Point & Click Linux!

Title: Point & Click Linux! Your Guide to Trouble-Free Computing

Author: Robin 'Roblimo' Miller

Publisher: Pearson Education (Prentice Hall), 2005

Vital Stats: 270 pages, 1 CD, 1 DVD, paperback, $29.99; ISBN 0131488724, http://www.pointandclicklinux.com

Reviewer: AdamRubin

Overall Rating: 9 out of 10 (Excellent)

Review:

At last there's a Linux how-to-do-it book for the non-geeks in your life. Instead of explaining how Linux works, it shows how to use popular GUI applications to accomplish common tasks, such as web browsing, email, word processing, presentations, spreadsheets, graphics, CD burning, games, chat, and more, in easy-to-understand language.

The book comes with both a bootable CD and a video DVD, packaged in the same envelope (although the text says otherwise). The CD contains the SimplyMEPIS distribution (Debian-based) and many applications, including Mozilla, OpenOffice.org, the GIMP, KPPP, K3B, Kopete, and over a dozen others. At first it can be used as a "Live CD" to boot directly into Linux without altering the hard drive, and later on it can be used to install SimplyMEPIS, dual-booting with Windows if desired. (I had no problems doing either on my generic desktop system.) The end result is a fully functional Linux system, with knowledge that's transferable to other distributions as well. The DVD has over a dozen brief video tutorials on the most important parts of the book.

As the title indicates, the emphasis is on GUI applications, not the command line. The author introduces each program with many screen shots, and encourages the reader to explore further. Some chapters recommend URLs for additional information. The last two chapters are introductions to the command line and the Linux community, topics that would probably be covered much earlier in a more technical book. Appendixes briefly describe the most popular Linux distributions and recommend other books.

Overall, this book succeeds at its intended purpose. Occasionally more details on how to accomplish something would have been helpful. For example, I had to figure out on my own that my external serial modem was not at the default /dev/modem but at /dev/ttyS0. A glossary would have been helpful for readers with little computer experience.

In short, this is probably too basic a book for most of our LUG members, but recommended for friends or other non-geeks who want to try Linux. Just be prepared to answer a few questions on details and terms that aren't explained in the book.