Book review: The Linux Command Line

The Linux Command Line: A Complete Introduction lives up to its name and covers a wide range of command line topics (disclaimer). There are a lot of subtleties with how the bash shell behaves that are more clear to me after reading this book. I didn’t learn as much as I did from How Linux Works (review), but I wish I’d read The Linux Command Line when I first starting working with linux systems.

The last part of the book deals with writing shell scripts and covers more about shell scripting than I ever wanted to know. Reading and writing nontrivial shell scripts is sometimes a reality, so overall it was good to pick up a few useful tips and tricks along with a generally increased understanding of bash programming.