Linux Books

This is a pretty decent book for begining Solaris Admins, BUT, it only covers up to Solaris 2.6. If you are administrating Solaris 7 or 8 I would look elsewhere or wait for the next edition.

Fantastic material! There's everything one needs to know/understand about Solaris, be it novice or exp. admins. I found this an invaluable tool for exam prep. also. Everything is detailed & explained giving live snapshots. The biggest asset is the pain author took in explaining materials. Chapters are well-organised and topics finely laid out. Great work. It's an investment.

If you are in the market for some technical information about Solaris, this book is not for you. It is a very general beginners guide and does not come close to discussing the "real world" issues that are faced in administering Solaris in an Enterprise environment.

To top it all off, there are numerous typos and just plain wrong information that the somewhat experienced reader will notice. This bothers me since the author of a book should be a subject matter expert before writing it! Other books are better... buy them instead.

This book can be really frustrating at times. Let's say that you're trying to get a Sun box on a network, and you forget to edit /etc/nsswitch.conf to specify dns lookup for hosts. You'll have a tough time with this book as your only reference - as far as I can tell this isn't discussed in this book at all. Why not?

There are other examples. I often end up searching for additional information elsewhere. Your mileage may vary.

Very well organized book. To-the-point and explains everything a "new" System Administrator would need. But, remember, this books skims the surface. It's not for intermediate or advanced users. I rate this book for the beginning user.

The book itself is the only one on this matter. It is well written with tons of examples. I would consider this book as a must for those who are writing the
Cross-Platform GUI using open source libs. The book came very fast and in a perfect condition. I would highly recommend buying books from this seller.

This book is very complete.
It explains the basics and all the way through the most complex capabilities of the wxWidgets library.
The CD included contains tons of useful code and additional utilities.
Very good product - I recommend it.

The definitive book on wxWindows (now wxWidgets). This can be found online but I do like the printed books better.

Covers mostly everything a novice (to wxWidgets) needs to get started on multi-platform applications.

This is the only wxWidgets book so far so it's not like you have many choices! I read this book twice and then the official documentation and I still use this book as a reference sometimes. This book has a TON of errata though so the next release hopefully they are more careful with editing...

I highly recommend getting this book if you want to learn wxWidgets and cross-platform application writing!

Good reference books seem to be hard to come by lately. Good reference books give you insight and a fuller understanding of the inner workings of whatever their subject matter might be. This is not the case of this book.

You need "Cross-Platform GUI Programming with wxWidgets" only because the standard wxWidgets documentation is so very crude (no one to blame there, except each and every one of us for not contributing better documentation) and because its source code (as well as part of the core development team, I dare add) is so unfriendly to tools like Doxygen. Smart's book is what the wxWidgets online documentation would have been in a perfect world. No more and no less. The author has done a good job compiling and explaining with sample code the basic usage of most wxWidgets components, but you will not emerge a wxWidgets guru after reading this book. For example, just half a page is dedicated to explaining the by no means trivial wxObject class.

You will be disappointed if you are expecting a mind-opening book, the likes of Petzold's classic "Programming Windows", or Prosise's "Programming MFC", or Wall's "Programming Perl" (just to name a few excellent books from a time when the pace of technology was slower and authors still had time to put together great tutorial/reference works), but having a book like this is probably better than no book at all and buying it is a way to support the project, after all.

It is a pretty good book, but poorly indexed. Has valuable tips if you are not experienced, but most of the data found here can be found by searching the internet. For half the price, it would be a good book

It has the wide range of topics needed for every sysadmin and the detail needed to actually help you learn the OS. The book has a *lot* of information; it freely uses example code, output, and visual aids to help clarify.

If you want to learn HP-UX, then this is the book! You will be able to set up, configure, and make available a great server and you'll know the "why" that goes with the "what".

There are dozens of good UNIX administration books; this is the only one that covers comprehensively the feature set of HP/UX 11i. For that reason, you should definitely pick it up if you have HP UNIX machines to manage. It covers specific HP stuff well: SAM, the boot process, the backup utilities, virtual partitions, etc. The information is accurate and the overall style is easy to read. I think it's the most complete books on a given operating system I can think of: most authors/publishers would have divided the information here into at least two or three books: one for the basic UNIX stuff, one for regular HP sysadmin, and one for advanced features found in high-end HP servers. This book has all three.

It does fall down on occasion in terms of its editing. Overall, I tend not to trust the editing quality of books published by the company that produces the software (they don't exercise the editorial scrutiny because they want more books about their products), and this book is no exception. Sometimes, it strangely talks about things that aren't HP/UX, for instance, the section on CDE contains a lot of superfluous information (like what Sun puts in what drawer on the front panel) and the section on Samba is a weird mix of discussion of Samba on HPUX and on Linux. I can only imagine those sections were slapped in there from other papers without tailoring them for this book. There are some other annoying things that a good editor could have taken care of, for instance, repetition in between sections of the same chapter and screenshots/console dumps that have confusing information in them. One boot screenshot shows leftover console garbage that should have been removed, for instance. There are also occasional omissions, like any mention of using LDAP services, but all the basics are covered. There are some nice additions, too, such as information on setting up PRM and a nice tear-out card with hardware commands.

I still give this book a 4/5, because none of its flaws prevent it from being very useful and informative. If a good technical editor put it under the knife, it would definitely deserve the status of best HPUX-specific book. Right now it holds that position, but mostly due to the lack of titles out there that concentrate on HP UNIX.

I used this handbook to get a better picture of HP-UX system administration and as supplement to the CSA exam study guide.. In fact this book helped me well in my preparation for the HP-UX CSA exam. It covers wide range of topics related to system administration. The book is heavy but very resourceful. I like it and I am keeping it aroung for a while.

Go for it!!! If you just starting with 11i this is the book!! Author has made good attempt of covering the latest topics - virtual partition, PRM, EFI (Itanium based firmware). Book also include different manual pages for quick refernce. There are three separate sections covering genreal admin topic (beginners), advance admin topics and latest tech topics. There is separate chapter with the detailed booting information. This is a lot of information and it gives better understanding of HP boot process. In all one will find almost everything a system admin needs to start with HP-UX and advance to higher level.

The essays are mostly a retelling of the history of open source software. I find it curious how much was written about Netscape, an enterprise that ultimately failed. With hindsight I would say that converting to open source is not a remedy for a poor business model. Poor, as used here, is not an absolute measure. Netscape was simply destroyed by a fierce competitor. Maybe the time was not yet ripe for open source software.

I found Tim O'Reily's concept of infoware to be very interesting. Today I would call them web applications as opposed to desktop applications not only because they are served from a web-server but also because they use the vast resources available on the web.

Brian Behlendorf comments on open source's position in the spectrum of software. It is interesting to see how this has changed over the past nine years. Initially open source was mainly infrastructure/back-end. While these areas are still predominant (LAMP), a lot of user software, specially CMS, is making a strong showing. Since these user systems are written mostly in interpreted languages like php, the question of open source, per se, becomes moot.

What is sorely missing is an economic theory of open source software. None of the authors seems familiar with the law of increasing returns which, according to Brain Arthur, is the economic law governing proprietary software. A discussion of this subject would help in developing sound business models for open source.

Although I'm not too satisfied with this book I'm ordering the sequel Open Sources 2.0: The Continuing Evolution

All the essays are well written, enjoyable, informative and a great read. Anyone interested in open source software, where S/W development might be going and Unix/Linux/GNU software in particular, should read this book. One or two essays showing their age, but still worth every penny. Buy it, read it, then encourage your friends to read it as well.

This book is an interesting window on the Open Source world. It is a strange planet with strange people. Some crazy idealist like R. Stallman (I like the guy very much), some smart and intelligent person like L. Torvald (he did a very good job with Linux). In between someone that was just in the right place at the right time, but who doesn't deserve so much space and celebrity. I am talking about a person that seems confused as the language he invented: Larry Wall. His contribution does not require further comments.

This book was the first O'Reilly book to contain essays about the concept of Open Source and was later followed by the book, The Cathedral and the Bazaar. While some essays may seem similar to the latter, each of them are still fascinating and offer an insightful look into what makes Open Source work and why this phenomenon has become its own industry.

Among the essays here are included a "history" of Unix, essays about Cygnus (who offers a source code complier program) and Red Hat (who offers Linux), two businesses that sell services related to open source, an essay about the effects of releasing open source code for Netscape, one about the GNU Operating System and even one by Linux Torvals, the "father" of Linux.

What's continually fascinating to me the more I read about Open Source is the amount of time and energy others voluntarily put into an open source project to make it work that much better. Not to mention the entire "society" that is built around Open Source.

An interesting read, along with the Cathedral and the Bazaar.

This is a good idea on O'Reilly's part to try to document the history and goals of the Open Source movement, which had roots in several college campuses and research labs in the '70s and '80s, and became news in the late '90s with the popularity of Linux, Apache, and the decision of Netscape to open its browser source. The best introductory piece, however, is probably Eric Raymond's "Cathedral and the Bazaar" which is not in this book(O'Reilly publishes it separately, but it's available free on the Web and short enough to be read in one sitting). As for this collection, I liked Robert Young's business case for distributing open source - his story of how Red Hat was launched reminds me of the Compaq tale of "three guys in a restaurant". The Apache article is also quite good, and Linus Torvalds offers a brief but interesting (and characteristically opinionated) article about how Linux evolved technically. There's also a good article discussing the various open source licenses (BSD, GPL, Netscape, etc) and what they do and don't restrict.

Others I was less impressed with. Stallman's article is predictable and self-serving. He explains how he evolved his software-as-gift philosophy but doesn't come close to terms with how the software industry can support substantial employment if all source is given away. There's yet another history of the different branches of BSD Unix. There's a breathtaking inside account of the launch of Mozilla which ends with the fancy Silicon Valley party when development has finally gotten underway. The low point is Larry Wall's "essay", which is a frankly ridiculous waste of time and print.

Although this is a mixed bag, there's enough reference material and interesting points of view to keep the book around.

If you must tackle and tame Sendmail, YOU MUST OWN THIS BOOK! Without it sendmail is Greek..

Highlights

* Very Clear, Consice and easy to understand.
* Examples are good and to the point.
* Explains setup, running and Admin in depth.

Ok! Face it, if you are into sendmail and want a good reference, do you have any other choice ??

Luckily, Allman and Costales have done a wonderful job in creating this book.

Santy

... were afraid to ask!

If you want or have to work with sendmail the ubiquitous SMTP server written by Eric Allman et. al. then this is the book for you. I have been an Unix system administrator for 15+ years and I still run to this book when I have to do anything fancy with sendmail.

Every system administrator worth their salt has to munge the sendmail.cf file at least once in their career. This book will at least point you in the right direction.

...I've owned both v1 and v2 of this book, and have continually been frustrated by both.

Big problems here are that the book isn't tremendously helpful for learning - more of a reference, and that it is at least four years out of date, which is a long time considering what's happened with the Internet since then....

And still have 3 issues.

I bought this book thinking it would help a relatively unexperienced administrator figure out how to work with sendmail. Unfortunately this book does not give the type guidance that I need. There is basically no "how to" section. I was able to find one of the problems I am having stated in the book, with absolutely no resolution to it listed. This book was a waste of my companys money.

The book is oriented to desktop users but have also tips for administrators. You can use ubuntu in a desktop pretty well with this book as it explains a lot of concepts clearly and has a lot of references to more information resources.

This book served as a one-stop resource to become part of the Linux culture. It is able to achieve this by combining breadth and depth coverage. Whether you are starting to learn Linux/Ubuntu for the first time, or has been using it but want a more streamlined approach, this is the book.

The author's style is riveting and I was able to read most of the book in two weeks. This is not the first Linux bible book I've tried, but this is the ONLY one that fulfills its promise.

I recommend it to anyone with no reservations.

I'm a computer professional who is new to Linux. As Ubuntu seems to be what everybody raves about these days, I decided to take the plunge and bought this book as my guide.

It's not a bad book by any means, but it certainly has room for improvement as well. I see a mistake that a lot of technical type books make. The author takes very simple topics and explains them to the level of a 4-year old who doesn't speak the language can understand (things like how to click the mouse). However, when it comes to more technical topics he seems to brush over them very quickly with much less explanation.

The author spent more time explaining how to use a graphical file explorer (like windows explorer) than explaining hard drive partitions and mounting them.

So the book is a good place to start, but I doubt it will be suitable for a true reference to refer back to when I'm facing more difficult tasks.

This book combined with the Office Ubuntu handbook are a must have for anyone just beginning to learn LINUX. They will walk you through the whole transition from VISTA (viruses, intruders, spyware, Trojans, and adware) or any other MS products.

I think of the Ubuntu books I have reviewed in hopes of getting better at Linux, this books covers the dual boot the best. Really clear steps that actually work. Once you have Ubuntu installed, there is not enough in depth coverage of how to set permissions and dealing with basic setup issues. I had some screen resolution issues and I could not find any great troubleshooting in this book. If you would like to get a book that covers the basic, I would say this books would meet your request.

I read all the negative reviews, and have to admit that I agree with many of the sentiments. The book IS hard to navigate. There ARE many typos. It IS hard to find material.

Despite all this, I still find the book useful -- one of the most useful books on my bookshelf. I can open up to practically any page and chances are good I'll find something new and useful.

Additionally, commands are grouped together in a nice reference style manner which is often lost to me while thumbing through Vim's (admittedly) lousy help file system.

And the graphical demonstrations are worth their weight in gold.

So while the book is certainly flawed, it has some really nice features and high points. But more importantly (ultimately, THE most important thing) is that I find the book utterly useful. That one fact alone trumps all the bad points and is the driving force behind my 4 star rating (I wish I could give it 4.5 stars). I purchased the book new, and never regretted a single penny that I spent for it.

Eventhough it's thick, but it's an easy read. Takes you from a novice to expert. So if you are at a certain level of competency in vi, it's good to review the easy stuff in the beginning. You never know what you don't know. Great book

I loaned my original copy of this book to a co-worker who later quit, and took the book with him. I missed the book so much, I went and ordered another copy. And this was at a time in my life when I was actually clearing my book shelves of old books in an effort to simplify my life. This book is that good. Vim is arguably one of the best text editors in existence, and if you want to learn Vim I can't think of any better book than this one. Even if you're just a casual user who is going to edit a few config files on a Unix/Linx machine, this is the book for you; the first three chapters will have you well on your way to using Vim efficiently. If you're a programmer or advanced user, you'll also benefit from the later chapters. Some say that Vim's learning curve is too steep, and prefer to use simpler editors like Pico or Joe (or even Notepad, on Windows), but this book will take away your fear and will make learning Vim easy. Even if you just read the first few chapters, it's worth it. Highly recommended.

I agree with David DelGreco. My review is mixed because a lot is covered and well explained, but the information is dispersed all over the place and sometimes plain wrong. It would be good to see sections for the *mouse way*, *visual way* and *Vi-ish way* from the start.

I have two criticisms that I have not read in the other reviews that makes my opinion rather negative. First and foremost, the book is STIFF. A tutorial book should remain open on the page without having to put your hand on it. I'm having it beside me now, and the only page that is willing to remain open is the title page. Even thumbing to the index is a chore. It's like paging through a carton book for 2-year olds. I have a grandchild now, so I know how it feels. It makes the book almost unusable.

My second criticism is the chosen font. You can hardly see the difference between uppercase and lowercase, and that is rather important. I've had several times wondering why a command didn't work because of this.
And why are 'vimrc' and 'configuration file' not in the index? I still have to find them somewhere in the book. I gave up and looked up on the internet how to set the colorscheme in vimrc (it's ":colorscheme desert" b.t.w.)

So a lot of it is good and it has some really bad points. Mixed feelings...

If you've never used Vi before, this book will help you to get started. But after the first week, it won't be very useful.

I use Vim everyday as a computer programmer, and whenever I need to figure out how to do something, I now just turn to google. The book covers many features of Vim, but in not much detail. The Appendix is sparse and often wrong. And topics are usually scattered in 3 different places in the book.

For example, I don't use macros a lot, but I know they are a simple and powerful feature that many Vim users use all the time. Looking up how to use them took me through 2 sections and 15 minues. And the command involes only 2 keys!

The first two chapters tell you how to get started in VIM with the basic commands - and its easy enough to follow along with. But the other 28 chapters don't help you get much done at all.

Tomorrow I'm going to drive into town and finalize my drop. I'm dropping out of college, getting a job at a warehouse, and teaching myself how to program. I've been buying, borrowing, stealing, and checking out all the books I can on software design. I'm getting books from the most utilitarian (How to Write Visual C++ for Windows) to the most abstract (Human Interface by Jef Raskin). I checked this book out from the university library before I had decided one hundred percent to drop.

I knew that Richard Stallman (RMS) had wrote the compiler I use on Linux and I knew that this compiler was part of a larger effort to create an Operating System of the Future. This interested me, because I had been playing around with assembly language to write a simple game for the Atari 2600 (a video game console released in 1977; it does not have an operating system so every game interacts directly with the hardware) and a simple operating system for my x86 (standard architecture for a personal computer) laptop.

I also knew that RMS viewed proprietary software an morally wrong. This interested me a lot, because I was still on the fence about whether I was going to release my software (that I would hypothetically make) under a proprietary or open source development model.

After reading the entire book once and a few chapters twice, I don't think I learned anything more about either of these two original points of interest. This wouldn't be that big of a deal, if the book focused on something else. I would read a few chapters, realized I'm not the target audience, and put the book down. The book didn't really have another focus though.

The book's whole deal seems to be trying to let you get to know RMS. Take you into his world, and see things as he does. The book covers aspects of his childhood and his college life. My problem, is that author never goes into detail. He opens RMS's head and takes a peak inside. But just a peak. He stops short of climbing in and looking through RMS's eyes. So when the author opens his mind to us, to climb in, and look through the author's eyes; all we get is the same peak he saw. You're not going to be able to read this book and get even the shortest look through RMS's eyes.

I'm going to explain one example, that really bugged me. The author talks about the AI Lab at MIT when RMS went there. The author compares it to an opium den. The author quotes people comparing it an opium den. The author makes a metaphor about RMS using it like and opium den. Then the author stops. The author just changes course. At that point I wanted to scream STOP into his ear. I wanted to grab the brake lever, wrench it back, and let sparks shower the corn fields. I wanted to demand the author ask RMS a thousand questions about this. Did RMS regularly sleep in the AI Lab? what was it like to wake with students coming in to learn? did anyone personally criticize RMS for acting like an opium/technology addict? how did he react? how did the experience effect him? did other people sleep in the AI Lab? how'd they get along with RMS? what were the computers in the AI Lab like? what kind of software were the writing in the AI lab? how did the software work? what was MIT's position on the copyright for the software? The author just glosses over all of these little details. He does not focus on the technical, legal, political, or social side of things; and it leaves the book feeling soulless.

There really isn't another biography on RMS, though. If I read my review, and knew how much I wouldn't like this book, I still would have check it out. If you're thinking about buying the book then go to the following url: http://www.faifzilla.org/ch05.html

That url is chapter five. Chapter five is far and away the best part of the book. It covers a day where the author drives to the house where RMS is living, goes to lunch with him, and does an interview on him. This chapter gives you some concrete liquid information on RMS's touchingly human aging. The smaller, lighter keyboard he fastens over his standard for the laptop. The weight he's put on, since he had to stop dancing (folk) and how much he misses dancing. You get some insight (dim though it may be) into RMS actual life style for the first time as well. The author also shows a lot about himself, perhaps unintentionally, in this chapter.

If you read chapter five and you don't like it, you will hate this book. If you read chapter five and it's all right, you will not like this book. If you read chapter five and you really dig it, then you are the lucky, insane gentleman who gets the honor of digging this book.

Let me just say that RMS and myself differ widely on many issues. I initially got this book from my local libary so I could gain insight into RMS's mind and determine why "free software" is so important.

I came away with a better understanding based on his childhood thru college years. It seems to me that his father played a very pivotal role in his early development by taking every opportunity to belittle him and make him feel as though he were insignificant. His mother was so very proud of him that her accounts of his talent are almost mythical. IMHO I think much of what he became was governed by him wanting to distance himself from his father and at the same time live up to his mother's respect. The divorce only enforced his view that his father was very much like a proprietary technology and his mother was very much like "the world is your oyster" now go make a name for yourself and MAKE people happy.

The arguement that software should be "free" or "open source" minimizes the amount of time that actually goes into creating a large piece of software. Throughout the book I was looking for that one "killer" app that RMS created from nothing and I was not able to find it. I'm not talking about seeing something and knowing that you can do it better. I'm talking about actually seeing a problem and creating a software solution where none existed before. I didn't see that. Furthermore, I kept wondering where RMS was getting the funds to continue on his journey only to discover that he was staying at different places for free, people were probably buying him breakfast, lunch, and dinner, etc. He was supporting himself by lecturing and winning awards of some kind or another. Certainly $240K is enough to live on for a few years.

Towards the end it became clear that in the end nothing is truly "free" or "open." Take for example many of the people who work on "free" or "open" software, first many if not most rely on code that has been "opened" and they are using it as a springboard and many of the "researchers" who develope software do so within institutions where they are paid a salary or grant, or something...where does that money come from? It comes from people who pay taxes...who work for companies with proprietary technology including software, hardware, materials, processes, etc...they have trade secrets and patens. In addition much is made about the viability of creating profit through "free" or "open" business models. Sure you can get some money by consulting/supporting your "free" or "open" software, but that is miniscule to the amount you can get by selling software...the two just don't compare.

For the commercial proprietary companies mentioned like IBM, Sun Microsystems, Netscape, etc. Well at the heart of these companies is hardware and patented proprietary technology. If you can't beat the competition on one level then the next best thing is to increase the markets perceived utility of your products by giving them away and "opening" them up so that by some chance you can leverage the increased awareness and creativity by latching on your hardware products...just along for the ride.

The only truly "free" or "open" sources I would credit with being as such are those where the person has created from scratch their own ideas and used those ideas to write code that is open to anything including non-peer publishing. Also this person would be in no way receiving any $$$ from any source that has ties to proprietary technologies including stock grants, trust funds, donations for speaking engagements where the donors are associated with such proprietary technologies.

Will "free" or "open" software prevail...to a small degree perhaps? Will they become the defacto standard within software...I don't think so? Why not...well given that Navigator was 30 million lines of code it would take a small army of people a very long time to replicate that if they didn't use some other code as a base, and given how many egos there are within the developer communities I just don't see that kind of collaboration occuring in a short period of time. Firefox has become a hit after this book was published, but it is basically Navigator with some other stuff. OpenOffice.org is the same way though this is just an attempt on Sun's part to entice users to their side or at the least reduce the reserves of their competitors.

In the end this book does a good job of solidifying for myself, at least, an understanding of why RMS is the way he is and why profit ultimately provides the largest innovations within the mainstream while also providing the inevitable end to companies who attempt to drive a wedge between an idea and reality.

Wait until the free energy, free material reorginization, and free will movements start. Imagine telling a company that those digital documents which contain all their IP need to be made public if they concern a new way of generating power, imagine material reorganization such that devices can be created from some basic materials...free those designs...they're digital after all, imagine people exercising their "will" to no longer live under communist rule...China is in for a big change!!!

I am finding it difficult to finish this book (@ chap. 8).
Apparently, Stallman is perfect and doesn't do anything wrong, and if it appears so it's because it's done for a reason. This is by far the least critical biography/history ever.

It's great to read the story of the master who began this Free Software revolution!

FREE AS IN FREEDOM is Sam Williams' biography of legendary software developer and political thinker Richard Stallman. Founder of the GNU project, Stallman is little-known outside of a relatively small world of computing cognoscenti, but without him Linux and many other modern computing innovations would hardly be possible. In an interesting twist, the publisher O'Reilly has released this book under the GNU Free Documentation License, meaning that the book may be freely copied and sold.

The book goes from Stallman's youth in New York of the 1950s and 1960s all the way to the "free software" vs "open source" debate continuing into 2001. Strangely, the late 1980s are treated skimpily; the reader basically goes from the 1983 announcement of the GNU project to the introduction of Linux in 1993 in a couple of pages. A strength of the book is the range of Stallman's acquaintances that Williams was able to interview: many of his fellow students at Harvard and co-workers in MIT's AI lab contributed to the book, and even Stallman's mother gives a great deal of comment. Stallman is a notoriously difficult person to get along with. Williams frankly discusses the possibility that his lack of social skills is due to autism, but notes that against this Stallman shows marvellous ingenuity in computing. Williams does try to walk a tightrope here between dispassionate reporting about a controversial figure and giving him too much praise. Whether you admire Stallman as a modern-day saint or despise him as a pinko Communist, you'll be comfortable with the tone of this work.

The book was clearly written for a hardly-technical audience. Concepts like the Emacs editor are gently described in depth that will tire us readers who have been using it for years. The book also could have benefitted from more proofreading. There are some typos, and redundant introduction of commentators who were introduced already one or two pages before. So, this is an imperfect biography. I enjoyed it and learned a lot about a fascinating figure, but it would be nice had the book included a little more detail about GNU's formative years and hadn't assumed a non-technical audience.

Never buy any Linux books, given that there are much better sources that you can find for free on the internet. I made a mistake of buying some top rated books and i regretted every time and ended up throwing to book away. I love linux but as of today there's really no good books on it and honestly you don't need it, you'll find more info the you would ever needed on the web. Remember Linux is all about freedom so be aware of anything Linux that you have to pay for.

I am not a linux guru. I installed Red Hat Linux on one of my machines to learn linux and purchased this book to help me along the way. It appears to cover everything that it needs to, but I found the detail explinations of how to do things to be greatly lacking and on a few occasions to be wrong. I spent a lot of time trying to set things up in linux using this book as a guide, and they just plain didn't work in a great many cases. Either it is incorrect in places, or it is incomplete.

In addition, it reminds me of a cook book. You just follow the instructions to do specific things without it telling you WHY you are doing what it tells you, or even why you need to do some specific thing. Because of this, it really isn't much of a resource for learning.

This is a good book for starters, but I had a problem with 2 of the CDs being unloadable. Looked like a severe scratch or other defect on both disks.

The book gives me the basics and allows me to do most anything I want to do.

Being an Systems Engineer, this book gets you started, but there's more to ask for. Don't get me wrong, if you're not familiar with Linux/Unix this is a great book. It's explained in plain English with easy to follow instructions.
For us who wants more hard core, we can always use google.com.

Unfortunately I bought the Red Hat Linux 7.2 BIBLE along with the Red Hat Linux "The Complete Reference". This book has been moderately useful in my day to day support of Linux. It leaves you with more questions than answers. If you purchase this book also buy "The Complete Referrence", it is a must. Where this book fails you TCR can answer those questions. This book is not easy to understand and leaves many holes. I would recommend it to someone who has a Very Good Knowledge of LINUX and is just looking for good reference material.

While this rather large book does cover many Red Hat topics, it does so with little depth. You'll be much better informed by actually installing and configuring Red Hat/CentOS and reading the man pages. Caveat Emptor.

If I could I would give this book two and a half stars, but 2 will do. I am a complete noob when it comes to Linux and got this book for class. The book is getting really outdated. I had several different problems installing fedora and it was no hope. Not a great guide for a true beginner but makes a decent reference. I like a lot of examples when starting something new and the examples in this book are lacking. For being 1,000 pages its surprising what is left out.

Very good book with lots of information, but sometimes the author gets carried away with his so-called version of MAN pages. If you need more detail on some stuff, you will need to reference some other book or check online. The book did have some errors and wrong diagrams, just wished someone have proof read it better....

I have been working in a Windows IT environment for over 7 years, but had no Linux experience except for installing it on a test machine (but then again, even a 5 year-old could install it since it's so easy). But I never had to work with it in an enterprise level until now. Without any solid experience with Linux and armed only with this book (and 7 years of "figuring it out" IT skills), I managed to get Redhat ES v3 running on an old server class machine with an older RAID controller. I even got it to talk to Windows clients AND the old HP-UX servers (I didn't have Unix experience either!). The boss was impressed! This is an excellent book that doesn't get annoying (like those Dummies books) or pretends to be a "Linux Admin book for Beginners" like that other book that's out there. I started with an older version of this book from the library, and this new version is even better. This book is a great investment and I'm glad I bought it.

Now in its third edition along with a DVD that includes Full Fedora Core 4, the latest (as of 10/18/05). People have complained that this book (in its earlier editions) are too simplified and beginnerish. I guess then that I'm not enough of a guru to go to something more advanced.

I find the background that this book gives is exactly at the level I need. Some books that simply say 'type this in.' Other books take a few hundred pages to explain what's happening at a level where I've forgotten the question by the time I get to the end of the description. This book is positioned at a nice level inbetween. I know what to type in and I have some understanding of why.

I further like the writing style and the way they use bold face, 'Notes' and 'Tips' to emphasize things. These features enable me to find out what I need more quickly. Finally, there are additions from the earlier editions which explain things that caused questions or were left out.

I'd rank this as an intermediate level book. It's not a here's how to start with Linux book. Nor is it an in great depth geek level book. I guess I like it so well, because it's at about the level I need.