Linux has become one of the best operating systems within a short period of time. This success is due to many reasons, two of which are related: Linux is open source, and there is a large active community involved in its improvement and maintenance. In the Linux world, we find many companies supporting different Linux distributions; among them are Red Hat and Canonical Ltd, which are respectively distributing Fedora and Ubuntu. The latter has become a very popular Linux distribution thanks to its new features, its rapidity in issuing new distributions, and also its stability since it is based on the Debian variant.

This book targets the Linux distribution Ubuntu, which covers the latest versions 14.10 and 15.04. Matthew Helmke explores Ubuntu from different angles, ranging from installation to administration to programming. The book consists of 46 chapters divided into five parts. The author in the first chapters gives a detailed guide on how to install Ubuntu and configure it as a desktop operating system. The next chapters take the reader into the details of administration, covering how to manage software, users, and remote access. The remaining chapters deal with Ubuntu as a server by guiding the reader on how to set up different servers (web server, file and print server, and so on) and how to use the programming tools for Ubuntu. Three chapters are devoted to the famous programming languages in the Linux world: Perl, Python, and PHP. All of the chapters of the book are well written.

I have been teaching Ubuntu in an operating systems course for a while, and find this book valuable since the reader will know everything about Ubuntu after reading it--from the desktop point of view to the server point of view. I sincerely recommend this book. By the way, I am planning to use it as a reference for my course.

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