esr@thyrsus.com
Copyright © 2000 by Eric S. Raymond
$Date: 2000/09/19 15:30:48 $
This document lists the books I think are most valuable to a person trying to learn Unix (especially Linux) top to bottom.
The New Hacker's Dictionary, Third Edition, Edited by Eric S. Raymond, 1996, ISBN 0-262-68092-0, MIT Press, 547pp..
Um, er. A guide to Internet culture. Lots of people like it. HTML at the Jargon File Resource Page.
A Quarter Century of Unix, Edited by Peter H. Salus, 1994, ISBN 0-201-54777-5, Addison-Wesley, 255pp..
Linux is part of the Unix tradition. This book is an oral history of Unix -- how it originated, how it evolved, how it spread -- by the people who were there.
The Mythical Man Month, Anniversary Edition, Frederic P. Brooks, 1995, ISBN 0-201-83595-9, Addison-Wesley.
The one book on software engineering everyone should read.
Alan Cox: "This I'd recommend not for its technical value but for its application of common sense and reality to computing projects." JH: "Ah, yes. What if Linus had been given 200 programmers and had been told to produce Linux in 3 months!"
Bell System Technical Journal, AT&T, 1978, July-August 1978, Vol. 57, No. 6, part 2, 416pp..
Many early papers on Unix, including Ritchie & Thompson, "The UNIX Time Sharing System"; Thompson, "UNIX Implementation"; Ritchie, "A Retrospective"; Bourne, "The UNIX Shell"...
Linux Installation and Getting Started, Edited by Matt Welsh, 1997, Linux Documentation Project.
Available on the LDP home page, or directly at http://linuxdoc.org/LDP/gs/.
How to bring up Linux. Explains a lot of Linux basics. Covers basic system administration.
Linux System Administrator's Guide, Edited by Lars Wirzenius, 1997, Linux Documentation Project.
Available on the LDP home page, or directly at http://linuxdoc.org/LDP/sag/.
An excellent first book on how to maintain and administer a Linux system.
Linux in a Nutshell, Second Edition, Jessica P. Hekman, 1999, ISBN 1-56592-585-8, O'Reilly & Associates.
According to O'Reilly, "The Desktop Reference for Linux". For Linux users this obsoletes their "Unix In a Nutshell" which was SVr4/Solaris-oriented.
Running Linux, Third Edition, Matt Welsh, 1999, ISBN 1-56592-469-X, O'Reilly & Associates.
Everything you need in order to understand, install, and use the Linux operating system. Excellent beginner's book.
Hands-On Linux, Mark G. Sobel, 1998, ISBN 0-201-32569-1, Addison-Wesley, 1015pp..
Just what the title says -- practical tutorials in basic Unix, shells, editors, mail programs, networking, Web tools, and utilities. Covers some system administration fundamentals. (This appears to be a repackaging of 1997's ``A Practical Guide to Linux'' from the same author, without Caldera OpenLinux Lite included.)
Essential System Administration, Second Edition, Aeleen Frisch, 1995, ISBN 1-56592-127-5, O'Reilly & Associates.
More in-depth coverage of normal system-administration tasks. Not Linux-specific but contains Linux material.
Practical Unix and Internet Security, Second Edition, Simpson Garfinkel and Gene Spafford, 1996, ISBN 1-56592-148-8, O'Reilly & Associates.
Ronald P. Miller: "Some overlap with Essential System Admin., but all in all a solid book on security, especially for those aspiring to allow multiple-user, dial-up/net access to their Linux boxes."
Programming Python, First Edition, Mark Lutz, 1997, ISBN 0-56592-197-6, O'Reilly & Associates, 880pp..
The next step beyond Perl. Python is beautifully designed, has better integration with C, and scales up more gracefully to large projects.
Programming Perl, Third Edition, Larry Wall, Tom Christiansen, and Jon Orwant, 2000, ISBN 0-596-00027-8, O'Reilly & Associates, 1104pp..
Shell (as a programming language for more than trivial scripting) is dead. Perl rules in its place (though it is now being strongly challenged by Python). This is the third edition of the definitive Perl book.
Emmanuel Pierre keeps a short list of Perl books.
Programming Python, First Edition, Mark Lutz, 1997, ISBN 0-56592-197-6, O'Reilly & Associates, 880pp..
The next step beyond Perl. Python is beautifully designed, has better integration with C, and scales up more gracefully to large projects.
HTML & XHTML: The Definitive Guide, Fourth Edition, Chuck Musciano and Bill Kennedy, 2000, ISBN 0-596-00026-X, O'Reilly & Associates, 680pp..
The best HTML tutorial/reference I have ever seen, and the only HTML book you need unless you also want to do CGI. I don't know of any other book on HTML that comes within miles of this one for comprehensiveness, depth, and quality of organization.
The Unix Programming Environment, Brian Kernighan and Rob Pike, 1984, ISBN 0-13-937681-X, Prentice-Hall.
A true classic -- possibly the best single-book exposition of the Unix philosophy. Useful for learning shell programming.
The LaTeX Companion, Michael Goossens, Frank Mittelbach, and Alexander Samarin, 1994, ISBN 0-201-54199-8, Addison-Wesley, 530pp..
`If you are one of those users who would like to know how LaTeX can be extended to create the nicest documents possible without becoming a (La)TeX guru, then this book is for you' --- from the Preface. Bruce Thompson adds: "A very nice book providing a lot of information about the new extensions to LaTeX, provides a large number of examples showing precisely how your document's layout can be manipulated"
LaTeX: A Document Preparation System, Leslie Lamport, 1994, ISBN 0-201-52983-1, Addison-Wesley, 256pp..
Bruce Thompson: "The ultimate reference on LaTeX 2.09 by its author. A new edition covering LaTeX2e (the version included in the current TeX/LaTeX distribution) is in preparation. LaTeX 2.09 is fully supported by LaTeX2e. A must for anyone wanting to use LaTeX. Provides a gentle introduction to document preparation and the various tools that LaTeX provides for producing professional quality documents. Lots of examples."
The TeXbook, Volume A of Computers and Typesetting, Donald Knuth, 1986, ISBN 0-201-13448, Addison-Wesley, 496pp..
Bruce Thompson: "The definitive user's guide and complete reference manual for TeX. Probably not needed for casual LaTeX use, but a fascinating book nonetheless." I'll strengthen that by adding that this book is not for the faint of heart.
The METAFONT Book, Volume C of Computers and Typesetting, Donald Knuth, 1986, ISBN 0-201-13444-6, Addison-Wesley, 386pp..
Bruce Thompson: "The definitive user's guide and reference manual for METAFONT, the companion program to TeX for designing fonts. An excellent work if you're planning to design your own fonts for use in TeX and LaTeX. METAFONT is included with the normal TeX/LaTeX distribution." This book is definitely not for the faint of heart.
The Practice of Programming, Brian Kernighan and Rob Pike, 1999, ISBN 0-201-61586-X, Addison-Wesley.
An excellent treatise on writing high-quality programs, surely destined to become a classic of the field.
Programming Pearls, (Second Edition), Jon Bentley, 2000, ISBN 0-201-65788-0, Addison-Wesley.
These are selected essays from Bentley's column in the Communications of the ACM. He discusses a wide variety of issues in program improvement, often focusing on program efficiency.
Writing Efficient Programs, Jon Bentley, 1982, ISBN 0-13-970251-2 or 0-13-970244-X, Prentice-Hall.
This book presents Bentley's methodology and set of rules for improving program efficiency, and includes a large number of examples.
The C Programming Language, (Second Edition), Brian Kernighan and Rob Pike, 1988, ISBN 0-13-110362-8, Addison-Wesley, 272pp..
The improved second edition, covering ANSI C, of the original classic C book coauthored by C's designer, "K&R". Still the best!
Who's Afraid of C++?, Steve Heller, 1996, ISBN 0-12-339097, Academic Press, 508pp..
The best introductory book on C++ I have seen. Now available on the Web.
POSIX Programmer's Guide: Writing Portable Unix Programs, Donald Lewine, 1992, ISBN 0-937175-73-0, O'Reilly & Associates, 607pp..
Linux hews very close to the letter of the POSIX standard (non-conformance is considered a bug and swiftly fixed). This excellent reference for POSIX is thus also an excellent reference for the Linux kernel API.
Advanced Programming in The Unix Environment, Richard Stevens, 1992, ISBN 0-201-56317, Addison-Wesley.
A book on general Unix programming that is every bit as good as Stevens's classic on network programming.
Linux Application Development, Michael K. Johnson and Erik W. Troan, 1998, ISBN 0-201-308215, Addison-Wesley.
The best single reference to the Linux API. Covers the features that aren't generic Unix or Posix.
Unix Network Programming, volume 1 -- Networking APIs: Sockets and XTI, Richard Stevens, 1998, ISBN 0-13-490012-X, Prentice-Hall.
Everything you might want to know about the subject. Generally regarded as definitive on the basics.
Unix Network Programming, volume 2 -- Interprocess Communication, Richard Stevens, 1998, ISBN 0-13-081081-9, Prentice-Hall.
Ditto...
Linux Network Administrator's Guide, Olaf Kirch, 1995, ISBN 1-56592-087-2, O'Reoilly & Associates.
Available on the LDP home page, or directly at http://www.linuxdoc.org/LDP/nag/nag.html.
An excellent first book on how to maintain and administer a networked Linux system.
TCP/IP Network Administration, Craig Hunt, 1992, ISBN 0-937175-82-X, O'Reoilly & Associates, 472pp..
Less Linux-specific than the Kirch book. Features deeper coverage of the TCP/IP core, including routing and BGP.
DNS and BIND, Second Edition, Paul Albiz and Cricket Liu, 1998, ISBN 1-56592-512-2, 502pp., O'Reilly & Associates.
In-depth coverage of DNS, useful for people running complicated multiple-subnet installations. Covers BIND library programming.
Sendmail, Second Edition, Bryan Costales and Eric Allman, 1997, ISBN 1-56592-222-0, 1050pp., O'Reoilly & Associates.
An exhaustive (and exhausting) guide to Linux's and Unix's default mail-transfer agent.
The Design of the Unix Operating System, Maurice J. Bach, 1996, ISBN 0-13-201799-7, 470pp., Prentice-Hall.
The book that got Linus started.
Operating Systems, Design and Implementation, Andrew S. Tanenbaum, 1987, ISBN 0-13-638677-6, 940pp., Prentice-Hall.
Alan Cox likes this book. Tanenbaum designed Minix, which is the system Linus bootstrapped Linux up from.
The Linux Kernel book, Rémy Card, Èric Dumas, and Frank Mével, 1998, ISBN 0-471-98141-9, John Wiley & Sons.
(Translated from the French language edition of "Programmation Linux 2.0"; same authors; 1997; Éditions Eyrolles; Paris, France.)
A very interesting and informative variablelisttion of the operation of the kernel that fills in the gap between the POSIX interface and "The Design of the Unix Operating System" and the Linux source code. A good understanding of the design and operation of a Unix OS is a pre-requisite, but this book is an excellent help to going beyond that general understanding into actual work.
The primary author is one of the core developers for the ext2 filesystem, and the Linux Kernel book shows a firm grasp of the matter and clear explanations and structure. It's surprisingly readable for something working at such a low level. The book does seem to have suffered a little in the translation to English -- there are a few typos and grammatical mistakes, but it's quite readable. (The code example files are charmingly still named in French.)
The book is current to Linux 2.0.35 and foreshadows 2.1 and 2.2. Network protocol implementations are not covered.
Linux Kernal Hacker's Guide, Edited by Michael K. Johnson, Linux Documentation Project.
Available on the LDP home page, or directly at http://linuxdoc.org/LDP/khg/.
According to the author, this has been superseded by Alessandro Rubini's book (see below) but it remains a useful supplement.
Linux Device Drivers, Alessandro Rubini, 1998, ISBN 1-56592-292-1, O'Reoilly & Associates, 442pp..
Everything you need to know about writing device drivers under Linux; kernel APIs, interrupt handling, the module interface. Includes many examples.
LINUX Kernel Internals, (Second Edition), Michael Beck, Harold Bohme, Mirko Dziadka, and Ulrich Kunitz, 1998, ISBN 0-201-33143-8, Addison-Wesley, 480pp..
A guide to Linux kernel programming; covers 2.0. Covers the architecture of the Linux core and network layer as well as driver construction.
The Design and Implementation of the 4.4BSD Unix Operating System, Marshall Kirk McKusick, Keith Bostic, Michael J. Karels, and John S. Quarterman, 1996, ISBN 0-201-54979-4, Addison-Wesley.
The successor to a classic book on the implementation of the 4.3 BSD kernel, which influenced Linux's design (especially near sockets and networking). This book covers the 4.4BSD base of BSD/OS, FreeBSD, and NetBSD.
80386 Programmer's Reference Manual, Intel Corporation, 1986, ISBN 1-55512-022-9.
Part I. Applications Programming, data types, memory model, instruction set. Part II. Systems Programming, architecture, memory management, protection, multitasking, I/O, exceptions and interrupts, initialization, coprocessing and multiprocessing. Part III. Compatibility (with earlier x86 machines). Part IV. Instruction Set
80386 System Software Writer's Guide, Intel Corporation, 1987, ISBN 1-55512-023-7.
This explains the 386 features for operating system writers. It includes a chapter on Unix implementation. A lot of the 80386 architecture seems to have been designed with Multics in mind; the features are not used by DOS or by Unix.
Programming the 80386, John H. Crawford and Patrick P. Gelsinger, 1987, ISBN 0-89588-381-3, 774pp..
This is the book the Jolitzes used when they ported BSD to the 386 architecture.
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