Recommended Books

Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2003 18:12:28 -0800
From: Don Marti dmarti@zgp.org
To: linux-elitists@zgp.org
Subject: [linux-elitists] 32 essential computer books?

Well, I just looked at the shelf by my desk and 32 books fit on it. Strangely enough, I also found out a way to send books library, at the US book rate.

So what would be the top 32 books to send them?

Abelson, Sussman, and Sussman: Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs

Kernighan and Pike, The Practice of Programming

Kernighan and Ritchie, The C Programming Language

Nemeth et al., Linux Administration Handbook

Schneier, Applied Cryptography

Stein, How to Set Up and Maintain a World Wide Web Site. (This one, and Navarro and Khan, Effective Web Design, are good but unfortunatly not up to date with today's standard HTML and Web app environments. But you have to be able to do the Web well to communicate — what's the Web book of choice?)

Wall et al., Programming Perl

Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2003 13:35:08 +1100
From: Ben Finney ben@benfinney.id.au
To: linux-elitists@zgp.org
Subject: Re: [linux-elitists] 32 essential computer books?

On 17-Dec-2003, Don Marti wrote:
> So what would be the top 32 books to send them?

Selection from my own bookcase:

McConnell, Code Complete, Microsoft Press. Astoundingly comprehensive. Covers the principles behind all aspects of the actual code-writing process, with tons of case studies. Hasn't lost any relevancy after a decade.

Viega and McGraw, Building Secure Software, Addison-Wesley. Deals with the practicalities and principles of considering security through the whole process of building programs. Covers many aspects of what "security" can mean.

Beazley, Python Essential Reference (2nd Edition)", New Riders. Python is an excellent language for first-time programmers, and also allows highly complex systems to be managed well. This book acts as both a good tutorial text and a complete reference.

Moody, Rebel Code, Penguin. Despite the publisher giving the subtitle "Linux and the Open Source Revolution", this is a good account of the beginnings and development of free software and the GNU/Linux operating system. Countries building their own computing infrastructure would do well to learn from the reasons free software began and the challenges it has faced here in the "west".

> Stein, How to Set Up and Maintain a World Wide Web Site
> (This one, and Navarro and Khan, Effective Web Design, are
> good but unfortunately not up to date with today's standard
> HTML and Web app environments.
> But you have to be able to do the Web well to
> communicate — what's the Web book of choice?)

I find that the Web itself is often the best tutorial on Web site design. Haven't found a good Web book for beginners — though it's been a while since I looked.

Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2003 19:03:39 -0800
From: Nick Moffitt nick@zork.net
To: linux-elitists@zgp.org
Subject: Re: [linux-elitists] 32 essential computer books?

For starters, there's a list of books I always wanted to use in sequence as a reading club:

http://zork.net/motd/nick/scheme/2003/02/21

The rundown is:

Levy, Steven, Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution. This is the book that everyone read in the 1980s and felt sad that there were no more hackers and poor RMS was all alone. Damn it's great that he won that battle.

Hillis, Daniel, The Pattern on the Stone. This is the best layman's explanation for how to conceptualize computers. It is a great gift book for non-geeks in your life. It basically explains everything with the overall thesis that functional decomposition is the *only* thing we do with computer technology. It's got an epilogue that says that won't cut it for AI.

Felliesen, Matthias et al., The Little Schemer. This is an amazing book, and I'd send it even if you were sending SICP. If I were sending books to people who didn't have access to computers, this is the one I'd send. It's a dialogue between master and novice, with leading questions as the only technique. Damn fine book.

Hofstadter, Douglas, Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid. BEST HACKER BOOK EVER WRITTEN

begin Ben Finney quotation:
> Beazley, Python Essential Reference (2nd Edition), New Riders
> Python is an excellent language for first-time programmers, and also
> allows highly complex systems to be managed well. This book acts as
> both a good tutorial text and a complete reference.

Seconded.

begin Michael Bacarella quotation:
> The Design & Implementation of the 4.4BSD Operating System
> by McKusick, Bostic, Karels, Quarterman

Yep, that's a good one.

> TCP/IP Illustrated Volume 2
> Advanced Programming in the UNIX Environment
> UNIX Network Programming
> by W. Richard Stevens

I'd definitely send APIUE and UNP. TCP/IP illustrated is a close second, but Advanced Programming and Network Programming are the two big ones for me.

> UNIX Internals: The New Frontiers
> by Uresh Vahalia
>
> Design of the UNIX Operating System
> by Maurice J. Bach

If you ask me, these two are not as useful as the 4.4BSD book. ALl of them are out of date, but at least the BSD book covers something even REMOTELY modern.

> A Guide to LaTeX 2e
> by Kopka, Daly

Hmmm. Me, I just use Lamport. My brother actually has a spiral-bound first edition that says "DO NOT REMOVE FROM MATH DEPARTMENT" on the front page. Oops.

Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2003 14:22:21 +1100
From: Ben Finney ben@benfinney.id.au
To: linux-elitists@zgp.org
Subject: Re: [linux-elitists] 32 essential computer books?

On 17-Dec-2003, Nick Moffitt wrote:
> Hofstadter, Douglas, Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid.
> BEST HACKER BOOK EVER WRITTEN

Gad, yes. I'd forgotten the "other" bookcase :-)

Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Vintage. I suppose I'd better recommend this before anyone else does. Or is this one not fashionable any more?

Oh, to heck with it:

Ritsema and Karcher, I Ching, Element Press. Complete word-for-word translation of the original (surviving) texts and later analyses, with comprehensive commentary.

From: Ben Woodard woodard@redhat.com
Date: 18 Dec 2003 10:41:36 -0800
To: linux-elitists linux-elitists@zgp.org
Subject: Re: [linux-elitists] 32 essential computer books?

On Wed, 2003-12-17 at 19:03, Nick Moffitt wrote:
> Hofstadter, Douglas, Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid.
> BEST HACKER BOOK EVER WRITTEN

It is funny I'm in the process of reading that right now.

>
> begin Michael Bacarella quotation:
> > The Design & Implementation of the 4.4BSD Operating System
> > by McKusick, Bostic, Karels, Quarterman
>
> Yep, that's a good one.

Damn good book. It really explains why things were done a particular way in a relatively coherent way. I think that this is a shortcoming of the linux documentation. I think we have a lot of explanations of how things work but things have been evolving so quickly that most of why things were done a particular way is still trapped in people's brains.

My suggestion is you need to add O'Reilly's Unix Power Tools to the list. Even if you think you know Unix or Linux well. You will learn a bunch from this book.

My other suggestion is Essential System Administration by Evi Nemith and others. As far as I can tell, if you need to do reasonable SA you can't live without it. Everybody has it.

Depending on what level they are on and what they are going to be doing, I find the following 3 books virtually indispensable:

Understanding the Linux Kernel by Daniel P. Bovet and Marco Cesati
Linux Device Drivers by Rubini & Corbet
IA64 Linux Kernel by Mosberger

Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2003 11:32:57 -0800
From: Nick Moffitt nick@zork.net
To: linux-elitists linux-elitists@zgp.org
Subject: Re: [linux-elitists] 32 essential computer books?

begin Ben Woodard quotation:
> My suggestion is you need to add O'Reilly's Unix Power Tools to the
> list. Even if you think you know Unix or Linux well. You will learn a
> bunch from this book.

Ooh! Seconded emphatically! That's the best book for waiting rooms, bus and subway trips, and bathroom breaks. I think I learned shell programming one page at a time by randomly flipping through that book while procrastinating on term papers.

Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2003 13:50:34 -0800
From: "Karsten M. Self" kmself@ix.netcom.com
To: linux-elitists linux-elitists@zgp.org
Subject: Re: [linux-elitists] 32 essential computer books?

on Thu, Dec 18, 2003 at 11:32:57AM -0800, Nick Moffitt (nick@zork.net)
wrote:
> begin Ben Woodard quotation:
> > My suggestion is you need to add O'Reilly's Unix Power Tools to the
> > list. Even if you think you know Unix or Linux well. You will learn
> > a bunch from this book.
>
> Ooh! Seconded emphatically! That's the best book for waiting
> rooms, bus and subway trips, and bathroom breaks. I think I learned
> shell programming one page at a time by randomly flipping through that
> book while procrastinating on term papers.

Thirded.

LPT and UNIX in a Nutshell were the two texts that pushed me "over the hump" with Unix. Add Linux in a Nutshell and Running Linux for my introduction to GNU/Linux.

Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2003 19:42:04 -0500
From: Modus Operandi modus@as220.org
To: /dev/random linux-elitists@zgp.org
Subject: Re: [linux-elitists] 32 essential computer books?

Another little O'Reilly book which I greatly enjoyed is Linux Server Hacks: 100 Industrial-Strength Tips & Tricks by Rob Flickenger. I don't know if it's "essential," but I learned a lot of subtleties from this.

Some examples ...

n>&m: Swap standard output and standard error

Hunt the disk hog by adding this handy one-liner to your .profile:

alias ducks='du -cks * |sort -rn |head -11'

Burning a CD without creating an ISO file

Mincing large binary files into arbitrary chunks (using bash arithmetic and dd) and reassembling them with cat

Using a makefile to automate admin tasks

Disk age analysis

... that sort of thing. This book makes some tricky stuff look easy.

Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2003 11:35:15 -0800
From: Nick Moffitt nick@zork.net
To: linux-elitists linux-elitists@zgp.org
Subject: Re: [linux-elitists] 32 essential computer books?

begin Ben Woodard quotation:
> Linux Device Drivers by Rubini & Corbet

That was the first decent Linux kernel book, and the only other English book in publication at the time was so poorly translated from the French that it was riddled with gotchas.

Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2003 13:02:13 -0800
From: Ben Woodard ben@zork.net
To: linux-elitists linux-elitists@zgp.org
Subject: Re: [linux-elitists] 32 essential computer books?

On Thu, 2003-12-18 at 11:35, Nick Moffitt wrote:
> begin Ben Woodard quotation:
> > Linux Device Drivers by Rubini & Corbet
>
> That was the first decent Linux kernel book, and the only
> other English book in publication at the time was so poorly translated
> from the French that it was riddled with gotchas.

I have to say that although most of the work that I do does not relate to device drivers. I find myself relying on the device driver book more than I do the Understanding the Linux Kernel book. It is really hard for me to explain why. It just seems like I find what I need to know in the Device Drivers book but not in the Kernel book.

I consider the device drivers book to be far superior and I only really use the Kernel book when what I need to know is distinctly not covered in the Device Drivers book.

If you buy the book on the used market just make sure that you get the 2nd edition.

Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2003 21:46:09 -0500
From: Michael Bacarella mbac@netgraft.com
To: linux-elitists@zgp.org
Subject: Re: [linux-elitists] 32 essential computer books?

I can't resist...

MORE ESSENTIALS

The Design & Implementation of the 4.4BSD Operating System, by McKusick, Bostic, Karels, Quarterman

TCP/IP Illustrated Volume 2, by W. Richard Stevens

Advanced Programming in the UNIX Environment, by W. Richard Stevens

UNIX Network Programming, by W. Richard Stevens

UNIX Internals: The New Frontiers, by Uresh Vahalia

Design of the UNIX Operating System, by Maurice J. Bach

Secrets & Lies, by Bruce Schneier

Principles of Digital Audio, by Ken C. Pohlmann

Computer Graphics: Principles and Practice, by Foley, van Dam, Feiner, Hughes

A Guide to LaTeX 2e, by Kopka, Daly

To: linux-elitists@zgp.org
From: Jonathan Corbet corbet-elite@lwn.net
Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2003 20:15:50 -0700
Subject: Re: [linux-elitists] 32 essential computer books?

My first level cache for books - the ones I can reach without even moving my chair - includes:

Python Essential Reference - Ascher
Understanding the Linux Kernel - Bovet and Cesati
Linux Administration - Nemeth et al
HTML the Definitive Guide - Musciano and Kennedy
DocBook - Walsh and Muellner
Linux Device Drivers 2 - Rubini and some other bozo

But if there's one thing I'd add to the lists that have gone around so far, it is:

The Visual Display of Quantitative Information - Tufte

Also throw in a copy of Snow Crash for the hell of it.

Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2003 14:26:05 +1100
From: Ben Finney ben@benfinney.id.au
To: linux-elitists@zgp.org
Subject: Re: [linux-elitists] 32 essential computer books?

On 17-Dec-2003, Jonathan Corbet wrote:
> HTML the Definitive Guide - Musciano and Kennedy

This one and Meyer's Cascading Style Sheets — but only the latest release of each — would be the closest I'd come to recommending as "the best Web book". In combination, they're great.

Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2003 09:55:33 -0000 (GMT)
From: Peter Whysall peter.whysall@ntlworld.com
To: linux-elitists@zgp.org
Subject: Re: [linux-elitists] 32 essential computer books?

> So what would be the top 32 books to send them?
[excellent choices snipped]

I'd add Running Linux, by mumble, mumble and mumble, to that list.

Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2003 11:37:39 -0500
From: Tanner Lovelace lovelace@trilug.org
To: linux-elitists@zgp.org
Subject: Re: [linux-elitists] 32 essential computer books?

Josuttis, Nicolai M. The C++ Standard Library : A Tutorial and Reference. Probably the best C++ book I've ever seen. A lot of books either have a good tutorial or good reference but not both. This one does an excellent job with both.

If you're doing non-computer books I'd suggest Cryptonomicon.

Cheers,
Tanner Lovelace

From: Jim Thompson jim@netgate.com
Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2003 10:02:30 -0800
To: linux-elitists@zgp.org
Subject: Re: [linux-elitists] 32 essential computer books?

The Art of Computer Programming, Volumes 1-3, Donald Knuth.

The Mythical Man-Month, Fred Brooks

Programming Pearls, Jon Bentley

plus several already mentioned:

The Little Schemer - 4th Edition, Daniel Friedman & Matthias Felleisen (used to be the Little Lisper)

Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs (Abelson & Sussman)

K&R

Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2003 13:11:09 -0600
From: Lance Simmons lance@lsimmons.net
To: linux-elitists@zgp.org
Subject: Re: [linux-elitists] 32 essential computer books?

They might find The Linux Cookbook useful.

Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2003 19:41:39 +0000
From: Geoff Lane zzassgl@buffy.sighup.org.uk
To: linux-elitists@zgp.org
Subject: Re: [linux-elitists] 32 essential computer books?

On Wed, Dec 17, 2003 at 06:12:28PM -0800, Don Marti wrote:
> So what would be the top 32 books to send them?

Programming Pearls by Jon Bentley (because algorithms and good design are important)

Principles of Programming Languages by Bruce J MacLennan (because you may as well start on the right path)

The Unix Philosophy by Mike Gancarz (just because!)

Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstader (because everybody needs to relax)

Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2003 14:53:36 -0500 (EST)
From: Derek Vadala derek@cynicism.com
To: linux-elitists@zgp.org
Subject: Re: [linux-elitists] 32 essential computer books?

> On Wed, Dec 17, 2003 at 06:12:28PM -0800, Don Marti wrote:
> So what would be the top 32 books to send them?

Cheswick, Bellovin & Rubin. Firewalls and Internet Security: Repelling the Wily Hacker.

Figured I would offer this up as security hasn't really been mentioned (save Applied Cryptography). There are definitely texts that are great, and more subject specific. But, I always thought of this one as the a good, solid introduction. There's a new edition, which adds Rubin as a co-author. I'm only famiilar with the 1st edition.

Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2003 14:31:05 -0800
From: "Karsten M. Self" kmself@ix.netcom.com
To: linux-elitists@zgp.org
Subject: Re: [linux-elitists] 32 essential computer books?

Python, damnit!

...otherwise agree with most of those, though I'm a bit iffy on Nemeth.

Hrm. Essential....

Already mentioned by myself or others, recapping:

UNIX Power Tools (O'Reilly)
Linux In a Nutshell (Still useful for beginners)
Code Complete, Steve McConnell.

A major part of grokking GNU/Linux is grokking free software. I've got a "Free Software Primer" topic on TWikIWeThey, with some recommended readings which have been of major importance to my understanding the significance and nuances of the free software development process and phenomenon. Included is a bibliography: http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Devtools/free-software-primer.html

Carl Shapiro & Hal Varian, Information Rules. Lock in, and leveraging your market (or monopoly) power.

Lawrence Lessig, Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace. On the domain, and limits, of law, code, society, and commerce.

Christensen, The Innovator's Dilemma. Bottom-up encroachment of entrenched markets.

Jarred Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel. On diversity and competition.

Eric Raymond, The Cathedral and the Bazaar. The mechanics of the free software development process.

Mancur Olsen, The Logic of Collective Action. Understanding perverse incentives in groups and organizations.

Jane Jacobs, Cities and the Wealth of Nations. Human scales and organization within communities. Design for living.

Douglas Hofstadter, Goedel, Escher, Bach. Information and recursion. Recursion and information.

Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Previously mentioned. Quality.

Neal Stephenson, In the Beginning Was the Command Line. A really good commentary on the Unix ethos.

In addition to these, there's the "when things go wrong" stuff. Peter G. Neumann published a book based on his comp.risks newsgroup postings.

Capers Jones, Software Systems Failure and Success. How and why projects fail, and ways to address this. Incidentally, this and much of the other "software quality" literature addresses best practices largely adopted by successful free software projects.

DeMarco & Lister, Peopleware. In large part an escapist programmer utopian fantasy, but it would be so nice if it were more widely read.

Pfister, In Search of Clusters. Lead me to the insight, among others, that what Larry McVoy did working on NUMA kernel code with Sun and SGI, and what he's doing with BitKeeper today, is dealing with cache coherence, though in different scales of data and time. Much of what I think I know about OS-level stuff comes from here.

I'd recommend a good security book if I knew of one. Unfortunately, the field (and GNU/Linux) changes so fast that specifics are hard to give, mostly leaving one with a bunch of general advice such as provided in PUIS and Applied Crypto. Building Linux and OpenBSD Firewalls was good when it came out.

And mind that a hell of a lot of stuff is available online. Which needn't be (remote) Web access. Debian includes the 'dwww' package, allowing serving of documentation via your local webserver, and a large selection of HOWTOs, Linux Gazette, and more comprehensive documentation, as well as man and info pages. All of which can be served locally over a LAN rather than remotely accessed through what's likely an unreliable international 'Net connection. Much of this is also printable through DocBook or other tools. My own extensive archive runs to ~501 MiB, so even a relatively small system could host a large quantity of freely available docs.

Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2003 19:35:13 -0800
From: "J. Paul Reed" <preed@sigkill.com>
To: linux-elitists@zgp.org
Subject: Re: [linux-elitists] 32 essential computer books?

In addition to the Camel book, the Perl Cookbook? Heck, the whole Perl Bookshelf on CD...

Books covering the culture of open source and its software would be good too:

Open Sources: Voices from the Open Source Revolution

The (recently released) Art of Unix Programming

Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2003 00:55:37 -0800
From: Nick Moffitt <nick@zork.net>
To: linux-elitists@zgp.org
Subject: Re: [linux-elitists] 32 essential computer books?

begin Karsten M. Self quotation:

A pity most Python books are so terrible. The O'Reilly ones were miserable, and Programming Python's only saving grace was Appendix E. Rip that out and re-bind it. It's a better book without all those hideous chapters in the way.

The New Riders Python Reference is great, but I direct most new Python programmers to http://www.python.org/doc/Intros.html and let them work the rest out from there.

From: J C Lawrence claw@kanga.nu
Subject: Re: [svlug] Best newbie Administrator book?
To: svlug@svlug.org
Date: Tue, 01 Aug 2000 11:54:18 -0700

On Tue, 1 Aug 2000 10:59:19 +0200, Ivan Sergio Borgonovo mail@gorilla.it wrote:

> OK an administrator CAN'T be a newbie. but any suggestion? I've
> finished to read Linux Maximum Security, and I don't feel better.

There are several tool-type books that are worth it. The following is a list by Dick Zuccarini I happen to have preserved from a long earlier thread on RIME (1991 FWIW):

--<cut>--
PERSONAL FAVORITES:

A User Guide To The UNIX System, by Rebecca Thomas, Phd., Osborne/McGraw-Hill. This is, in my opinion, the best introductory text to the UNIX operating system. It takes the novice user through the UNIX system with ample examples. It starts with the basic utilities and editors, and continues through the directory structure, mail system, uucp, and a cursory overview of system administration. I give this book to new users, and it is usually the most dog eared volume on the shelf.

Exploring The UNIX System, Kochan & Wood, Hayden Books. This is another overview of the UNIX system, which is perhaps less of a tutorial, but very well written. The style is a little less readable, but very clear nonetheless.

UNIX Networking, Edited by Kochan & Woods, Hayden. This is a compendium of overview articles written by noted experts in the area of UNIX networking from academia and industry. Since most of the open systems protocols started here, and then moved to other OS, this is useful for OS/2 users as well as TCP/IP, NFS, Streams, RFS, and even OS/2 to UNIX lans are covered in this volume. (And much more)

The Waite Group's UNIX Communications

Managing UUCP and Usenet, Todino & O'Reilly, O'Reilly & Associates. This is pretty much of a nuts and bolts approach to getting the system up and running. It is one of O'Reilly's "Nutshell Handbook" series. My copy is 241 pages, spiral bound, and slightly out of date. It covers everything from versions of uucp, how uucp works, setting up uucp, the physical connection, security, installing netnews, and news adminsitration. It is not the tutorial that the Waite Group's book is, but is intended more as a desk reference. It even contains sections on how to build cables, reference charts for RS-232 showing max length vs baud rate, and much more.

The Waite Group UNIX System V Bible, Prata & Martin, SAMS. This is probably an intermediate text. It wont frighten anyone who is moderately computer literate, is very thorough, and covers the OS better than most entry level texts. It won't make a UNIX wizard out of you, but it is an excellent book.

Heavy-Duty UNUX Stuff:

The UNIX Programming Environment, Kernighan & Pike, Prentice-Hall. This is the classic text on UNIX for programmers, written by one of the originators. Not for the faint at heart, but an excellent reference.

Advanced UNIX: A Programmers Guide, Prata & Waite Group, SAMS. This is an introduction to shell scripts, system calls, and C programming with UNIX. A good systematic introduction to the elements of programming in the UNIX environment.

UNIX Programmers Reference, Valley, QUE. This is a good entry level tutorial. Like most of the Que series, it is a little more "lightweight" than the stuff from SAMS, McGraw-Hill, and Prentice-Hall. Very readable for anyone with a knowledge of any programming langage, especially C. Covers basics of multi-user OS from day one, evolution of UNIX, file systems, process control, components of the UNIX kernal, interprocess communication, the standard libraries, UNIX & MS DOS including facitilities they have in common as well as differences. It describes program development in the UNIX environment, including program maintenance and the source code control system, the make facility, various code analysis tools such as cb, cflow, lint, etc. Examples are given of writing filters, UNIX commands, devices, files, special files and pipes, and programming serial devices, as well as signals and interprocess communication. All in all it is a reasonably thorough introduction to the basic facilities of the UNIX environment. For someone whose experience is primarily DOS or OS/2, with no experience on other mulit-user systems, this would be a good initial introduction to programming under UNIX.

Tricks of The UNIX Masters, Sage, SAMS. This is a collection of tricks, tips, and techniques for tuning and getting the most out of a UNIX system, and customizing your environment. Useful for experienced users and system administrators. This is not an introductory text.

UNIX Papers, The Waite Group, SAMS. This is a collection of papers on UNIX, including many state-of-the-art developments and programming tips and utilities for everything from communications to system adminstration. This is not an introductory text.

There are dozens of UNIX books out there, on various topics ranging from security and system administration to shell programming, and the various system utilities. The ones listed should give you more information than you need for an initial look see. AT&T, SCO, Microsoft, Novell, and Interactive Systems all have information on using Lan Manager and Portable Netware on UNIX.
--<cut>--

Unfortunately my *nix library is still in boxes (and I don't know which, yet), or I'd pull titles from there.

> I'm interested in security and network administration too.

I specifically recommend the Cheswick and Bellovin Firewalls book. Astounding work. I also have a small collection of security-related URLs I find useful under http://www.kanga.nu/~claw/.

(They'll be moving somewhere else in a bit as I finish some WikiWiki work).

--
J C Lawrence Home: claw@kanga.nu
---------(*) Other: coder@kanga.nu
http://www.kanga.nu/~claw/ Keys etc: finger claw@kanga.nu
--=| A man is as sane as he is dangerous to his environment |=--