Linux Mint Essentials: A Practical Guide to Linux Mint for the Novice to the Professional

Truthfully I haven't loaded this distro yet but I certainly intend to in the near future. I have already read this book and refer back to it as I progress in my understanding of Linux's various systems. I'm learning on LUbuntu first and then will switch over to Linux Mint Mate and Cinnamon as these two are what I really desire in my computer after Windows XP PRO.Since this Book is up to date currently, it IS very interesting to me and easy to understand for the most part. Yes, I know that it is a costly Book but specialized information generally is. I certainly feel that its High cost is well worth the price. Thank you.

The book consists of 12 chapters, plus three appendixes and additional front material. Its general layout is rather pleasant.The first chapter, “Meet Linux Mint,” contains the customary self-advertisement about one’s distribution, found in all similar books. Mint is advertised as more popular than Ubuntu, but counting the number of questions asked about these distributions on some news website is certainly not a reliable technique. Also, presenting a distribution with only screen copies of its desktop is disappointing.Chapter 2, “Creating Boot Media and Installing Linux Mint,” assumes that the reader knows Windows; everything is explained with reference to this system. Planning the partition scheme is often not explained at all in Ubuntu books, as this is considered too complicated for a beginner. However, this book demonstrates that this concept can be explained clearly and simply.Chapter 3 presents Cinnamon, the desktop environment of Linux Mint, or rather one of the available desktop environments. One of the major goals of the people who developed Linux Mint was to provide an alternative to Unity, the new desktop environment defined for Ubuntu version 10.10, which was much criticized by Ubuntu users. In fact, Cinnamon can be used with Ubuntu in place of Unity.One of the most useful though almost hidden features of all Linux desktop environments is the possibility of having several workspaces. This allows for several different screens with different applications running on them. Thus, you no longer need to minimize your current application in order to maximize another one. But several desktop environments, including Unity and Cinnamon, underemphasize this capability.Chapter 4, “An Introduction to the Terminal,” is in fact an introduction to the shell. Explanations about the shell are well presented, but there is a gross error in explaining the find command by using an unquoted joker expression. Anybody testing the command shown will get an error message because the joker expression is expanded before the command is called. In fact, it seems that chapter 4 was shortened too roughly; thus, the script example is useless, and notations like the jokers or the “.” notation are not explained at all. Finding the proper balance between not frightening beginners and providing a useful reference is difficult.Chapter 5, “Utilizing Storage and Media,” fills a need not frequently covered in other books. It is difficult to understand how to format a flash drive, especially because there is some confusion between using a graphical user interface (GUI) or not. This chapter is not suited for beginners; it should be shortened and moved to an appendix, as demonstrated by the space devoted to the universally unique identifier (UUID) concept.To comment on all the chapters with the same level of detail would make this review much too long, thus I will simply summarize the rest. Some chapters simply explain how to install some new applications, presenting them with only a screen copy. Others, on the contrary, explain in a detailed way how to manage users and permissions, or how to set a static Internet Protocol (IP) address or share files using the network file system (NFS). Beginners will appreciate the first category of chapters, but they will miss detailed explanations about using the applications. Advanced users will find the explanations in the second category of chapters more interesting, but also rather shallow.All in all, chapters about administration and advanced usage are more numerous than chapters about applications, and they provide welcome information since it’s rare to find all that in the same book. The weaknesses of Linux Mint are not hidden under the rug.The appendices deal with using the MATE and KDE editions of Linux Mint, as well as with reinstalling Mint while retaining data. These are also very welcome, although once again the screen copies are not very useful.All this means that the author managed to build an interesting and useful book about an interesting variant or derivation of Ubuntu.

Unlike the other book I read to introduce me to Mint, this author doesn't assume I have used Linux for years. I didn't have to go online to look anything up to understand his explanations. He assumes that (like 80% of computer users) that we just want to surf the internet, watch a movie or write a letter. Not find out how to rewrite the entire Linux system in computer language.

Great read for anyone new to Linux Mint. Author is very good, watch his YouTube videos all the time!!

Not all the information is correct. I found a few things that didn't work out for me.

Very well written. covers a lot. I am still going thru it trying to learn Linux.

Linux Mint Essentials is a well written book, covering all the essential, relevant parts of the operating system.

The eBook (PDF) is a 12 MB download, Has a good chapter index and is clearly written. The title says its for Linux Mint but because its based on Ubuntu other novice users might be interested in the book to.Its starts with the many way’s to create a boot disk and what I realy liked what kinda desktop and menu’s you want to use. For Mint you have the option to look at and work with four different desktop environments KDE, Xfce, MATE and Cinnamon. They writer explains the difference between the four choices.After we have installed Linux Mint the book goes more into getting to know the Cinnamon environment because its most popular Mint flavour. At the end of the book the author takes the time to take a dive with you into MATE and the KDE version of Linux Mint.My conclusion:If you are a novice user or curious about the standard software, this book is for you. From chapter 11 on this gets interesting for the more experienced user. Its about securing, tweaking, updating and upgrading your Linux Mint version. Again, if you use an Ubuntu based Linux distro, this might also be learn full. Its well written and it will take you from a novice to a Linux Mint User who knows how the system will work.