How Linux Works describes the inside of the Linux system for systems administrators, whether they maintain an extensive network in the office or one Linux box at home. Some books try to give you copy-and-paste instructions for how to deal with every single system issue that may arise, but How Linux Works actually shows you how the Linux system functions so that you can come up with your own solutions. After a guided tour of filesystems, the boot sequence, system management basics, and networking, author Brian Ward delves into open-ended topics such as development tools, custom kernels, and buying hardware, all from an administrator's point of view. With a mixture of background theory and real-world examples, this book shows both "how" to administer Linux, and "why" each particular technique works, so that you will know how to make Linux work for you.

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 19 Ratings

Wrong Title - 2008-01-08
Reviewer Rating:
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.

Not bad but not especially useful to me - 2007-12-28
Reviewer Rating:
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 best introduction to Linux I've seen - 2009-10-21
Reviewer Rating:
In my work, I need to use Linux once in a while. For quite some time, I've searched for an introduction to Linux that would give me a solid overview of the system without bogging me down in detail. Of all the books that I've looked at or read, this is the best, if now somewhat dated, introduction to Linux I've found.

Blair Ward takes you straight into the mechanics of how Linux works. Note that this is a different approach than the books that promise to teach you how to learn to use Linux by showing you how to play music and movies. "How Linux Works" moves you into the essential commands of Linux, explains what they do and, where appropriate, some of the options available to you. Not the "some" in the last sentence. A small failing on Ward/s part is his not explaining all the options available for a command. His logic is readily apparent: he didn't want to bog the reader down with stuff they might never use in a lifetime. On the other hand, I am interested specifically in a handful of commands and not all the options are listed and explained for some of these, which is a disappointment. I guess that is what my well thumbed copy of "Linux In A Nutshell" is for - and which I constantly complain about having too much detail. Sometimes, you just can't win.

The real coolness about "How Linux Works" is that Ward provides enough detail to familiarize the novice user with how to get around in Linux, how to use the important tools without overloading anyone. In a matter of minutes with this book, much of my ignorance and confusion and Linux was dispelled. It was a great feeling.

The book, published in 2004, is becoming a bit dated. For the most part, the newer things that aren't covered are no loss for me and are covered in other publications - and the essentials of Linux are unchanged. A lot of material, as I mentioned, is simply not here. For example, there is no mention of working with the NTFS file system which was well-established in 2004, though not on Linux per se.

Overall, this book is great and fills my need for an intro that gives me the basics of about how Linux live and breathes while it is doing its thing. Nice piece of work.

Jerry

Great book to get started with Linux - 2009-01-06
Reviewer Rating:
I have used Windows for many years and I know computers good enought to make money repairing them. I also do programming. But I have never worked in Linux. This book got me started very well. It contains the information you need to get started with Linux, and it tries to teach you how stuff works, not just what to click / what keys to press. And you can learn Linux from the terminal (command line) with this book, which is great. My first Linux is Ubuntu (the book does not focus on a specific distro), and I only work from the terminal, not with the gui.

Missing important topics - 2009-12-23
Reviewer Rating:
The book is worth having. Its first couple of chapters are very well written. However I do feel that some important topics should have been included such as RAID configuration, LVM, snapshots, clustering and high availability, /etc/sysconfig configuration, X server configuration. I still recommend this book to all techies involved with Linux.