Product: 0201308215

This book contains information that is just not in more introductory level Linux programming books. It is really Linux specific, rather than a Unix programming book that just has Linux printed on its cover because Linux sells books right now. In addition to covering the traditional interfaces, the Linux specific interfaces that those are built on top of are also covered.
Readers should notice that several of the interfaces used in this book are being depreciated infaver of reintrant (thread/signal safe) versions. This is something that hadn’t yet happened when this book was written and is easily fixed by reading the man pages for any function that you worry about, as most have been made thread safe or have a thread safe version now.
Before reading this, I spent a lot of time using strace (easier than reading source code for apps and libs) on programs to figure out how they did things that other books on Unix or Linux programming left out.
The GOOD parts of this book are mostly in section 3 (system programming) and later, but well worth getting the book just for that.
To read this book you should:
_ know how to program in C
_ know how to use Unix or Linux from a command shell
_ know what users and groups are
Like most Linux books, this one waste too much space in the beginning telling what Linux is, what Unix is, and other stuff that is just included in too many books already.
This book may not tell you everything there is to know about programming for Linux, but it tells you enough to let man pages tell you the rest.
Rating: 5
0201308215
Count: 12