I'm really proud to announce that my 3rd book is now out & available for purchase: Linux Phrasebook. My first book - Don't Click on the Blue E!: Switching to Firefox - was for general readers (really!) who wanted to learn how to move to and use the fantastic Firefox web browser. I included a lot of great information for more technical users as well, but the focus was your average Joe. My second book - Hacking Knoppix - was for the more advanced user who wanted to take advantage of Knoppix, a version of Linux that runs entirely off of a CD. You don't need to be super-technical to use and enjoy Hacking Knoppix, but the more technical you are, the more you'll enjoy the book. Linux Phrasebook is all about the Linux command line, and it's perfect for both Linux newbies and experienced users. In fact, when I was asked to write the book, I responded, "Write it? I can't wait to buy it!"

The idea behind Linux Phrasebook is to give practical examples of Linux commands and their myriad options, with examples for everything. Too often a Linux user will look up a command in order to discover how it works, and while the command and its many options will be detailed, something vitally important will be left out: examples. That's where Linux Phrasebook comes in. I cover a huge number of different commands and their options, and for every single one, I give an example of usage and results that makes it clear how to use it.

Here's the table of contents; in parentheses I've included some (just some) of the commands I cover in each chapter:

1. Things to Know About Your Command Line
2. The Basics (ls, cd, mkdir, cp, mv, rm)
3. Learning About Commands (man, info, whereis, apropos)
4. Building Blocks (;, &&, |, >, >>)
5. Viewing Files (cat, less, head, tail)
6. Printing and Managing Print Jobs (lpr, lpq, lprm)
7. Ownerships and Permissions (chgrp, chown, chmod)
8. Archiving and Compression (zip, gzip, bzip2, tar)
9. Finding Stuff: Easy (grep, locate)
10. The find command (find)
11. Your Shell (history, alias, set)
12. Monitoring System Resources (ps, lsof, free, df, du)
13. Installing software (rpm, dkpg, apt-get, yum)
14. Connectivity (ping, traceroute, route, ifconfig, iwconfig)
15. Working on the Network (ssh, sftp, scp, rsync, wget)
16. Windows Networking (nmblookup, smbclient, smbmount)

I'm really proud of the whole book, but the chapter on the super-powerful and useful find command is a standout, along with the material on ssh and its descendants sftp and scp. But really, the whole book is great, and I will definitely be keeping a copy on my desk as a reference. If you want to know more about the Linux command line and how to use it, then I know you'll enjoy and learn from Linux Phrasebook.

You can read about and buy the book at Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0672328380/) for $10.19. If you have any questions or comments, don't hesitate to contact me at scott at granneman dot com, or check out my web site for more info.

Several months ago my second book came out, Hacking Knoppix. Prior to that, O'Reilly released a (good) book on the same subject titled Knoppix Hacks. Yup, the two sure sound alike. On the CWE-LUG list, JT asked a good question: "What is the differentiators between the books? Do they have core themes or do they just deal with different hacks?" Robert - who was the tech editor for Hacking Knoppix and also wrote an appendix, had this to say as an answer. He nailed it, IMHO.

<begin Robert>

Here's my take:

Knoppix Hacks: a large collection of small hacks
Hacking Knoppix: a small collection of large hacks

So, Hacking Knoppix goes into more depth on a fewer hacks, with a fair amount of emphasis on remastering.

I think the two books complement each other well. But perhaps I'm biased. :)

<end Robert>

(Check out all of our posts on Knoppix.)