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Linux Clustering
Bookman emphasizes a central piece of wisdom that no system administrator should ignore: redundancy. In the case of high availability clusters, parts redundancy is the name of the game, but one should not forget the human component; no administrator should be caught with only a cell phone -- keep a pager just in case. However, in a post-modern turn that might seem brilliant if it were applied in a work of fiction rather than a technical book, the author seems to apply the concept of redundancy to the text itself.
That the book began not as a book but rather as a collection of talks or presentations, or some other smaller format, is evidenced by the repetition of information between chapters and sections. Such nearly poetic repetitions also occurs within sentences and paragraphs (e.g. "nightly backups each night" on page 25).
An editor never looked at Linux Clustering; the book had two "technical reviewers" but their contributions seemingly didn't include fixing mangled syntax and strained style. On page 14 in the second paragraph a large segment of a sentence from the previous page is pasted into another sentence, resulting in a nonsensical block of text. The number of hyphenation, syntax, word choice, and subject-verb agreement errors is atrocious and makes the book difficult to read.
Some of the misinformation in the text appears to be unintentional (but ignorance is no excuse for a UNIX systems administrator); some is due to the fact that the author deals only with old (2.2) kernels (though the book came out 18 months after the 2.4 kernel release), old versions of journaling filesystems, and old distributions; and yet other misinformation is the result of misplaced attempts at humor (such as stating that GNU stands for the Gateway Naming Utility; one can only hope that this was intended to be funny). Other jokes often misfire, but do point to the intended audience (consider, for example, the section heading "Space: The Final Frontier").
In the Introduction, the author indicates that the book should be read by "Linux enthusiasts and users who want to get a Linux cluster up and running with the least amount of fuss." The organization of the book will not, however, aid this enterprise, for there is little "how to" information provided, but rather a great deal of background information on compiling kernels, various types of journaling file systems, and RedHat's Kickstart (perhaps inappropriate considering that the book specifically states that basic information will not be covered). Another section or two deal with basic networking and security. Various types of clusters are discussed, as are a few of the types of clustering software (e.g. Condor and Mosix) available.
The book, however, is clearly intended for administrators of clustering systems; a special emphasis is high-availability and load-balancing clusters. Parallel computing and the types of applications end users would wish to run receive far too little discussion.
Almost all technical books regurgitate the contents of freely available FAQs and HOWTOs to some degree, yet the good ones summarize the relevant points, make dry documentation more accessible, and give the reader some new insights. Because Bookman's Linux Clustering suffers from heinous spelling, grammar, and style errors; deals primarily with outdated software; contributes little new to the discussion; and doesn't speak to non-admins, I can only recommend that those interested in Linux clustering stick to online FAQs and HOWTOs.
You can purchase the Linux Clustering: Building and Maintaining Linux Clusters from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Sometimes I still wake up screaming from reading that!
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Free your mind.
Why is it so tough to find a decent book on this topic? Even O'Reilly failed here.
Quod scripsi, scripsi.
Not to mention he knows *nothing* of relational theory:
http://www.pgro.uk7.net/qu092902.htm
Thanks,
--
Matt
How bad was it? It came with a CD-ROM that was supposed to automate the process of setting up a Beowulf cluster. None of the software on the CD-ROM worked. Running the install script printed out a message telling you to go to a Web site and download the newest beta version of the software. No such software was available ... ever. O'Reilly shortly withdrew the book ... and, reportedly at least, fired the editor who approved it for publication.
Want more details? Here you go. Waiting for this book, and then discovering slowly just how awful it was, set back a clustering project at my workplace by several months, by the way.
For somebody who wants to learn about Linux clusters. I've played with Mosix and was impressed. What are good books and sources to learn about Linux Clusters?
Suncoast Linux - Sarasota, FL
I hate to turn this into an Ask Slashdot, but truth is I could really use a good book on Linux clustering, especially if it covers:
1. Clustering (not just replicating) MySQL databases.
2. Network attached storage.
3. Load balancing and failover.
4. Probably six other things I'm not thinking of right now.
Anyone got any suggestions?
From the review:
The book is divided into eleven chapters, unevenly distributed among three sections:
That's good news: I would hate to read a fractional chapter.
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
There *ARE* some good New Riders books - it's just that they tend to deal with digital art:
"Digital Texturing and Painting"
"Digital Lighting & Rendering"
New Rider's focus is more on the artist / animator / illustrator side of things - and at that they excel (the above two are those I'm most familar with, and they are excellent).
I'm sure they'll gradually improve their hardcore technical books, but it's stupid to dismiss "all" their books as being bad. Just like O'Reilly has a reputation in some circles for being overly dry and out of date - *some* people find their books useful.
I own maybe 30 O'Reilly Titles and "MySQL and mSQL" is easily the worst one of the bunch. Here's my take as to why.
I came from an Oracle background (i.e. already understood SQL, relational databases, etc.) and I was interested in 2 things; how to administer a MySQL database and how to do simple access from PHP/Perl.
Now go and pick that book and try and find that information. The description of the MySQL security model is muddled and confusing. No good details on how to do backup and restore. The examples for using PHP/Perl are horrible. The book has several chapters of filler.
A year or two later I bought the New Riders title mentioned in the writeup. It is a massive improvement over "MySQL and mSQL" - read them side by side and you'll see.
One thing that book taught me - just because it is a publisher you trust, don't assume the book will be good. Read it or read a review first!
Do you even know anything about perl? -- AC Replying to Tom Christiansen post.