Book excerpts:

The aim of this book is to get you up to speed with GNU/Linux and to deliver a fun and productive environment. It guides you through the many different regions of a GNU/Linux system with a focus on getting your desktop environment to do what you want it to do. It is comprehensive with basic support for the user who installs and maintains the system themselves (whether in the home, office, club, or school). It provides insights and step-by-step procedures that deal with specific tasks in setting your system up and maintaining it. The book covers many of the core features of a GNU/Linux system and you will gain the knowledge to enjoy and use one of the most comprehensive and useful developments in the history of computing.

The details in this book are presented in the context of Debian GNU/Linux--the most open of the GNU/Linux distributions and the distribution setting the standards for free (as in liberty) software and collaborative developments. In general the details translate directly to RedHat and other standard distributions of GNU/Linux. A growing number of the applications (including OpenOffice, AbiWord, The Gimp, Dia and gPhoto, to name just a few) are cross-platform developments and run also under MSWindows. The chapters that cover these applications in this book will also generally apply to those versions.

The structure of this on-line version of the book is basically alphabetical. Each individual chapter aims to be a standalone reference. The book includes an overview of GNU/Linux and its history, a guide to installing GNU/Linux, introductions to the suite of GNU/Linux desktop productivity tools, and recipes for tuning specific parts of a GNU/Linux system.