Special Edition, Using Linux, 6th Edition has six major sections, divided as follows: Introduction, Sight and Sound, System Administration, Networking, Services, and Appendixes. Some of the material is dated, as the book was written in the year 2000. The earlier editions of the book where based on OpenLinux, from Caldera, while this edition includes information on that, along with two other major distributions, as released by RedHat (version 7.0), and Debian (version 2.2), as well. A book released by the publisher of a major distribution has trouble including everything in it, especially since a majority of utilities used in Linux are in the public domain, and maintained by others, and this tome is no exception. The book lists where the major file components for a program reside, and if one distro uses another location, it tries to point that out as well.

The first section of the book starts out with a brief history of Linux, and the GUI (Graphical User Interface) desktops of KDE and GNOME. It presents the pros and cons of picking one desktop over another, and lists some desktop managers that an end user may be interested in. It explains that a GUI desktop is akin to Windows by Microsoft, in that it provides the end user with a way to deal with the underlying kernel, while a desktop manager tends to be more limited, and tends to be more centered on painting a pretty picture, that makes it easier to find a file on the desktop screen.

Section two deals with the X Window System, XFree86 versions 3.3.6 and 4.0.1. More attention is given to XFree86 3.3 than version 4.0, due mainly to when the book was written. The section concludes with some programs and utilities for sight and sound support, such as RealOne, and Acrobat Reader.

Section three starts with GUI based tools for the three major distributions covered, and proceeds to some of the inner workings of the kernel. It goes on to cover some of the options for customizing different programs and utilities, such as Bash, file systems (limited to ext2 and ext3), kernel with modules, and building/compiling the kernel and modules. It goes on to introduce basic system security, such as users and groups, the use of syslogs, and FreeS/WAN.

Section four deals with networking at the introductory to intermediate levels on only a couple issues. The book does provide a fairly good amount of information on dial-up connections to ISPs (Internet Service Providers), and the tools used to help establish a connection. The chapters dealing with DNS and BIND are restricted to caching domain name servers and BIND 8. If the writers had devoted a few more pages to DNS I feel they could of covered setting up a full service DNS, as they had covered the basics when dealing with a caching DNS. It does provide a good intro to IP (Internet Protocol) addresses and how they are divided into classes. The section does mention hubs, while ignoring switches, while dealing with setting up a LAN (Local Area Network). It does cover both NFS and Samba 2.x in setting up a mixed OS (Operating System) based LAN.

Section five deals mainly with services that use the TCP/IP protocols. It covers LPRng, for printer sharing, but fails to even mention CUPS. It short changes NAT, IP Masquerading, Netfilter/IPtables, and gives only a brief intro to firewalls, and LAN based security. It does cover the basics of FTP, Apache (appears to refer to version 1.3, but is never clear), TCPwrappers, NAT/firewall, and remote administration. It fails to make a strong case for using secured versions of tools over their counterparts, that begin with the letter "r", such as rlogin.

The appendix, section six, covers the more common commands, based on application and nature of the function. The book gives a command name, a syntax example, and one or two line description. For the most often used commands it may give multiple listings, with different arguments listed in the syntax. The last chapter gives some resources for finding more information on the more popular subjects.

Overall, the book is lacking, but what it does choose to cover, it provides some good information, and suggests how to find more information on the matter. A couple subjects have on ten pages (for example, Chapter 1 - What is Linux?, and Chapter 20 - Building a VPN (FreeS/WAN) ), others can be long at 30 pages (i.e., Chapter 3 - KDE, Chapter 4 - GNOME), and one very long chapter, Chapter 33 - Apache and khttpd, at 50 plus pages. The majority of chapters are an average of 18 pages long. The book is good at providing information on what modules and patches need to be compiled into the kernel, for the versions mentioned. It seems that in quite a few cases the authors choose to refer the reader to the documentation that comes with the program or utility, instead of dealing with it directly.

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