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Hands-on Booting: Learn the Boot Process of Linux, Windows, and Unix
Master the booting procedure of various operating systems with in-depth analysis of bootloaders and firmware. The primary focus is on the Linux booting procedure along with other popular operating systems such as Windows and Unix. Hands-on Booting begins by explaining what a bootloader is, starting with the Linux bootloader followed by bootloaders for Windows and Unix systems. Next, you’ll address the BIOS and UEFI firmware by installing multiple operating systems on one machine and booting them through the Linux bootloader. Further, you’ll see the kernel's role in the booting procedure of the operating system and the dependency between kernel, initramfs, and dracut. You’ll also cover systemd, examining its structure and how it mounts the user root filesystem. In the final section, the book explains troubleshooting methodologies such as debugging shells followed by live images and rescue mode. On completing this book, you will understand the booting process of major operating systems such as Linux, Windows, and Unix. You will also know how to fix the Linux booting issues through various boot modes. What You Will Learn Who This Book Is For
Linux users, administrators, and developers.
Linux users, administrators, and developers.
486 pages, Paperback
Published July 1, 2020
13 people are currently reading
21 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
February 12, 2025
A great way of approaching a topic which otherwise needs to be pieced together from MANY other sources.
It's a bit unpolished but very readable.
Would recommend.
It's a bit unpolished but very readable.
Would recommend.
December 8, 2021
As the book title promises, it does contain a bunch of information on how the boot process works, both in BIOS and UEFI based firmware and in the operating system, in particular Linux systems based on Fedora and Fedora-derived distributions.
That said, I was not impressed by the overall quality of the book, a problem which I've found myself running into repeatedly with Apress published books. Both the production quality of the book and accuracy of the technical content leave to be desired in places.
The book is chock-full of screenshots, so much so that some chapters of the book, e.g. chapter 2, seem more like a picture book than anything else. While I sincerely believe that graphical depictions of complicated technical content can vastly improve the explanatory power of the surrounding text, the high quantity of often low quality blurry text on screenshots used here do frequently not add any insight - like a screendump of the Windows boot logo, the same picture even twice in 10 pages - really?
Some technical concepts, not necessarily pivotal to the understanding of the boot process itself, are also either misunderstood by the author or misrepresented to be effectively irreconcilable with how things actually work. The explanation of the use of public key cryptography, used for secure boot, is one such area that made me cringe every time it was brought up.
The part of the book that covers Linux booting is very much focused on Fedora's use of dracut, e.g. chapter 6 revolves solely around that. This is nice if you're interested in Fedora or some of its derivatives like RedHat, but I wish equal detail had been given to what happens in Debian and Ubuntu based distributions, which are only mentioned in passing as not doing it like Fedora as they don't use dracut.
Overall, when reading the book you'll certainly learn something about the booting process, however, the material could have been presented a lot better than it is.
That said, I was not impressed by the overall quality of the book, a problem which I've found myself running into repeatedly with Apress published books. Both the production quality of the book and accuracy of the technical content leave to be desired in places.
The book is chock-full of screenshots, so much so that some chapters of the book, e.g. chapter 2, seem more like a picture book than anything else. While I sincerely believe that graphical depictions of complicated technical content can vastly improve the explanatory power of the surrounding text, the high quantity of often low quality blurry text on screenshots used here do frequently not add any insight - like a screendump of the Windows boot logo, the same picture even twice in 10 pages - really?
Some technical concepts, not necessarily pivotal to the understanding of the boot process itself, are also either misunderstood by the author or misrepresented to be effectively irreconcilable with how things actually work. The explanation of the use of public key cryptography, used for secure boot, is one such area that made me cringe every time it was brought up.
The part of the book that covers Linux booting is very much focused on Fedora's use of dracut, e.g. chapter 6 revolves solely around that. This is nice if you're interested in Fedora or some of its derivatives like RedHat, but I wish equal detail had been given to what happens in Debian and Ubuntu based distributions, which are only mentioned in passing as not doing it like Fedora as they don't use dracut.
Overall, when reading the book you'll certainly learn something about the booting process, however, the material could have been presented a lot better than it is.
December 26, 2020
This is a very good book, the english language isn't my main language Nevertheless, this book was easy to understand, And also the benefit that I have benefited from this book is a labor benefit,
As I understood everything about the process of booting the computer from all sides. I am writing this evaluation even though I only read the first 100 pages of this book and Saud and I complete this evaluation after completing the readers, and I advise everyone who reads this review To start reading this book now, and I guarantee why he will really benefit and not waste the time that he will spend on this book
As I understood everything about the process of booting the computer from all sides. I am writing this evaluation even though I only read the first 100 pages of this book and Saud and I complete this evaluation after completing the readers, and I advise everyone who reads this review To start reading this book now, and I guarantee why he will really benefit and not waste the time that he will spend on this book
January 16, 2021
Excellent reference. Filled in quite a few holes in my knowledge.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews