How Linux Works, 3rd Edition: What Every Superuser Should Know Paperback – 21 April 2021

To give context, I came to this book with a 20+ year career including IT operations and software development, focused on the Windows OS and development ecosystem. The world has changed and it's no longer viable not to have a similar working knowledge of Linux.In starting out on a course of self-study, my main concern was that the books I'd select would be either too focused on the beginner and/or a simple regurgitation of man pages. This book is neither, being a fast paced, information dense guide to the gross structure of the Linux OS and essential administrative tasks. For this reason, I found it perfect for my needs at this stage whilst likely being far too advanced for an absolute beginner. A case in point being the chapter on Networking; in just a few pages the author covers some details of ethernet, MAC, IP addressing and routing, network vs transport. If you've no real knowledge or experience in these topics, you're not likely to come out any wiser in practical terms. However, if you do and what you're seeking is an understanding of how the Linux OS represents and manages network interfaces, routing tables and packet flow, and what are the analogous configuration and diagnostic tools for Linux cf Windows, then you will.The chapter on systmd (read "Windows Services") is excellent and I learned as much about bash scripting and the bash shell from the corresponding chapter of this book as I did from another 200 page book I have which is supposedly dedicated to its 'mastery'.There's mountains of still contemporary (2024) on-point information to be had here, further increasing the value of this book as a reference work, once you've initially read it cover to cover. No single book could ever hope to be a fully definitive guide to such an expansive and dynamic domain but this one has enough detail in sufficient areas to allow the reader to establish their "known unknowns" and to plot their own course ahead accordingly.There are no serious issues with the Kindle version but the quoted output from CLI examples is often incorrectly formatted, making the read harder than it needs to be and sometimes obscuring important points.

This book is outstanding. I'm generally competent on the terminal, and can figure out how to get things done on Linux when I have to, but I'm no admin. I'm now trying to seriously level-up my Linux skills, and this is absolutely the book I needed.That said - omg is it a heavy lift. This is not your quick easy read, by any means. This book is so densely packed with deep technical gold that it reads at times (many, many times) more like a reference manual than anything else. It took me a few weeks to get thru the whole thing, just because it's so packed with technically valuable information (and this was not the first Linux book I've read, either).I'm going to have to read the whole thing again, probably twice, before I really absorb it all. But this is a book I'm going to keep on the shelf by my desk for a long, long time. I can't give it any higher praise than that.

I really enjoyed this book. It gives good easy to follow details about Linux. I feel anyone could read this book and be using Linux in no time very proficiently. Want to learn, or want to learn more this is definitely for you.

This is a great book for mainly understanding the Linux Kernal. If you want to learn day-to-day distro stuff I would probably avoid this. Otherwise the content is tip top and the author knows his stuff.For 4 stars I think its clearly geared to more techies or programmers, and if don't have a computing background this will just be a minefield.

Have used Windows since v3.11 (that dates me I know!) and knowing only the most basic DOS commands this book has been extremely helpful in getting my head around Linux. Am now multi-booting Debian, Arch and Windows on my main machine. Debian as my daily driver, Arch for exploring and Windows for Steam.Probably could have done this without this book (eventually) but this has certainly speeded up the process.Thoroughly recommended!

Great. Very clear and encompassing

Very good book.I would recommend it to anyone who wants to know how the Linux OS works.

Although I’ve been using Linux for several years, I’ve still a lot to learn. There’s not that much knowledge being added by this book however