The Linux Command Line, 2nd Edition: A Complete Introduction

This book, along with online searches on related topics, accelerated my linux knowledge tremendously, more than any other book I have read so far. William Shotts discusses a lot of topics related to the linux command line, potentially intermediate users would find the book helpful as well.However, the biggest problem with the book is lack of practical examples and depth, I would rate this book 5 stars if the last parts of the book weren't so bad. For an example, he wants to show you how to use "sed" (a command for editing text documents without opening them) to replace forward slashes (/) with dashes (-) in a document with dates with this long and impossible to remember command:sed 's/\[0-9]\{2\}\)\/([0-9]\{2}\)\/\([0-9]\{4\}\)/\3-\1-\2/' document.txtwhen the exact same thing (i tested this because it's not an enormous pain in butt) can be accomplished with this:sed s/\//-/g document.txtAccording to shots, sed is worthless anyway because perl and awk are better, he gives NO explanation as to why! Plus, I was not happy with discussions on rsync and zip archive tools, after i used them both i had a lot of un-answered questions.This will give any computer enthusiast hours and hours of DIY entertainment, but don't buy this book if you're already very experienced with linux. I personally recommend finding free electronic books if you're trying to educate yourself in computers, also i don't recommend going to school for it because professors/teachers tend to explain technical jargon very poorly.

I'm an old Unix guy by trade. This manual is very comprehensive and well organized for looking up specific topics. Nice to have a great grab reference when needed. Online material is plentiful, but I like to hold a book when reading. Old school, but this is a great book for those wanting to learn or brush up on the workings of Linux. Highly recommended.

Author William Shotts has done an amazing job with The Linux Command Line. I’ll admit I’m something of a Linux newbie, but I feel like I have learned so much from reading this book. The text is complex, yet approachable, and teaches lots of handy command line tips without being tied to a specific distro (though there is some brief discussion regarding packaging and package managers). Overall, a lot of useful content, both in using built-in programs and for coding your own shell scripts.The best part about this book, for me, were the “playground” lessons, where you would create a bunch of dummy files and folders and then perform operations on them. For example, using “touch” to create 10 folders with 100 files in each, with only one short line of code. Or showing how to use “grep” and “ls” to find all programs matching a particular pattern. Practical examples of using pipelines. These are all super useful. So lots of good example material here.The Linux Command Line clocks in at just over 500 pages, with 36 different chapters, each on a specific topic. The first 10 chapters explain how Linux works (permissions, processes, the environment), and how to use the command line in general (navigating the file tree, manipulating files and folders, redirection, command expansion and quoting). Next it covers package managers, connecting storage, networking, searching, archiving, regular expressions, formatting text, and printing. And the final part covers shell scripting and is a basic programming tutorial as well. A great base of content.I’ve only read a handful of Linux books so far, but I think I can say this is the best I’ve seen. The text covers very fundamental and core competencies for using Linux, and the language is very approachable for beginners. I feel like I have learned a lot and already I’m more comfortable on the command line. If you are new to Linux, this can be a great way to up your game. Recommended.

This book is well written and does a great job on the subject. This book is available for free on the internet legally. I am using the book for a college class, and prefer an actual book. Just be aware you can get a copy for free if you want to read it on your pc.

I primarily ordered this book to go for my CompTIA Linux+ certification and I wasn’t disappointed. After reading through this book several times and taking several practice exams I feel confident that I will be able to take the exam and pass securing my Linux+ cert.

I actually had the first edition of this one and it was amazing so I picked up the second edition just to see what else they threw in it and to support NoStarch (they make the best books). I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn about linux and BASH scripting. This is a really good resource to have at your disposal.

This book avoids long introductions in favor of getting directly into the learning process. I've tinkered with linux on and off and so Ive had an understanding of how to use commands, but not always why that command should be use. This book is quickly filling in important gaps in understanding for me, and beyond that I'm learning a lot of new things as well. This book is definitely worth its weight in gold to anyone who is serious about using and getting the most out of linux systems.

As a linux user and enthusiast, I find the approach of the author quite pleasant. I enjoyed chapter progressions. Great introductory book for beginners and intermediate users alike.

El libro está nuevo y viene muy completo

Not useful to extend the knowledge if you have already experience with the command line.I missed new tools like ripgrep, fdind, starship prompt, direnv, fzf.

I bought this book (Kindle) because I flunked an Introduction to Linux exam. The book helps a lot for understanding the inner workings and why of Linux commands. It wil stay with me for a couple of years maybe forever as it's also an excellent reference manual. Part III about bash scripting also has some very good general programming advice. It's not a 5-star review for me though, there's one thing that I'm missing and that is a lot of excercises so you wouldn't forget what you've learned. Because of the lack of exercises it got hard at some point. REGEX and completion should be exercised. But if you are an on the job Linux learner definitly buy this book. If you are a student Linux learner than you will need to go search a lot of excercises as additional material. If there's another edition of this book please add a lot more exercises. The Python crash course book from the same publisher is a good example. In a couple of weeks I have another Linux exam curious to see if this book will get me past that one.

Its like a cheatsheet for any POSIX based terimal emulator i suppose, even tho i use bsd and gentoo most of the time it still works for me

It would be better ,if this book includes also terminal multiplexers like Tmux or screen ,even if they are not included by default in many distributions.