O'Reilly has published yet another book in their "Hacks" series: Knoppix Hacks. With a "hack thermometer" at the top of each hack to indicate the difficulty level, the book can be useful to both newbies and experienced Linux admins alike. The book comes with a CD of Knoppix 3.4 2004-05-17.

From the NewsForge review:

"The hacks cover a wide range of topics, from Web browsing to data forensics and even making your own custom Knoppix CD. Some examples: Hack #39 -- Browse Windows Shares -- shows how Knoppix can browse a Windows SMB LAN with KDE's Konqueror. Hack #50 -- Test Hardware Compatibility -- has great tips for finding out the details of a PC's components without having to open the case and inspect it. Hack #25 -- Network Boot Knoppix -- turns Knoppix into a terminal server, with one PC booting off the Knoppix CD and a second booting from its network card, using the Knoppix CD from the first PC....

I have two complaints with "Knoppix Hacks." The first obvious complaint is that newer releases of Knoppix will eventually make "Knoppix Hacks" outdated, and in fact the CD included with the book is already several point releases behind the most current version of Knoppix available for download. Second, seasoned Knoppix users will probably see "Knoppix Hacks" more as a reference book and less as a hands-on HOWTO guide. Experienced users have probably read a Knoppix HOWTO and found the Knoppix.net forums and FAQs. This is not to say that "Knoppix Hacks" is simply a printed and bound aggregation of HOWTOs and posts from Web forums. Rankin has written a high-quality guide book that both those with Knoppix experience and those without can appreciate.

Many techies and hackers recognize that Knoppix is a great tool and have added it to their toolset. "Knoppix Hacks" is a wonderful complement to Knoppix. I recommend it to both experienced sysadmins and newbie hackers."

Read the entire review

In a word: Duh. C'mon - this can hardly be considered criticism, considering that it could apply equally well to pretty much every computer book ever written. Surely Newsforge can do better than this.

Anyway thanks for posting the link phlyersphan, I consider Knoppix to be an excellent tool, and although the original reviewer might find fault with the book, it looks to me like a pretty useful one to add to the shelf -- J.W.

LOL I had a chuckle at that myself. Just looking at my giant bookshelf next to my desk - which is only the "current" computer books (with the older ones taking up several bookshelves in another room) - I can count a handful of books whose versions are already at least one behind the current. And these are my "frequently used" books!

We're lucky to get a year of truly current, useful life out of computer books these days!

BTW, Any O'Reilly's Book is Great ! Knoppix Hack is also !!

FWIW, Knoppix Hacks is on my Christmas list. We'll see whether my brother or sister comes through -- J.W.

I recently purchased this book and have enjoyed it immensley. I was hoping the cd would have a pdf of the book, but not so. This would be extremely useful. Then I could create my own cd with the book on it and not have to carry the book with me. That would be nice.

i just received my copy of Knoppix and Network Security Hacks today in the mail. All i have to say is they are both very good books. i have not dug real deep, but glanced over the chapters i am personally interested in.

Knoppix is a lot more intense then i gave it credit for and the vs that comes with my book is 3.4 so i has both the 2.4 and 2.6 kernel you just need to tell it to boot knoppix26 if you want to run the 2.6 kernel. my vs has the older NTFS support for read/write premissions, but after a short test they seem to work ok for me.

One note i do have. i have an odd monitor that does not play nice with most current Live CDs at the 'best performance' generated by the knoppix auto detect and configuration tool and i have to go in and hack the X11/XF86Config-4 file. i looked around in the knoppix book for some type of info on this and found NONE. they do have a 'cheat code' to tell the system to boot at a lower res (that is all i am doing in the XF86Config-4 file is # out the 1280x1024 line so it loads at 1024x786), but that requires a reboot and if you do not know how to access other consouls to tell the system to reboot you are in for some trouble.

heck the only reason i even know how to do that is due to learning how to setup and configure a media box with debian as my distro to push videos out to my TV.

so for a TRUE linux newbie with zero experiance you could be in for several reboots to get things up and running 100% the first few times around. anyone with as much skills as i have, and that is not much mind you, should not have any problems with the book and the live CD to acomplish even some of the 'harder' tasks in the book.

very well written, easy to understand and follow directions that are very clear and to the point. i am more then pleased with my investment with this set of books and look forward to digging deeper into them.