Product Description

Linux Journal Readers’ Choice Awards 2008 Favorite Linux Book, Honorable Mention. http://www.linuxjournal.com

“. . . 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 8.04 LTS (Long Term Support), a.k.a., “Hardy Heron,” is the latest release—more powerful, more flexible, and friendlier than ever. The Official Ubuntu Book, Third 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 8.04 LTS, whether you’re a home user, small business user, server administrator, or programmer. The authors cover Ubuntu 8.04 LTS from start to finish: installation, configuration, desktop productivity, games, management, support, and much more. Among the many new topics covered in this edition: the new Edubuntu and the brand new Kubuntu Remix including KDE 4.

The Official Ubuntu Book, Third 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 the 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).

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #216570 in Books
• Published on: 2008-07-03
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 512 pages

From the Back Cover
Linux Journal Readers’ Choice Awards 2008 Favorite Linux Book, Honorable Mention. http://www.linuxjournal.com

“. . . 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 8.04 LTS (Long Term Support), a.k.a., “Hardy Heron,” is the latest release—more powerful, more flexible, and friendlier than ever. The Official Ubuntu Book, Third 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 8.04 LTS, whether you’re a home user, small business user, server administrator, or programmer. The authors cover Ubuntu 8.04 LTS from start to finish: installation, configuration, desktop productivity, games, management, support, and much more. Among the many new topics covered in this edition: the new Edubuntu and the brand new Kubuntu Remix including KDE 4.

The Official Ubuntu Book, Third 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 the 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).

About the Author
Benjamin Mako Hill is a Seattle native working out of Boston, Massachusetts. Mako is a long-time free software developer and advocate. He was part of the founding Ubuntu team and one of the first employees of Canonical Ltd. In addition to some technical work, his charge at Canonical was to help grow the Ubuntu development and user community during the project’s first year. Mako is currently a fellow at the MIT Center for Future Civic Media, a senior researcher at the MIT Sloan School of Management, and a contractor for the One Laptop per Child project. Mako has continued his involvement with Ubuntu as a member of the Community Council governance board, through development work, and through projects such as this book.

Corey Burger lives in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, and is a long-term user and contributor to Ubuntu. A member of the Ubuntu Canada and the Community Council, he has been involved with Ubuntu since its first release. Corey is currently a geography student and has most recently worked for a Canadian Linux company. He also contributes to OpenStreetMap and works to promote Ubuntu on Vancouver Island. Corey speaks regularly about Ubuntu, OpenStreetMap, and open source to a wide variety of audiences.

Jonathan Jesse is a full-time Microsoft Windows consultant specializing in IT lifecycle management products. He has a strong interest in Linux and open source software focusing on Ubuntu and Kubuntu. Since Jonathan is not a developer or a programmer, he struggled to find a way to give back to the open source community. Beginning with the Hoary Hedgehog release, he joined the Ubuntu Documentation Team by proofreading and submitting patches to the mailing list, then worked on the Kubuntu documents. Currently, Jonathan is involved in working on bugs for the Kubuntu Team, the Ubuntu Wiki, and the Laptop Testing Team. Ubuntu and Kubuntu have given Jonathan a way to give back to the community without having to be a developer, and he encourages everyone to come help him out.

Jono Bacon (www.jonobacon.org) is the community leader for Ubuntu. Previously he was a consultant for the United Kingdom’s government-funded OpenAdvantage (www.openadvantage.org) center in England, where he worked with businesses, education and charitable organizations, and individuals to help them move to open source software and open standards. He is the cocreator of the popular LugRadio podcast.

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Customer Reviews

A good introduction, but lacks depth and power user tips
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.

Bit preachy, fine for newbies, not for the more experienced
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.

Great to have a hard copy
All the information in this book can be easily found on the internet. But I love having the hard copy right there next to you. I am a newbie with Ubuntu and found this book very helpful to get me setup and started. And flicking through the pages had me discover some useful things I would have otherwise missed. some places in the book, really lacked detail and had me searching the internet (for example, setting up a dual boot system, where the book skims the subject).

Over all I am very happy with Ubuntu Linux. and this book was a great start up guide / introduction.