Requirements

Difficult-o-Meter: 2 (light Linux skill required)

So, you ask, what do you actually need to make sense of this book? The answer comes in three parts : the knowledge you're required to possess, the hardware you're required to obtain, and the software to which we'll refer.

Knowledge

Not much preexisting knowledge is required. Some experience with Linux is handy, but it isn't absolutely required. We do not cover installing Linux on your PC, so it'd be best if you had the ability to install Linux and get it running on your own machine before you begin delving into the chapters. In fact, that's really a prerequisite for the entire book. You wouldn't be expected to learn advanced driving techniques if you couldn't drive in the first place. While I'd love to offer to help each and every one of you install Linux on your machine, it simply isn't possible. If you can't get Linux installed and running on your machine, check one of the other help sources: Read the documentation, talk to your local Linux user 's group , call up your friends who run Linux, or access any of the thousands of pieces of online documentation. You could even go to one of the interactive help sites to ask an expert for help.

The primary knowledge required is this:

· A general idea of the hardware in your PC

· Enough know-how to get a working installation of Linux going

· Ability to follow directions

That's about it, really. Bear in mind that the second item has no time limits associated with it ”if it took you a week to get XFree86 configured, don't worry about it ”you got it working, and that's all that counts.

Hardware

As for hardware, this entire book assumes that you're working with x86-compatible hardware: Intel Pentiums, Pentium II/IIIs, AMD K5/K6/K6-2/K6-3/Athlon/Duron, any of the Cyrix chips, even 486s (however, a 486 will be a bit short on power for Chapter 24 , Video Production). You must have some free disk space. A couple of hundred megs would be nice, but you can probably get by with less if you're careful. Chapter 20 (Music Production), for instance, is predicated a bit on the assumption that you've got a lot of spare space ”it'll still work without it, but your MP3 Jukebox won't be nearly as cool.

You must have a video card capable of running Xfree86 (don't worry, I've yet to run into one that won't drive any Xserver).

Since this book assumes that you've got enough smarts to get Linux up and running in the first place, you can probably figure out ways around the lack of disk space or the lack of a video card. It can be done. The only real hardware requirement is this: a Linux box on which you can freely play, test, and make mistakes. If you've got that, you're golden. An Internet connection, for downloading new software and updates, would be nice too ”as always, the faster the better.

Software

At the beginning of each chapter, we'll do our best to mention the software you'll need to build what we built. You'll need a relatively recent Linux distribution. I recommend SuSE, because I really like their installer and runtime setup. One author prefers Debian ”the most GNU-ish of the distributions. None of us particularly care for RedHat or Mandrake ”both are unstable and needlessly different from the others. Something based on at least kernel 2.2 would sure be nice, because 2.2 has been the standard for a couple of years now. Kernel 2.4 is all good, too. And if you really like RedHat, or it's the only distribution you have, that's okay. It's still very usable. Everything in this book was tested on either SuSE, TurboLinux, or Debian ”and most everything was tested on Debian. Three of the four authors of this book prefer Debian, and the remaining author is simply difficult to get along with.

Web Sites

The three big Web sites to get familiar with are:

http://www. freshmeat .net/ ”an announcement site for GPL'ed and non-GPL'ed software projects

http://www. sourceforge .net/ (another open -source repository)

http://www.linuxdoc.org/ ”the core Linux documentation repository

These are three fabulous places to go when you're either looking for software or trying to figure out how to use it. Also, there is a web site for this book: http://www.multitool.net/mtl .