books:

	Linux Appliance Design: A Hands-On Guide to Building Linux Appliances Bob Smith, John Hardin, ... No Starch Press, 2007 - 385 pages average customer review:based on 4 reviews view larger image
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Learn to:
Separate your user interfaces from your daemons Give user interfaces run time access to configuration, status, and statistics Add professional network management capabilities to your application Use SNMP and build a MIB Build a web-based appliance interface Build a command line interface (CLI) Build a framebuffer interface with an infrared control as input Manage logs and alarms on an appliance

Companion CD includes a prototype appliance-a home alarm system-that supports the book's lessons.

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Lots of quirky, interesting content

First of all, you know that when you see the word "appliance" in this context, you should think more like a router or alarm system (the book uses this as a development framework), not a refrigerator, say. [Although (shudder!) the latter could be a sweet example in the near future.] And, before I write another word I should state upfront: I was a technical reviewer of this book.

I found lots and lots of interest in my "required" reading:

- the authors have developed an API for appliance configuration and control, which they term RTA (Run Time Access). Briefly, a Postgresql library is developed to allow a pseudo-database to store configuration values or issue control commands;

- there's a intriguing chapter on using an infrared remote control as a device to conrol an appliance. It has neat stuff like the observation that one's digital camera can "see" the pulses from a remote control. (Try it at home!);

- the authors cover the ins and outs of the Linux framebuffer device, which is very nice to know;

- the information about SNMP in several chapters is probably the clearest and most succinct I've ever read on this somewhat complicated (dare I say, miserable?) protocol.

It's a fact, there's lot of stuff here you ain't gonna see anywhere else, and with embedded devices you need all the ideas and techniques you can scrape together anywhere you can find 'em!

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An invaluable, indispensable, thoroughly 'user friendly' instruction

Linux continues to increase in popularity and utility among computer enthusiasts. The combined effort of Linux experts Bob Smith, John Hardin, Graham Phillips, and Bill Pierce, "Linux Appliance Design: A Hands-On Guide To Building Linux Appliances" teaches Linux users how to build better appliances for the Linux systems thereby providing them with more types of interfaces, more dynamic interfaces, and better debugged interfaces. Linux users will learn how to build backend daemons, handle asynchronous events, connect various user interfaces, and so much more. Now even the most novice Linux user can add professional network management capabilities to their applications, build a web-based appliance and a command line interface, build a framebuffer interface using infrared controls as input, as well as manage logs and alarms on appliance. If you have a Linux system, then "Linux Appliance Design" will prove an invaluable, indispensable, thoroughly 'user friendly' instruction and reference manual for getting the most out of your do-it-yourself designer software.

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Entertaining and Informative

It's not just easy to read... it's addictive. Great, thorough examples with wonderful twists will get you started on Linux appliances in no time.

There's really not much to say besides that if you are even remotely interested or curious about the topic, it's a must-have.


Outside the scope of etc.

Bob Smith et al., Linux Appliance Design: A Hands-On Guide to Building Linux Appliances (No Starch, 2007)

Linux Appliance Design is not, for the most part, a bad little book, but it is structurally unsound in one major way. I realize this is a quirk of mine more than anything, and most people who want to read about this sort of thing probably won't mind it, but it bugs me in a major way whenever I encounter it: instead of getting into the nuts and bolts of some parts of the software, the authors chose to go with a ready-made API, and so much of the book's software instruction involves programming that API rather than building something from scratch. If that doesn't bother you, then go right ahead and grab a copy of this. If you'd rather not use someone else's software, on the other hand, the hardware parts of this will be useful, but for the software parts, you'll have to look somewhere else. Not nearly as good-- or comprehensive-- as it could have been. ***

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