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Oct 11
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Linux All-in-One Desk Reference For Dummies gives you eight different quickreference guides in a single book. Taken together, these eight minibooks provide detailed information on installing, configuring, and using Linux. What you’ll like most about this book is that you don’t have to read it sequentially chapter by chapter, or, for that matter, even the sections in a chapter. You can pretty much turn to the topic you want and quickly get the answer to your pressing questions about Linux, be it about using the OpenOffice.org word processor or setting up the Apache Web server. Here are some of the things you can do with this book:
- Install and configure Linux — Debian, Fedora Core, Knoppix, SUSE, or Xandros — from the DVD-ROM included with the book.
- Connect the Linux PC to the Internet through a DSL or cable modem.
- Set up dialup networking with PPP.
- Add a wireless Ethernet to your existing network.
- Get tips, techniques, and shortcuts for specific uses of Linux, such as
• Setting up and using Internet services such as Web, Mail, News, FTP, NFS, and DNS.
• Setting up a Windows server using Samba.
• Using Linux commands.
• Using Perl, shell, and C programming on Linux.
• Using the OpenOffice.org office suite and other applications that come with Linux.
- Understand the basics of system and network security.
- Perform system administration tasks.
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TaGs: All-in-One, Dummies, Linux, Operating System, Reference
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Think of this book as a friendly, approachable guide to tackling terminology and the Linux collection of tools, utilities, and widgets. Although Linux isn’t terribly hard to figure out, it does pack a boatload of details, parameters, and administrivia (administrative trivia, in Unixspeak). You need to wrestle those details into shape while you install, configure, manage, and troubleshoot a Linux-based computer. Some sample topics you find in this book include the following:
Linux is open-source software at it’s finest. Open-source software is all about taking control of your desktop away from the big corporations and putting it into the hands of the developers working with your best interests at heart. The software is freely available on the Internet for you to download — you can even help develop the projects if you want to get involved. Decisions about what’s on your desktop aren’t being made based on the profit margins yielded by the software. Instead, the best interests of the user are of primary concern to the developers. Although open-source software is great, have you ever tried to read the documentation that comes with it? Some of it is very good, but most of it is written for geeks, by geeks, and a good part of it is flat-out missing. Don’t blame the developers — they are doing this for free after all. . . . Our goal in writing this book is to empower you with some of the stronger features of Linux (and some great open-source tools) to solve everyday problems, without the headaches and lost time that go with trying to figure out how to use the tools. Linux provides simple, fast, and powerful solutions to meet the demands of day-to-day computer use and system administration — our goal is to save you time, while making the tools easy to use.
Mac mini Hacks & Mods For Dummies gives you several different approaches to information about modding. Some chapters give you specific projects to work on. For these, I provide step-by-step directions on how to achieve a particular objective, such as upgrading the internal hard drive or modifying the mini’s outer casing. I’ve peppered these sections with plenty of tips and tricks and lists of tools that you’ll need. With some other mods, however, there are just too many options to give you a step-by-step procedure. For these, I present descriptions of what’s involved with a type of mod and show you the modding techniques for doing it. You also find lists of what you’ll need to acquire and where to get it. In some parts of this book, I try to provide you with ideas for further mods, or to help you come up with your own ideas. I can’t take all the credit, though. Writing this book was such a big task that I enlisted the help of Arnold Reinhold to write six of the chapters, including everything on installing a Mac mini in your car. He also tackled the chapter on kitchens and the chapter at the end of the book that lists ten more things you can do with a mini.
We’re fairly smart people, and presumably you’re a really smart person (you are looking at the right book, after all), but it seems like technology evolves faster than we do. Even the magical Mac — the symbol of all things easy in the computer world — is chock full of features and gadgets and bells and whistles and pretty lights. (Okay, the lights are on the outside, but . . .) Make no mistake: You’ll love these things, once you know what they all are and how to use them, that is. So the question is How do I get from point A (merely having the features) to point B (doing what I want/need to do, quickly and easily)? By reading this book, of course! But if that isn’t enough to convince you (and we can’t imagine why not; after all, we’ve never lied to you before), take a moment or two to read through this introduction. We tell you where we’re coming from, what this book offers, and how it’ll make you fall in love with your Mac all over again.
If you bought a Mac, you’re unbelievably smart (or lucky). You’ve neatly eliminated much of the hassle, frustration, and annoyance that normally comes with buying a computer. You have a computer that doesn’t just look a heck of a lot better than other kinds of computers — it works better, too, because both its hardware and its software were designed by a single company. And not a single computer virus has yet surfaced that can affect the Mac’s operating software. (You know how your friends and your newspaper are always going on about viruses and hackers? They’re talking about Windows computers. The Mac doesn’t do Windows.) The Mac also has everything you need built in: a modem (so you can use the Internet and e-mail), a CD burner (great for making backups), or even a DVD burner (for preserving your home movies on DVD), and a huge assortment of free programs.
Linux is an operating system that was first created at the University of Helsinki in Finland by a young student named Linus Torvalds. At this time the student was working on a UNIX system that was running on an expensive platform. Because of his low budget, and his need to work at home, he decided to create a copy of the UNIX system in order to run it on a less expensive platform, such as an IBM PC. He began his work in 1991 when he released version 0.02 and worked steadily until 1994 when version 1.0 of the Linux Kernel was released. The Linux operating system is developed under the GNU General Public License (also known as GNU GPL) and its source code is freely available to everyone who downloads it via the Internet. The CD-ROM version of Linux is also available in many stores, and companies that provide it will charge you for the cost of the media and support. Linux may be used for a wide variety of purposes including networking, software development, and as an end-user platform. Linux is often considered an excellent, low-cost alternative to other more expensive operating systems because you can install it on multiple computers without paying more.
