Books about Open source from Amazon.com

This valuable little book offers a thorough introduction to the open-source electronics prototyping platform that's taking the design and hobbyist world by storm. Getting Started with Arduino gives you lots of ideas for Arduino projects and helps you get going on them right away. From getting organized to putting the final touches on your prototype, all the information you need is right in the book.

Inside, you'll learn about:

• Interaction design and physical computing
• The Arduino hardware and software development environment
• Basics of electricity and electronics
• Prototyping on a solderless breadboard
• Drawing a schematic diagram

And more. With inexpensive hardware and open-source software components that you can download free, getting started with Arduino is a snap. To use the introductory examples in this book, all you need is a USB Arduino, USB A-B cable, and an LED.

Join the tens of thousands of hobbyists who have discovered this incredible (and educational) platform. Written by the co-founder of the Arduino project, with illustrations by Elisa Canducci, Getting Started with Arduino gets you in on the fun! This 128-page book is a greatly expanded follow-up to the author's original short PDF that's available on the Arduino website..
Price: $7.51 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Learning OpenCV puts you right in the middle of the rapidly expanding field of computer vision. Written by the creators of OpenCV, the widely used free open-source library, this book introduces you to computer vision and demonstrates how you can quickly build applications that enable computers to "see" and make decisions based on the data. Computer vision is everywhere -- in security systems, manufacturing inspection systems, medical image analysis, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, and more. It helps robot cars drive by themselves, stitches Google maps and Google Earth together, checks the pixels on your laptop's LCD screen, and makes sure the stitches in your shirt are OK. OpenCV provides an easy-to-use computer vision infrastructure along with a comprehensive library containing more than 500 functions that can run vision code in real time. With Learning OpenCV, any developer or hobbyist can get up and running with the framework quickly, whether it's to build simple or sophisticated vision applications. The book includes: A thorough introduction to OpenCV Getting input from cameras Transforming images Shape matching Pattern recognition, including face detection Segmenting images Tracking and motion in 2 and 3 dimensions Machine learning algorithms

Hands-on exercises at the end of each chapter help you absorb the concepts, and an appendix explains how to set up an OpenCV project in Visual Studio. OpenCV is written in performance optimized C/C++ code, runs on Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X, and is free for commercial and research use under a BSD license. Getting machines to see is a challenging but entertaining goal. If you're intrigued by the possibilities, Learning OpenCV gets you started onbuilding computer vision applications of your own..
Price: $35.29 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Blender is a free and open source 3D creation suite that is a real alternative to commercially available 3D design software A cross-platform software package with millions of downloads annually, Blender is now one of the world's most popular 3D design tools.

Although Blender is free, it's intended for design professionals and others motivated to become 3D artists. The Essential Blender will provide you with the knowledge you need to help integrate Blender into your work and begin to master its powerful creation tools.

If you've never tried 3D design before, an introductory chapter will familiarize you with relevant terminology and concepts. If you're already experienced with commercial 3D software, The Essential Blender will get you up to speed with Blender quickly. After a tour of Blender's 3D modeling, animation, and rendering capabilities, you'll learn how best to use Blender for these tasks:

Object manipulation and animation

Mesh and sculpt modeling and shape animation

Materials and texturing (including UV unwrapping)

Lighting and rendering

Particle animation

Character rigging and animation

Node-based composition

The book is modular in its approach, with each topic addressed independently and accompanied by hands-on tutorial sections.

The combined expertise of key members of the Blender community, coupled with the experience of editor Roland Hess, bring you The Essential Blender-the definitive guide to Blender. You'll find a wealth of 3D design information inside that will help you to unlock your artistic potential and get the most out of Blender.

Includes a Complete Version of Blender 2.44 on the CD-ROM. Covers Windows, Mac OS X, Linux (x86 and PowerPC), Solaris, FreeBSD, and IRIX..
Price: $26.50 [Notify me when price goes down.]

“Probably the most wide ranging and complete Linux device driver book I’ve read.”

--Alan Cox, Linux Guru and Key Kernel Developer

 

“Very comprehensive and detailed, covering almost every single Linux device driver type.”

--Theodore Ts’o, First Linux Kernel Developer in North America and Chief Platform Strategist of the Linux Foundation

 

The Most Practical Guide to Writing Linux Device Drivers

Linux now offers an exceptionally robust environment for driver development: with today’s kernels, what once required years of development time can be accomplished in days. In this practical, example-driven book, one of the world’s most experienced Linux driver developers systematically demonstrates how to develop reliable Linux drivers for virtually any device. Essential Linux Device Drivers is for any programmer with a working knowledge of operating systems and C, including programmers who have never written drivers before. Sreekrishnan Venkateswaran focuses on the essentials, bringing together all the concepts and techniques you need, while avoiding topics that only matter in highly specialized situations. Venkateswaran begins by reviewing the Linux 2.6 kernel capabilities that are most relevant to driver developers. He introduces simple device classes; then turns to serial buses such as I2C and SPI; external buses such as PCMCIA, PCI, and USB; video, audio, block, network, and wireless device drivers; user-space drivers; and drivers for embedded Linux–one of today’s fastest growing areas of Linux development. For each, Venkateswaran explains the technology, inspects relevant kernel source files, and walks through developing a complete example.

 

• Addresses drivers discussed in no other book, including drivers for I2C, video, sound, PCMCIA, and different types of flash memory

• Demystifies essential kernel services and facilities, including kernel threads and helper interfaces

• Teaches polling, asynchronous notification, and I/O control

• Introduces the Inter-Integrated Circuit Protocol for embedded Linux drivers

• Covers multimedia device drivers using the Linux-Video subsystem and Linux-Audio framework

• Shows how Linux implements support for wireless technologies such as Bluetooth, Infrared, WiFi, and cellular networking

• Describes the entire driver development lifecycle, through debugging and maintenance

• Includes reference appendixes covering Linux assembly, BIOS calls, and Seq files

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Price: $34.16 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Comprehensive Real-World Guidance for Every Embedded Developer and Engineer

This book brings together indispensable knowledge for building efficient, high-value, Linux-based embedded products: information that has never been assembled in one place before. Drawing on years of experience as an embedded Linux consultant and field application engineer, Christopher Hallinan offers solutions for the specific technical issues you’re most likely to face, demonstrates how to build an effective embedded Linux environment, and shows how to use it as productively as possible.

 

Hallinan begins by touring a typical Linux-based embedded system, introducing key concepts and components, and calling attention to differences between Linux and traditional embedded environments. Writing from the embedded developer’s viewpoint, he thoroughly addresses issues ranging from kernel building and initialization to bootloaders, device drivers to file systems.

 

Hallinan thoroughly covers the increasingly popular BusyBox utilities; presents a step-by-step walkthrough of porting Linux to custom boards; and introduces real-time configuration via CONFIG_RT--one of today’s most exciting developments in embedded Linux. You’ll find especially detailed coverage of using development tools to analyze and debug embedded systems--including the art of kernel debugging.

 

• Compare leading embedded Linux processors
• Understand the details of the Linux kernel initialization process
• Learn about the special role of bootloaders in embedded Linux systems, with specific emphasis on U-Boot
• Use embedded Linux file systems, including JFFS2--with detailed guidelines for building Flash-resident file system images
• Understand the Memory Technology Devices subsystem for flash (and other) memory devices
• Master gdb, KGDB, and hardware JTAG debugging
• Learn many tips and techniques for debugging within the Linux kernel
• Maximize your productivity in cross-development environments
• Prepare your entire development environment, including TFTP, DHCP, and NFS target servers
• Configure, build, and initialize BusyBox to support your unique requirements

 

About the Author

Christopher Hallinan, field applications engineer at MontaVista software, has worked for more than 20 years in assignments ranging from engineering and engineering management to marketing and business development. He spent four years as an independent development consultant in the embedded Linux marketplace. His work has appeared in magazines, including Telecommunications Magazine, Fiber Optics Magazine, and Aviation Digest.

 

 

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Price: $34.49 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Let this in-depth professional book be your guide to Blender, the powerful open-source 3D modeling and animation software that will bring your ideas to life. Using clear step-by-step instruction and pages of real-world examples, expert animator Tony Mullen walks you through the complexities of modeling and animating, with a special focus on characters. From Blender basics to creating facial expressions and emotion to rendering, you’ll jump right into the process and learn valuable techniques that will transform your movies.

Note: CD-ROM/DVD and other supplementary materials are not included as part of eBook file..
Price: $19.19 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Over the last few years, Linux has grown both as an operating system and a tool for personal and business use. Simultaneously becoming more user friendly and more powerful as a back-end system, Linux has achieved new plateaus: the newer filesystems have solidified, new commands and tools have appeared and become standard, and the desktop--including new desktop environments--have proved to be viable, stable, and readily accessible to even those who don't consider themselves computer gurus.

Whether you're using Linux for personal software projects, for a small office or home office (often termed the SOHO environment), to provide services to a small group of colleagues, or to administer a site responsible for millions of email and web connections each day, you need quick access to information on a wide range of tools. This book covers all aspects of administering and making effective use of Linux systems. Among its topics are booting, package management, and revision control. But foremost in "Linux in a Nutshell" are the utilities and commands that make Linux one of the most powerful and flexible systems available.

Now in its fifth edition, "Linux in a Nutshell" brings users up-to-date with the current state of Linux. Considered by many to be the most complete and authoritative command reference for Linux available, the book covers all substantial user, programming, administration, and networking commands for the most common Linux distributions.

Comprehensive but concise, the fifth edition has been updated to cover new features of major Linux distributions. Configuration information for the rapidly growing commercial network services and community update services isone of the subjects covered for the first time.

But that's just the beginning. The book covers editors, shells, and LILO and GRUB boot options. There's also coverage of Apache, Samba, Postfix, sendmail, CVS, Subversion, Emacs, vi, sed, gawk, and much more. Everything that system administrators, developers, and power users need to know about Linux is referenced here, and they will turn to this book again and again..
Price: $23.00 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Learn all about Blender, the premier open-source 3D software, in Bounce, Tumble, and Splash!:Simulating the Physical World with Blender 3D. You will find step-by-step instructions for using Blender’s complex features and full-color visual examples with detailed descriptions of the processes. If you’re an advanced Blender user, you will appreciate the sophisticated coverage of Blender’s fluid simulation system, a review Blender’s latest features, and a guide to the Bullet physics engine, which handles a variety of physics simulations such as rigid body dynamics and rag doll physics..
Price: $26.00 [Notify me when price goes down.]

The emergence of the networked information economy is unleashing two powerful forces. On one hand, easy access to high-speed networks is empowering individuals. People can now discover and consume information resources and services globally from their homes. Further, new social computing approaches are inviting people to share in the creation and edification of information on the Internet. Empowerment of the individual -- or consumerization -- is reducing the individual's reliance on traditional brick-and-mortar institutions in favor of new and emerging virtual ones. Second, ubiquitous access to high-speed networks along with network standards, open standards and content, and techniques for virtualizing hardware, software, and services is making it possible to leverage scale economies in unprecedented ways. What appears to be emerging is industrial-scale computing -- a standardized infrastructure for delivering computing power, network bandwidth, data storage and protection, and services. Consumerization and industrialization beg the question "Is this the end of the middle?"; that is, what will be the role of "enterprise" IT in the future? Indeed, the bigger question is what will become of all of our intermediating institutions? This volume examines the impact of IT on higher education and on the IT organization in higher education.International customers: contact EDUCAUSE at info@educause.edu..
Price: $19.95 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Using Moodle is a complete, hands-on guide for instructors learning how to use Moodle, the popular course management system (CMS) that enables remote web-based learning and supplements traditional classroom learning. Updated for the latest version, this new edition explains exactly how Moodle works by offering plenty of examples, screenshots and best practices for its many features and plug-in modules. Moodle gives teachers and trainers a powerful set of web-based tools for a flexible array of activities, including assignments, forums, journals, quizzes, surveys, chat rooms, and workshops. This book is not just a how-to manual. Every chapter includes suggestions and case studies for using Moodle effectively. By itself, Moodle won't make your course better. Only by applying effective educational practices can you truly leverage its power. With this book, you will: Get a complete overview CMS in general and Moodle in particular. Review Moodle's basic interface and learn to start a course. Learn to add Moodle tools to your course, and how different tools allow you to give quizzes and assignments, write journals, create pathed lessons, collaboratively develop documents, and record student grades. Discover some of the creative ways teachers have used Moodle. There are plenty of ideas for effectively using each tool. Effectively manage your Moodle course, such as adding and removing users, and creating user groups. Learn to use Moodle's built-in survey functions for assessing your class. Find out how to administer an entire Moodle site. A system administrator usually handles these functions, but if you're on your own, there's a lot of power behind the curtain. Using Moodle is both a guide anda reference manual for this incredibly powerful and flexible CMS. Authored by the Moodle community, this authoritative book also exposes little known but powerful hacks for more technically savvy users, and includes coverage of blogs, RSS, databases, and more. For anyone who is using, or thinking of using, this CMS, Using Moodle is required reading..
Price: $27.05 [Notify me when price goes down.]