Computer books are always challenged to be current, but both of these titles dovetail nicely with the fourth release of Ubuntu (version 6.06, or "Dapper Drake") at the beginning of this month. Beginning Ubuntu Linux: From Novice to Professional, the Apress title by Keir Thomas, came out a couple of months before Dapper's release. Ubuntu Hacks, the O'Reilly title by Jonathan Oxer, Kyle Rankin & Bill Childers, along with several contributing writers (including me), followed a couple of weeks after Dapper's debut. If you're running Ubuntu 6.06 now, or plan to, you'll find that both books are full of useful, up-to-date information.

The two titles also complement one another. Beginning Ubuntu Linux is geared toward beginning to intermediate users (but includes many tips at an advanced level), while O'Reilly's "Hacks" title is aimed at intermediate users and up (but includes many tips for beginners).

Keir Thomas has done an extremely thorough and conscientious job of introducing Ubuntu, and Linux in general. If you're new to the Linux desktop, or to Ubuntu, Thomas's friendly, reassuring tone will go a long way toward making you feel at home. The book covers virtually every aspect of Ubuntu desktop use, and it devotes significant space to major applications (The GIMP, OpenOffice.org, Evolution) as well. Nor, as noted, does Thomas stint on more advanced topics—you'll find solid coverage on using the BASH shell, the vim text editor, and the Linux file system. And Thomas does a great job of covering the stuff most new users want to know up front, such as how to get MP3 and DVD playback working.

To top everything off, the book offers a very helpful glossary of Linux terms, plus a BASH command index. All things considered, this is a really outstanding overview of Ubuntu—I can't imagine it being surpassed anytime soon. The Apress "From Novice to Professional" series is building quite a reputation, by the way. A number of books in the series, including this one and titles on The GIMP and PHP-MySQL, have garnered excellent reviews lately. Highly recommended.

Ubuntu Hacks is squarely in the O'Reilly tradition, with everything good that implies. Like other books in the "Hacks" series, Ubuntu Hacks comprises 100 hacks (otherwise known as tips, tools and how-tos) covering every facet of this red-hot operating system. And, as noted earlier, these tips address every level of user expertise. You can learn how to install (or test-drive) Ubuntu, how to use virtualization technology like Xen or VMware, how to tighten your system's security, how to set up different kinds of servers, how to run Windows apps on Ubuntu, and many, many other things.

The book is divided into 10 logical chapters, with hacks of varying complexity levels grouped within. So the first chapter ("Getting Started"), for example, has tips on everything from installation (including installation on a Mac, which, oddly enough, not many people know about), to setting up your printer, to using the command line, to submitting a bug report. Other chapters (including "The Linux Desktop", "Multimedia" and "Mobile Ubuntu") follow a similar pattern. You can of course browse according to your area(s) of interest; many of the hacks reference other, related hacks, so browsing becomes something of an organic process.

The writing throughout is of a uniformly high order (I'll modestly state, since only two of the hacks are mine), and the expertise is up to O'Reilly's usual high standard. I think any Linux user can learn something from this book.

Actually, I think any Linux user could learn quite a lot from both books.

They are, as Amazon says, better together.

And speaking of Amazon, here are the respective URLs:

Please, don't forget why Ubuntu Linux is important.

Ubuntu is not only a superb operating system in and of itself—it is also free in every sense of the word, personally empowering, and perhaps the safest choice you can make, as well. (Consider, with the way things are going, whether you can continue to trust Microsoft and/or Apple not to share your information with the NSA and God knows who else.)

Ubuntu ("humanity to others") is computing as it should be. The two books reviewed here will help you enjoy it all the more.

—Tom Pletcher

(June 30, 2006)