Ubuntu Book by O'Reilly?

[Magnus Therning]

On Thu, May 12, 2005 at 02:39:24PM -0500, Tom Adelstein wrote:
>O'Reilly & Associates has an interest in releasing a book for Ubuntu
>users. While all Linux books sales have increased significantly in
>2005, books on specific distributions like Fedora, Debian and JDS
>typically lag behind the market.
>
>I argued that the Ubuntu project is not typical of other Linux
>distributions and a market exists for an Ubuntu book. 

I can only agree with the concern about the book being outdated in no
time. The quick release cycle of Ubuntu is a problem here. Compare this
to Debian, where a book on the stable release is "current" for 3 years.

>Without flaming this post, please, what do you think? Would an O'Reilly
>Book on Ubuntu have a following? 

The distro is pulling in a lot of "converts" so I think it might have a
following.

>What kind of book would would people want? a newbie book, a book for
>experienced Linux users or somewhere in between?

I think a newbie-to-moderately-experienced level hits the sweet spot.
Mostly for the reason mentioned above.

The experts I know don't exactly frown at books, but it comes pretty
close. The net is littered with detailed info on all aspects of Linux,
Debian (Ubuntu) and computing in general. The net is where experts go.
The only exception is reference books.

/M

-- 
Magnus Therning                    (OpenPGP: 0xAB4DFBA4)
magnus at therning.org
http://magnus.therning.org/

Software is not manufactured, it is something you write and publish.
Keep Europe free from software patents, we do not want censorship
by patent law on written works.

The real work in an attack, at least an attack against a well-designed cipher,
is modifying the attack technique so that it works. Knudsen's papers are an
excellent example of this; he is a master at making an attack work where others
have failed. Differentials work where characteristics don't. Truncated
differentials work where normal differentials don't. Even this year's exciting
find, impossible differentials, are simply another way at looking at a
differential attack. A cryptanalyst with a "menu" would have never found any of
those attacks, and would have broken far fewer ciphers.
      -- Bruce Schneier
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