linux...now he teaches you the power of Linux. A must-have book for anyone who wants to take Linux to the next level.”
―Jon “maddog” Hall, Executive Director, Linux International
“This book is a very useful tool for anyone who wants to ‘look under the hood’ so to speak, and really start putting the power of Linux to work. What I find particularly frustrating about man pages is that they never include examples. Sobell, on the other hand, outlines very clearly what the command does and then gives several common, easy-tounderstand examples that make it a breeze to start shell programming on one’s own. As with Sobell’s other works, this is simple, straight-forward, and easy to read. It’s a great book and will stay on the shelf at easy arm’s reach for a long time.”
―Ray Bartlett, Travel Writer
“Overall I found this book to be quite excellent, and it has earned a spot on the very front of my bookshelf. It covers the real ‘guts’ of Linux―the command line and its utilities―and does so very well. Its strongest points are the outstanding use of examples, and the Command Reference section. Highly recommended for Linux users of all skill levels. Well done to Mark Sobell and Prentice Hall for this outstanding book!”
―Dan Clough, Electronics Engineer and Slackware Linux user
“Totally unlike most Linux books, this book avoids discussing everything via GUI and jumps right into making the power of the command line your friend.”
―Bjorn Tipling, Software Engineer, ask.com
“This book is the best distro-agnostic, foundational Linux reference I’ve ever seen, out of dozens of Linux-related books I’ve read. Finding this book was a real stroke of luck. If you want to really understand how to get things done at the command line, where the power and flexibility of free UNIX-like OSes really live, this book is among the best tools you’ll find toward that end.”
―Chad Perrin, Writer, TechRepublic
Praise for Other Books by Mark G. Sobell
“I keep searching for books that collect everything you want to know about a subject in one place, and keep getting disappointed. Usually the books leave out some important topic, while others go too deep in some areas and must skim lightly over the others. A Practical Guide to Red Hat® Linux® is one of those rare books that actually pulls it off. Mark G. Sobell has created a single reference for Red Hat Linux that can’t be beat! This marvelous text (with a 4-CD set of Linux Fedora Core 2 included) is well worth the price. This is as close to an ‘everything you ever needed to know’ book that I’ve seen. It’s just that good and rates 5 out of 5.”
―Ray Lodato, Slashdot contributor
“Mark Sobell has written a book as approachable as it is authoritative.”
―Jeffrey Bianchine, Advocate, Author, Journalist
“Excellent reference book, well suited for the sysadmin of a Linux cluster, or the owner of a PC contemplating installing a recent stable Linux. Don’t be put off by the daunting heft of the book. Sobell has strived to be as inclusive as possible, in trying to anticipate your system administration needs.”
―Wes Boudville, Inventor
“A Practical Guide to Red Hat® Linux® is a brilliant book. Thank you Mark Sobell.”
―C. Pozrikidis, University of California at San Diego
“This book presents the best overview of the Linux operating system that I have found. . . . [It] should be very helpful and understandable no matter what the reader’s background: traditional UNIX user, new Linux devotee, or even Windows user. Each topic is presented in a clear, complete fashion, and very few assumptions are made about what the reader knows. . . . The book is extremely useful as a reference, as it contains a 70-page glossary of terms and is very well indexed. It is organized in such a way that the reader can focus on simple tasks without having to wade through more advanced topics until they are ready.”
―Cam Marshall, Marshall Information Service LLC, Member of Front Range UNIX Users Group [FRUUG], Boulder, Colorado
“Conclusively, this is THE book to get if you are a new Linux user and you just got into the RH/Fedora world. There’s no other book that discusses so many different topics and in such depth.”
―Eugenia Loli-Queru, Editor in Chief, OSNews.com
