Linux internals or how Linux works

Over the course of the year, we published three books on Linux that we welcomed:

Linux. Install, configure, administer
Ubuntu and Debian Linux for advanced: more than 1000 indispensable commands. 2nd ed.
Linux System Programming. 2nd ed.

Now we plan to make a new book and settled on the option - How Linux Works: What Every Superuser Should Know . We want to know your opinion and decide whether to make a book.

A small review of the previous edition:

This book will introduce you to the internal organization of the Linux operating system. If you are a beginner (the book is well written even for beginners), a programmer, system administrator, regular user or researcher - however, if you are just always interested in how this or that thing works, then this book is for you. For example, I am a programmer, I read it in order to study Linux better, since earlier my acquaintance with this system was limited to reading online manuals. The book is divided into three parts. Part 1 describes the general principles of the design and operation of Linux. The second part discusses the programming tools available on Linux. The third part contains specialized topics, in particular, the work with the core, printing, etc. are explained.

Part 1:the basics are very detailed. I noticed that to clarify information on some of the commands discussed in this part, it’s enough to read man or info help, but the author clearly conceived the book differently. However, for reference, the author describes all the basic Linux commands and makes a brief introduction on each of them. The book tells in an extremely simple language how exactly and by what principles Linux file systems work. For example, I always got confused in them, but after reading this book, I found out for myself all the nuances. While exploring the basics of Linux, we also get to know the bootloaders of this operating system - GRUB and LILO. I note that the book perfectly examines the network aspects of working in Linux. I can’t comment on the part about ppp, but Ethernet, iptables and network address translation (NAT) topics are covered very well. Moreover, the author explains in detail

Part 2. The second part begins with an introductory course on writing scripts for the shell (Shell scripting). True, we should again make a reservation about the target audience of this book - not all aspects of writing such scripts can be considered in such a small manual. The GCC and Make topics are explained very well (in essence, I figured out Make just by reading this book). Moreover, the scripts in this book are written in Python! Further, the author proceeds to the most interesting (for some, however, the most unbearable) topic in Linux - compiling the kernel. A whole chapter is devoted to working with the kernel; after reading it, I am absolutely sure that I can recompile my system myself.

Part 3:This part can be read separately from the entire book. It covers specialized topics, each of which can be studied independently. For example, how to set up a network printer? How to work with CUPSd? How to use Ghostscript to convert Postscript to PDF? You will find answers to all these questions here. So, I just needed to learn how to work with the SAMBA file system. My home network consists of computers with Windows, and from time to time I had to access certain files located on them. Now everything has changed! I can easily browse all home directories directly from a laptop that connects to the network wirelessly.

Users often complain that in Linux there are many bugs when working with hardware. This book has an entire chapter on how to buy Linux-compatible hardware. This material is very useful to you, especially if you are trying to equip your computer with the latest technology. In addition, this chapter will greatly help system administrators engaged in servicing large corporate networks.

So, I recommend this book to all readers who are interested in the internal organization of Linux. You will find the answers to all your questions and master all the Linux mechanisms perfectly. Of course, after reading it, you will not become an expert on Linux, but will it help you answer many “how” questions? and why"? In the future, it will serve as a solid basis for professional growth in the field of Linux.