Review: Linux for Non-Geeks by Rickford Grant

Michael J. Jordan, Linux Online Staff

May 11, 2004

Fedora, a good choice

First, I have to say that I like the choice of Fedora as the distribution used in this book. Fedora is shaping up to be the best distribution out there, in my opinion, for a few key reasons. One of them is that Fedora is essentially Red Hat turned into a Debian-style community project. If you're not familiar with either Red Hat or Debian, Red Hat is, first of all, the most well-known Linux distribution with the general public. It's also got a solid company behind it. Fedora is the replacement for the consumer version of the distribution that they stopped distributing in retail boxed sets. New versions of these boxed sets used to be released fairly frequently, so you were always sure to have the latest packages contained. This is important if you're running a Linux desktop system Debian, on the other hand, is a venerable and highly stable distribution whose development is not for profit. The stability comes from the fact that they, unlike Red Hat, release new versions infrequently. The developers of Debian tend to be sticklers about the packages they manage and they have a lot of good eyes looking after bugs. One thing they are quick on is fixes for security issues, which is great. Also, Debian's apt-get system for package update is the best invention since sliced bread. It allows you to easily get the latest security updates and bug fixes from remote servers and always keep your systems secure. And owing to the fact that Debian's stable packages are so stable, you'll never break anything. Now, Fedora, which I've been using since January of this year, can also run apt-get. To try something new, I set up a similar system called 'yum', which is available for Fedora. The Fedora machine has also proved to be very stable, the updates are a breeze, and I've got the latest and greatest packages. Taking all of these things into account, I'm glad Rickford Grant chose Fedora as his distribution for the book. You'll also get 2 Fedora CDs with it. That isn't to say that I'm going to be abandoning Debian - I have some servers running that - but taking into account that they're talking about a delay in the next stable version, called 'Sarge' - I'm glad I have Fedora as an alternative.

First chapters - first steps

In chapter 2, the author takes us through the installation of Fedora, but the most important page dealing with the install isn't even in Chapter 2. You can find it on the last page of chapter 1, where Mr. Grant discusses hardware requirements. His advice here about the machine you're using is worth heeding. Linux's reputation for being a good solution for getting the most out of old hardware may be true - but only to a point. As distributions get more complex and include an ever increasing number of mainstream programs, older systems have a harder time meeting the needs of browsers, office suites and other memory intensive applications (I'm not even going to mention games). Sure, you can set up a mail server, firewall, DNS server or a not so frequented website on older machines. But if you're going to be using the machine to get day to day work done, you'll need the best one you can afford - with a powerful processor and a generous amount of memory. I'm glad the author talks about the diminishing hardware frugality associated with a Linux desktop system.

Each subsequent chapter gets us deeper and deeper into using Linux - to do all those things with which we associate modern computer use. Provided your hardware cooperates with Linux (with each passing day, this becomes more likely) you shouldn't find any problem carrying out the example tasks featured in the book. But now that we're on the subject of hardware, I should point out a shortcoming I saw. My Fedora machine, doesn't have a CD-RW drive. I already had one in another machine, so when I bought this one, I went for the DVD drive - something I was missing. When I set up the CD-RW almost 2 years ago, this involved re-configuring and re-compiling the Linux kernel itself. Though I have always believed that the difficulty involved is exaggerated, it's something that the novice (or non-geek) is not going to enthusiastically plunge into. Mr. Grant devotes no explanation to setting it up. You are instructed to go to his website and get a PDF of how to physically install a drive. This how-to then assumes that the drive is just going to work. I would have liked to have seen an explanation of how Fedora recognizes the drive because I have never tried it. And seeing how widely used CD-RW drives are now, I'm sure the reader would like to see it too - because he or she is likely never to have tried it either.

Arriving at chapter 8, we get the necessary explanation of the Red Hat Package Management system or RPM and gives us a good explanation of what this system is all about. Essentially, you maintain a Red Hat based system by installing packages containing the programs, libraries they need, documentation and other files. RPM is virtually the Linux industry standard when it comes to installing programs. Major distributions Mandrake and SuSE both use it. Sometimes, however, you may want to install a program and you run into problems because the program expects other programs to have been previously installed and they aren't there. These are known as 'dependency problems'. Again, though Mr. Grant talks about this, there isn't too much explanation as to what to do when this happens. Later in the book, when he talks about using Debian's apt-get system on Fedora , he probably assumes that this will head off any problem of this type. But I would have liked to have seen some explanation on resolving these dependency problems. For example, I don't use apt-get. I use 'yum' as I mentioned, and I couldn't get 'xine', a video player (which he uses as an example in his apt-get explanation) going with it. I had to resolve the dependency problems on my own. The RPM system will tell you the things you're missing (ie, you're missing libBLA.so etc. ) and using Google (+libBLA.so +Fedora +RPM) you can find the RPMs you need and install them fairly easily. I was able to get xine installed quickly, despite numerous dependency problems. I find the inability to get video codecs going on Linux to be a turn-off to newcomers, so I think an explanation here is doubly important. I was pleased to find treatment of RPM installation on the command line in chapter 9, the obligatory chapter on Linux command line use.

Chapter 11 talks about getting the apt-get package updating system going on Fedora. I have only used this on Debian, preferring to try out 'yum' on Fedora, as I mentioned. Getting this going will make your life a lot easier. As you will see, Mr. Grant got 'mplayer', another video player for Linux going without too much trouble. Then he moves into installing programs from source code on Chapter 12. Again, this is something that provokes concern in potential Linux users, but as Mr. Grant points out, and I can testify, this is nothing to worry about. Sometimes it's the only way to go. Recently, Spanish speaking friends of mine started using Yahoo Messenger. I installed Yahoo's official messenger for Linux but I couldn't get the accents and the ñs working. As any Spanish speaker knows, the 'pena taurina' is not the same as the 'peña taurina', so I had to get a Yahoo messenger client that would handle these characters. I found one - a great little program called 'atymm' - but I had to install it from source. But as Mr. Grant points out, there's nothing to fear. He gives you a good explanation on how to get these programs installed and running when you've got source code instead of an RPM.

From chapter 12 on, once we've gotten past the essential Linux knowledge, we have a potpourri of different topics ranging from getting pen drives and other storage devices running, getting sounds out of your machine, using digital cameras and even setting up wireless support. There's other specific information in these chapters as well, including installing fonts, manipulating graphics and using WINE, a free program that allows you to run certain Windows programs under Linux.

The book, a good choice

All in all, the book is a good one if you're thinking about getting started with Linux. As I mentioned, It comes with 2 Fedora CDs and with the explanations in the book you'll be able to get your machine up and running fairly quickly and you'll get productive work done. Though the book is aimed at non-geeks, as the title indicates, the author also gives you enough geeky tasks so you learn how things are done. That's a big plus. Rickford Grant knows when to take you by the hand and when to let you go on your own. By the time you've finished reading, you'll feel confident with Linux. If that's your aim, then I suggest you get a hold of Linux For Non-Geeks.

Michael J. Jordan, is the webmaster of Linux Online. He can be reached at Michael.Jordan**AT**Linux.org