Product: How Linux Works

In How Linux Works, Brian Ward gives a clear and understandable explanation of what happens under the hood of your Linux machine. He outlines all the major parts from how Linux boots to how disks and hardware is presented to the user.

Ward’s explanation of the workings of Linux is clear and remains free of needing to understand any actual programming to follow (although some familiarity may be helpful in the chapters on compiling source code or using development tools). If you need a more advanced explanation with real kernel code and examples of the actual internal data structures, this book will not give it to you. If you need clear explanation that makes it understandable what happens when you issue a command, this book will give it to you. The emphasis remains on understanding the layers of the system and what they do in somewhat broader terms instead of the actual ones and zeros that are manipulated (which really only kernel developers need to understand).

Ward covers a diverse set of topics including how the various boot loaders work, how system processes are loaded when the system first comes online, how users are managed and seen by the kernel, and many others. Many examples of how to configure the kernel both from editing configuration files to using command line tools are given that can alter how many of these things work.

The desktop environment is briefly discussed, but the focus is mainly on the layers directly below this. Some discussion is given on shell scripts and compiling source code, but these issues are probably best learned from texts devoted to them as their coverage here is brief, but welcome for anyone looking for where to go next.

Overall, I would highly recommend this text to anybody wanting to start using Linux. As a Linux beginner myself, it has already helped me understand better how the various parts fit together and how commands I issue are actually carried out. I strongly believe that there is useful material here for more advanced users as well. This book will not be your one and done book for learning Linux, but it will serve as an excellent companion to other texts and will help bridge you from what was done to how it was done.

(I received an electronic copy of the book as part of OReilly’s reader review program and also purchased a printed copy.)
Rating: 5
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