In February, I read Just for Fun, by Linus Torvalds and David Diamond. Overall, I really enjoyed it. Readers who are expecting a line-by-monospaced line breakdown of the birth of Linux will be very disappointed, however, as the book focuses much more on the circumstances that made Linus into a determined coder rather than on the technical details of his OS. The biographical narratives of his formative years are charming, and Linus has a dry, nerdy wit that comes through and keeps the story moving.

It took me a while to get used to the dueling narrators structure of the book. Rather than playing the role of ghost writer (or maybe rather than just playing the role of ghost writer), Diamond trades off narrating chapters with Torvalds. I think this would have been easier for me to take if Diamond’s chapters weren’t printed entirely in italics. I think the shift from first- to third-person narration could just as easily have been illustrated with a change in typeface, rather than style.

About the last quarter of the book is devoted to Linus explaining his opinions on copyright and free and open-source software (FOSS), which as you might imagine, are plentiful. Torvalds’s OS has become the defacto poster child for open-source, despite his very public conflicts with Richard Stallman, creator of the GPL, the license which has facilitated the protection and creation of FOSS. It probably says more about my geek orientation than about the quality of the writing, but I found this part of the book to be the most interesting and engaging.

Anyway, recommended as a quick read for those of you who are interested in the early days of open-source, nerd biography, or italics.

It bears mentioning, however, that if you’re planning on reading the book, you should do it soon. I don’t buy hardcover books that often, but I made an exception for this title because I knew its timeliness was fleeting. The pace of the industry is such that some sections of the book are already out of date. A revised and updated version in paperback seems a virtual certainty. In the mean time, check out John’s site: http://battellemedia.com, where he continues to blog search-related items daily.

So, now it’s on to February’s selection. I picked up Just For Fun, which is a semi-auto biography of Linus Torvalds, coauthored with David Diamond. I’m not that far into it, and thus far I’m not enthralled with the odd narrative style, but I’m curious enough about Linus’s background and the origins of Linux that I’m going to stick with it.

For the record, I plan on picking books for this project fairly randomly, but as with Just For Fun, when I don’t have anything else planned, I’m taking titles from Joel Spolsky’s Fog Creek Software Management Training Program reading list, which seems to be a pretty decent curriculum for anyone who finds themselves at the intersection of business and technology.

I’m composing this on an old Gateway PIII box I had lying around. I finally decided to do something with it, and am running Linux via the Knoppix 4.0 live cd distro. It’s more user-friendly than I ever expected Linux to be. My friend Jeremiah is doing some pretty interesting things with a Linux box, most notably running Ampache. It will take me a while before I’m willing to tackle anything quite that serious, but I’m looking forward to a few challenges.

In the meantime, if anyone has any hints for a novice Linux user, I’d love to hear them. I’m particularly interested in any tips for making my box secure.