First of all, I know that everything in this book can be found on the web. But, if you are casually using ubuntu like me, this is a great guide. There is a wealth of ubuntu information on the net, finding the right things takes some effort and using this paperback cuts through the confusion. This book is about 1 inch thick and is 450 pages with the symbolic picture of a tuning fork that suggests tweaks for your ubuntu distribution. It is oriented for the Dapper Drake version of ubuntu 6.06LTS which was just coming out when the book was released. This is fine if your are just interested in stability and not the latest and greatest. Also many of the tips probably can be applied to other Linux distros.
At first glance, this is a rather large Hacks book compared to others in the series. There are 100 hacks listed and from the length of the book you can tell that some of the entries go into great detail. Most of the entries describe getting the necessary program, the commands used and syntax, and the results shown on the screen so you know what to expect. This care of detail helps you understand the processes involved and gives you a certain degree of confidence. There is a certain level to the hacks described. If you want the most exciting, in-depth, technical details, you are going to have to search elsewhere. Having said that, the material is quite good and thought out and tips are not that overly simple or obvious. I think it is a great second ubuntu book to read for beginners. The book also has a sense of humor to it. Instead of using the typical warning triangle symbol in the margin to show caution, a picture of a screw is used.
Looking through the book here are a few of its outstanding tips. Acidrip is a Gtk::Perl script that uses mencoder and is a good alternative to dvdrip. Tovid is a useful set of DVD authoring tools. You can use those extra keys on your keyboard with the xev X events utility. You can customize your right click menu by editing ~/Templates. Udev can be used to label removable devices and have them mounted in the same place each time. There is a package called sshfs that allows mounting of remote directories using ssh. There is a lot to the QSynaptics program in controlling your laptop mousepad. You can hide or show Nautilus desktop icons by editing using the nautilus configuration editor. The Drivel application allows you do offline blogging. Great chapter about Virtualization and Emulation, Vmware and Xen. Nice tip about making Live CD data persistant with a USB thumb drive with the casper-cow label.
Title -- Ubuntu Hacks
Authors -- Bill Childers, Jonathan Oxer, Kyle Rankin
Publisher -- O'Reilly
Publication date -- June 2006
ISBN -- 0-596-52720-9
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