As mentioned earlier, this book is targeted at both Linux software professionals—be they developers, programmers, architects, or QA staff members—as well as serious students looking to expand their knowledge and skills with the key topics of system programming on the Linux OS.

We assume that you are familiar with using a Linux system via the command-line interface, the shell. We also assume that you are familiar with programming in the C language, know how to use the editor and the compiler, and are familiar with the basics of the Makefile. We do not assume that you have any prior knowledge of the topics covered in the book.

To get the most out of this book—and we are very clear on this point—you must not just read the material, but must also actively work on, try out, and modify the code examples provided, and try and finish the assignments as well! Why? Simple: doing is what really teaches you and internalizes a topic; making mistakes and fixing them being an essential part of the learning process. We always advocate an empirical approach—don't take anything at face value. Experiment, try it out for yourself, and see.

To this end, we urge you to clone this book's GitHub repository (see the following section for instructions), browse through the files, and try them out. Using a Virtual Machine (VM) for experimentation is (quite obviously) definitely recommended (we have tested the code on both Ubuntu 18.04 LTS and Fedora 27/28). A listing of mandatory and optional software packages to install on the system is also provided within the book's GitHub repository; please read through and install all required utilities to get the best experience.

Last, but definitely not least, each chapter has a Further reading section, where additional online links and books (in some cases) are mentioned; we urge you to browse through these. You will find the Further reading material for each chapter available on the book's GitHub repository.