With the emergence of user-friendly distributions such as Ubuntu, the Linux desktop market is hotter than ever, and accordingly we’re seeing a proliferation of applications intended to suit the increasingly demanding needs of these users. If you’re interested in joining the fray, I invite you to check out “Foundations of GTK+ Development”, authored by Andrew Krause, which presents the most up-to-date introduction to the popular multi-platform GUI toolkit used to build applications typically targeting the Gnome and XFCE desktop environments.

I had a blast editing this book, particularly because Andrew really understands the value of practical instruction. This book is anything but an academic treatise; by its conclusion you’ll truly become a proficient GTK user, having benefited from Andrew’s rare ability to doggedly focus on the most important GTK concepts and features throughout the course of the book.

He concludes the book with an overview of five real-world applications that you’ll be able to build after reading the book, including a calculator, ping utility, calendar, hangman game, and a file browser. The source code for the first two projects are already available to everyone via the book’s companion web site, www.gtkbook.com!