The Official Ubuntu Book: Amazon.co.uk: Benjamin Hill, Jono Bacon, Ivan Krstic, David J. Murphy, Jonathan Jesse, Peter Savage, Corey Burger: Books

Product Description

A new edition of this title is available, ISBN-10: 0137136684 ISBN-13: 9780137136681

Praise for The Official Ubuntu Book

". . . this one (Ubuntu Linux book) is at the head of the pack for getting started with your penguin experience. . . ."

—Tom Duff

"Benjamin Mako Hill et al. have produced an excellent book that speaks to everyone who uses or is considering using Ubuntu."

—James Pyles, Reviewer, "The Linux Tutorial"

"Well written in an easy-to-follow format. Full of information for folks new to Linux or just new to Ubuntu. Even nontechnical users would find this a very helpful resource."

—Ben Gerber,Arsgeek.com

"I'd recommend picking it up if you are running Ubuntu."

—Tony Lawrence, owner of aplawrence.com

Ubuntu is a complete, free operating system that emphasizes community, support, and ease of use without compromising speed, power, or flexibility. It's Linux for human beings—designed for everyone from computer novices to experts. Ubuntu 7.04 (a.k.a., "Feisty Fawn") is the latest release—more powerful, more flexible, and friendlier than ever. The Official Ubuntu Book, Second Edition, will get you up and running quickly.

Written by expert leading Ubuntu community members, this book covers all you need to know to make the most of Ubuntu 7.04, whether you're a home user, small business user, server administrator, or programmer. The authors cover Ubuntu 7.04 from start to finish: installation, configuration, desktop productivity, games, management, support, and much more. Among the many new topics covered in this edition: Ubuntu's expanded multimedia functionality and Edubuntu offerings geared for schools and educational settings.

The Official Ubuntu Book, Second Edition, covers standard desktop applications, from word processing, spreadsheets, Web browsing, e-mail, instant messaging, music, video, and games to software development, databases, and server applications. In addition, you'll

Learn how to customize Ubuntu for home, small business, school, government, and enterprise environments
Learn how to quickly update Ubuntu to accommodate new versions and new applications
Find up-to-the-minute troubleshooting advice from Ubuntu users worldwide
Learn Ubuntu Server installation and administration, including LVM and RAID implementation
Learn about Edubuntu—Ubuntu optimized specifically for classroom

The DVD includes the complete Ubuntu Linux operating system for installation on PC platforms, preconfigured with an outstanding desktop environment for both home and business computing. It can be used to install other complete variants of Ubuntu including Kubuntu (with the KDE environment), and Edubuntu (for use in schools).

From the Back Cover

Ubuntu is a complete, free operating system that emphasizes community support and ease of use while refusing to compromise on speed, power, and flexibility. It's Linux for human beings--designed for everyone from computer novices to experts. Ubuntu is the most in-demand Linux distribution, and this official guide will get you up and running quickly.
Learn how to seamlessly install and customize Ubuntu for your home or small business. Its open source power can be used in schools, government, or by companies, and is suitable for both desktop and server use. The Ubuntu community is built on the premise that software should be available free of charge, that software tools should be available to people in their local language, and that people should have the freedom to customize and alter their software in whatever way they see fit.
Written by leading Ubuntu community members, this is the only book that you need to become a savvy Ubuntu user.
Covers the latest version of Ubuntu--Dapper Drake
Covers every standard desktop application--word processing spreadsheets, Web browsing, e-mail, instant messaging, music video, and, of course, games, as well as software development, databases and other server applications
Includes real-world troubleshooting advice contributed by Ubuntu users from around the world
Learn about the extended Ubuntu community that includes translators; software developers, teachers; people who love to hand out CDs and help friends try free software, artists; people who write documentation, tips, and guides; accountants; even a lawyer or two
Covers both Ubuntu and Kubuntu desktop systems
Explains Ubuntu Server installation and basic administration, complete with advanced installer features like LVM and RAID
This book comes with a DVD that contains the Live CD, the install CD, and the complete set of supported packages for Ubuntu, including Kubuntu. Try out Ubuntu from the Live CD. If you want to keep it, install it from right on your desktop.
Community Contributors- James Stanger, Jorge O. Castro, Matthew East, Quim Gil, Dennis Kaarsemaker, David Bain, Alan Barnard, David Clayton, Manu Cornet, Scott Dier, Oskar Jönefors, Jay LaPrade, Avinash Meetoo, Julien Rottenberg, Stephen Sandlin, David Symons, Paul van Genderen, Andrew Zajac --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

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112 of 114 people found the following review helpful

A good introduction, but lacks depth and power user tips 29 Oct 2006

By DAZ VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

I have been using Ubuntu for about a year now and when I first started using it I craved for a good book to help me sort out the teething problems. There were none available at the time (as opposed to the huge amount now being published) so I resorted to the Ubuntu forums for help. This book is written by the people who contribute to those forums and answers a lot of the questions I had and many more besides. It also contains an excellent foreword by Mark Shuttleworth, the founder of Ubuntu, which explains lots about the philosophy of Ubuntu and has some interesting history of the project.

However, I have discovered that I have actually become quite adept at using Ubuntu without realising it, so this book has been redered almost useless to me. Despite being able to use Ubuntu quite well, I was hoping to get some power user tips such as using the Beryl display manager and configuring the apache web server and using mysql or other database programs. Some of the tips alos refer you to the forums as 'there isn't enough room to cover this in the book', which can be frustrating.

I would recommend this as an essential 'users manual' for anybody who is new to Ubuntu, but would look elsewhere if you are reasonably experienced and looking for advanced techniques.

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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

The Official Ubuntu Book is Good...but!! 3 Jun 2011

By I. Welham

This is a good book...make no mistake. It has a lot of helpful insight into 'how to' etc etc. But the book is, in my view, too heavily wrapped up in telling the story, the history of Linux and Ubuntu. It drones on and on for page after page to start with and becomes somewhat boring. And this takes up a good deal of the books opening chapters. Yes, we want to know about the fine ideals of the Open Source Community and Ubuntu, but not quite so repetitively and heavily.

So it is surprising that the more important stuff about 'how to do stuff' is a bit light on detail in some instances. You are left wondering, as I was, if this is the book you should have bought.

However, it does cover other versions of Ubuntu Linux and you do get a very nice factory 'Live CD' with the latest Long Term Support version on it. Mine came with Ubuntu 10.04 LTS.

All in all worth buying but probably not the best one regarding 'how to's'.

22 of 25 people found the following review helpful

Bit preachy, fine for newbies, not for the more experienced 19 July 2008

By Macrostic

Be warned: there is an awful lot of self-congratulation and sermon-giving in this book. Ubuntu has a community, it has a strong sense of ethics and there is a Code of Conduct. It's all very admirable, but most of us would be content to read that on a web-site.

What one wants from a book is ease-of-reference to common but tricky situations, where regular "help", "man" and online facilities may be a little difficult to follow.

The book is excellent at the very early stages of installation, though since Ubuntu is famous for its ease-of-installation this is not altogether necessary. There is a rather random chapter on typical problems but it didn't address a problem I had - I had downloaded and apparently installed a program from one of the repositories - easy enough - but it did not appear in any of the regular Ubuntu application menus and it was far from easy to work out where on the computer the package had landed and how to start it up.
My advice is: think carefully about your level of expertise before buying this book and consider which of the other available titles may suit you better.

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