“Watching Linux mature as a platform is nearly as entertaining
and surreal as watching the average teenager grow up. Changes
happen with stunning speed, and they crop up in every area you can
think of, as well as a few wouldn’t have thought of. For
programmers, one of the sideshows of Linux’s coming of age has been
the parallel emergence of books that use this once-alternative
operating system as a development platform. Where once there were a
few books that were modest-quality reprints of HOW-TOs, there are
now hundreds of titles available from your favorite bookstore.”
“Even in this state of rapid growth and change, there are
precious few clear winners among the books for Linux developers.
One delightfully notable exception to this pattern of chronic
underperformance is Linux Programming Unleashed, Second Edition, by
Kurt Wall. The book’s 34 chapters and nearly 900 pages contain a
well balanced, thorough, and artfully presented treatment of more
Linux programming topics than most readers would dare wish for.
Individual chapters cover Linux’s background; setting up a
development system; using gcc (the GNU C compiler), the make
utility and autoconf; using RCS and CVS; debugging; error handling;
file and directory operations; processes; threads; accessing system
information; IPC; daemons; socket programming; ncurses programming
(two chapters); X, the Gtk+ and Qt widget toolkits; Bash scripting;
device drivers; product packaging; and documentation.”