Guest post by According to Keir Thomas, author of “Ubuntu Pocket Guide and Reference,” the said book has been downloaded over 150,000 times within days of its launch. The book is supposedly written for even the timid of the Windows users who wish to switch over, assuming that the user has “zero Linux knowledge.” According to Thomas, the book takes the unknowing user by the hand throughout the installation process and then delves into the file system and manager, and even covers the command line features as well as system security. The book was published and sold for $9.94 on Amazon, but is also available for free as a downloadable PDF here. Assuming each download represents a struggling to-be Linux user, it sounds like there are just barrels of them waiting to be converted.
Assuming each download represents a man-eating fire-breathing dragon, it sounds like there are just barrels of hungry dragons roaming the earth.
I, however, won’t rely on download stats to draw conclusions like that.
I’d be interested to know how many of those bought the book.
I would expect that most people who download this are current Ubuntu users. Undoubtedly some are beginner users in need of a quick reference guide, but many are probably long-time Linux/Ubuntu users hoping to pick up some additional tips or are simply interested in critiquing the book.
The PDF Edition of Ubuntu Pocket Guide and Reference is available entirely free of charge. It is practically identical to the Print Edition. You can download it by clicking the links below. Over 250,000 people already have!
From : http://www.ubuntupocketguide.com/download2.html
Anyone else have trouble opening the PDF file?
“There was an error opening this document. The file is damaged and could not be repaired.”
I’ve tried three times, thinking it was an incomplete download…
No, no problems. I’ve used the first link (US) which results in ubuntupocketguide-v1-1.zip = 2064348 bytes, extracted to ubuntupocketguide-v1-1.pdf = 2240700 bytes, The file identifies correctly to PDF 1.6 and can be viewed by gv and xpdf here. All pages. Are you using a specific PDF viewer that has problems with version 1.6 PDF documents?
I’m getting a download size of 1.96 MB (2,064,348 bytes), extracted to 2.13 MB (2,240,700 bytes), the same sizes that you listed.
My PDF software is Adobe Acrobat (not Reader) 5.0. I use it to open new PDF files regularly, and never had a problem before. Maybe I’ll install the newest version of Acrobat Reader…
Yes, I’ve seen the same error with other new PDF’s & Adobe Acrobat 5