Linux for Windows Addicts: A Twelve Step Program for Habitual Windows Users.

By Michael Joseph Miller

Many Systems Administrators and Power Users remain wedded to various flavors of Windows because mission critical applications running on Windows, as well as fears of potential downtime, discourage use... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0072130814
• ISBN13: 9780072130812
• Release Date: December 2000
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media
• Length: 414 Pages
• Weight: 1.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.8" x 1.0" x 7.3"

Customer Reviews

(titles are so stupid for these things)

ok, this guy hates microsoft. and instead of telling you about linux, hes telling you how great it is and how bad microsoft is, instead of explaining how to go about things. but this is still a great book, and makes linux alot easier than every windows user makes it sound. but i still like windows, and i still run xp, and i like microsoft a lot. but i also run linux on the same machine, which you should too.

Excellent for Newbies!!!

I have been trying to learn linux for over a year, without any success. Mostly it was due to bad hardware support. [....]P>This book is informative, step-by-step, easily read, and most important of all, funny! Not only have I passed into a larger world, I can now read most linux/unix books and magazines out their and understand what they are talking about. After 2 days of reading and working along with the book, I was able to set up a proxy on one computer, and browse the web off my Red Hat 7.2 computer... using Links!<p>Those of you who know MS windows and are newbies of the Linux world, this book is for you.

12 good steps, in the wrong order

This is a useful and up-to-date book on Linux, but I am not convinced that it will wean many Windows users off Microsoft's products. With such a title, this book should start as a simple guide to what's out there in the Open Source world and show just how easy Linux is to use. Only then should it delve further into detail about installation and the joys of the command line.Miller's first three chapters do give an informed, entertaining and (reasonably) unbiased view of Microsoft and the Open Source movement. However, from here it jumps right into Linux file commands. This does nothing to engender Linux to those who consider defragmenting a hard drive to be a dark art that only a Windows black belt can perform safely.The problems stem from the title, not the content. It suggests the book is one step up from the easy to follow (but often too basic) 'Visually' guides. The book is about two or three jumps up from that basic level, but the title suggests otherwise. 'Linux for Windows Adminstrators (who want to kick the habit)' is probably a more accurate title as the book stands, but that wouldn't look as good on the shelves. In fact, most of the basic information a Linux newcomer would need is in the book, but hidden away in the appendices and the closing chapters. This is a great shame, because by then a good many potential Linux converts will never get that far. A careful reshuffle and a few more illustrations (omitting pictures of the GNOME and KDE desktops when first describing them; the book shows pictures of the control centre panels but not a typical desktop) could turn this into the sort of book that really does start to show Linux in a truly Microsoft-challenging light.Regardless of the lack of illustrations and the chapter order, I still feel it warrants four stars, simply because it is replete with information put across in an understandable manner. This is something all too rare, especially in the Linux world.