Book Review of:
Teach Yourself Linux 
in 24 Hours
Second Edition 

The author tells you that each chapter should take you an hour or less to do. I found that it took me much longer for most chapters and I didn’t read all the recommended references and do all the exercises.

Each chapter ends with Questions & Answers and exercises. If you don’t install OpenLinux 2.2 exactly in accordance with the book, you can’t do the exercises in the first few chapters. In later chapters, the author tells you to do a task after you’ve set something up in Linux. Unfortunately, he doesn’t always tell you how to do the setup. Looking it up in the Index is useless. For example, as a test, I looked up creating an emergency, rescue or boot disk. The Index entry for ‘emergency boot disk’ was erroneous – it led me to a page on tape backups. The Index entry for ‘boot disk, emergency’ led me to a Q&A entry where the author said you should have an emergency boot disk on hand. However, he didn’t say how to make one or give a reference to instructions on how to do so. I haven’t found this information by browsing the book either. 

Another example: on page 379, Exercise 3 tells you to “mount the other file system”. The author hasn’t told you how to do this yet and there’s no reference to the proper page. The index has nine references to ‘mount’ but none of them refer to page 482 and the section titled Using the mount Command to Access Other Filesystems. (Neither this section nor any other referenced pages tell you how to do this.)

While I installed OpenLinux2.3 and the author discusses installing OpenLinux 2.2 he did a good job on leading you through the installation process. Although he provides a checklist of what you should know about your system before you begin the install, he doesn’t tell you where to find the information and how to print it.

When I read Hour 3, Post Installation Issues I came upon one of the greatest omissions in the book. The author fails to tell you where to type the commands he wants you to use. When you log into OpenLinux, it automatically boots into KDE. In KDE you can open a terminal window and type commands in it. At log-in you can go into the Shutdown Options and choose Console Mode. Nowhere, especially in the first few chapters, does the author tell you this. A true beginner would not know this. (You can also switch to a virtual console by typing Ctrl+Alt+F1 through F6.) This is important since the author only tells you how to do things from the command prompt.

Once you know where to type commands the examples he provides are easy to follow. He always tells you the purpose of the command. (He doesn’t cover command syntax.) He also illustrates the use of some command options. While there are many tasks you must do at a command prompt, there are many others that can be done just as well in KDE, especially for those of us coming from Microsoft Windows3x/95/98.

I found several other problems with the book

1. The author doesn’t always tell you which commands you can use as a user and which you have to log in as root to use.

 
2. He uses the same term for several items and different terms for the same thing. He uses boot disk to mean the floppy disk you use for installation as well as the floppy disk you use to boot into Linux after installation and the emergency floppy disk you should create. In reality, these are three different types of boot disk. He also appears to use the terms console and terminal interchangeably at times. This confuses me since, while they each can be used to do the same task, they are not exactly the same thing.

 
3. Many times I would follow the author’s instructions, not get the expected results and then realize something was missing. Since I don’t have much experience with Linux, I don’t know what it is. I find this very frustrating.

 
4. There are very few cross-references to other parts of the book although the author sprinkles web addresses and references to documents included with OpenLinux throughout so you can find further information easily.

 
5. I had difficulty finding information using the Index. Major discussions in the text are not always indexed. 

What does the book Cover?
The 574 plus pages contain five major parts (Installation and Configuration, Learning Linux Basics, Connecting to the Outside World, Using Linux Productively, and Administering Your System) with 24 chapters, an introduction, and a 44-page index. At the very front of the book is a tear-out sheet containing a listing of Commonly Used Commands, including a description and look-up page. The inside front cover contains a Common Tasks chart and a mini table of contents.

Bottom line
This is the last book I would recommend adding to your personal library. In my opinion, it fails as an introduction for Linux beginners, especially those coming from a Microsoft Windows environment.

Vital statistics

Sams Teach Yourself Linux in 24 Hours Second Edition 
by Bill Ball
Paperback - 574 pages
Published by MacMillan Publishing Company 
April 1999
ISBN: 0672315262
Category: Operating Systems
User Level: Beginning
Retail Price: $24.99