2011-01-20

ebook status

Some days ago, No Starch Press started selling an ebook version of TLPI. The ebook is also provided for free when you buy a paper copy of TLPI from No Starch (look here for coupon—valid until end of February—that provides a publisher discount for the book+ebook package).

Currently, the ebook is available only in PDF form and only from No Starch. However, a full range of other ebook formats is currently in production, and when those formats are available they will be sold through the usual retail channels (and made available to No Starch customers who already have the ebook). I expect those other formats to be available around mid-February.

2011-01-19

Source code download glitch

There's a small glitch in the latest website update, which I won't be able to fix for about 24 hours: on the source code page, the links to the source code tarballs are broken. In the meantime, here are the links for the dist and book tarballs (look here for an explanation of why there are two versions of the tarball).

Update 2011-01-20: The problem is fixed now.

FAQ page

I've added an FAQ page to the TLPI web site, with answers to some questions about TLPI that have come up more than once.

2011-01-10

Korean translation of TLPI

Korean publisher Acorn Publishing has signed a contract with No Starch Press to do a Korean translation of TLPI. I've now added a page to the web site with information about translations of TLPI.

2011-01-09

Linux 2.6.37 API changes

Linux kernel 2.6.37 was released a few days ago, so I've updated the API changes page with information on the most significant change in 2.6.37: the addition of the fanotify API.

2011-01-05

FAQ: Why didn't you cover topic X?

By now, I've had a few questions of the form Why didn't you cover [topic X] in TLPI? Examples of topics that have been mentioned include more socket options in Chapter 61, tracing and debugging techniques, and POSIX AIO.

The general answer to this question is twofold: time and space. There are various additional topics I myself would have liked to include in TLPI, but in the interest of actually finishing the book, I had to draw the line somewhere, and exclude those topics. In addition, as we headed toward production, it became clear that we were going to run close to the limits of what could be printed as a single paper volume (the publisher and I both agreed that we didn't want to go to two volumes). Thus, there wasn't enough space to cover every desirable topic.

Assuming that there is one day a second edition of TLPI, we may well go to two volumes and go into greater detail on some topics and add various topics not covered in the first edition. I'm collecting suggestions for topics to consider for inclusion in future editions of TLPI, if you want to send me specific suggestions.