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Two Books On Red Hat 9
skogs' review of Red Hat Linux 9 Unleashed Red Hat Linux 9 Unleashed author Bill Ball and Hoyt Duff pages 1002 publisher Sams Publishing rating 9 reviewer Nathan Jay Skoglund ISBN 0672325888 summary A guide for intermediate to advanced users of Red Hat 9.
To begin my humble review, I think I need to explain my point of view a bit. I am very interested in Linux and the open source movement, hence the purchase of a 1000+ page Linux book. Nothing new here, just a book review, if you want some technical writing, buy the book.
The problem is that I have tried many distros (Slackware, RedHat7.2, Icepack 2.0, Mandrake 9.1, Knoppix[fun], DamnSmallLinux and now RedHat 9.0), and not really known what I was doing. I liked most of the install programs, and I liked the general office suites, but I couldn't fulfill my need to know what exactly was going on inside my machine.
I sat down inside Barnes & Noble for roughly an hour and a half and looked over the Unleashed Book and compared it to the 'Bible'. Having looked through them both extensively, and learning a few things along the way, I decided that I liked the book I am reviewing much better. The Red Hat Bible just didn't have the same smart feel to it. It did not have specific console commands written out in examples, and did not seem to give as much insight into exactly how my Linux system operated. The best way to describe it would be that it was just like the 'how-to' books for Microsoft products: they tell you how to change things, how to make such and such happen -- but more like "If I turn the wheel in my car to the right, I go right," instead of teaching the physics of the gears in the steering column and the forces being transfered to the wheels, and the wheel's friction turning the cars direction. I learned how to change things, but not how the things I changed specifically interacted.
After a short introduction, the book spends 20+ pages coaching the reader on how to prepare for his first Linux install. It also helps decide how to partition systems and drives, so that just about any foreseeable storage situation is addressed. The next chapter is dedicated to actually installing the OS on your computer(s) by any method you would like, be it CD-ROM, traditional ethernet, hard drive, or even through a parallel port or serial port. The book explains and tells you where to look up the autoinstall Kickstart system, and generally makes you feel like you could walk into any situation and feel comfortable with what you were doing. It even gives a two-page listing of exactly what things to expect during an office transition, and a great checklist for getting all hardware versions and compatibility issues checked out ahead of time. Hopefully before you put a dent in that professional image of yours.
After you are done reading about all the wonderfulness of post-install configuration, then you go through your 'first steps' with linux. Learning the directory tree a little better, shell commands to compress/decompress, directory permissions, various switches and adding users.
There follows in the 6th chapter the best explanation of X I have ever read. I must admit that I had no idea how versatile and powerful X was. This is the section of the book that started to make me feel like I was 11 years old again and playing with my first computer, and trying to understand how to program Basic. :)
Part II of the book then starts dealing with actual system administration, including all the services that run in the background, software and system resources, user management, filesystems, and backup/restore/recovery. I get kind of misty eyed when I think of all the user commands that I can now type in at a prompt. Group and user admin surely beats the competing win2k/win2k3 server editions (User manager, though wonderful, is not as powerful as these simple commands in Linux).
Part III of the book deals with System services, including Printing, Network, DNS, Apache management, MySQL, FTP, Email, and collaborative software. While I have always found network connectivity to be a strong suit of mine, I think I learned a bit in that chapter anyway. I have not had the opportunity yet to set up my own email servers or web servers, but I do anticipate doing so within the next 2 years, and with the excellent line-by-line examples in this book to lead me, I feel that I will be far less bewildered than your average Microsoft-only user.
Part IV deals with programming and productivity. I am not a programmer, so I skipped most of the sections on perl and C/C++. I did find shell scripting to be a worthwhile read, and implemented a few little tweak scripts on my own little machine. Multimedia is also covered in this section, which also describes why RedHat avoided allowing MP3 playback by default. No matter; I had long before reading this section updated xmms to allow MP3. (Gosh, I would never accomplish anything without my trusty MP3 collection.) There is also a very nice history of OpenOffice.org, and how to use it too. The book also offers help with PDAs, faxing and scanning.
This section also includes text examples of configuration and setup for emulation and cross-platform tools. While I am intrigued by the beautiful screenshot of Return to Castle Wolfenstein running perfectly in emulation mode, I cannot say that I have attempted to completely replace my gaming computer just yet -- sadly I still dual boot with win2k. However, after fully reading the chapters in the emulation section, I feel that I will have a much better chance than I did before. I know that newsgroups are great, but my general feeling after reading this book is much better than after reading bulletin board posts. :)
This book concludes with a large appendix section -- and best of all, somewhere around 20 pages of blank paper for me to write in my own notes and cheats. That way I won't lose them underneath a computer, because, damn, that is a big book.
I strongly recommend this book to just about anybody interested in starting into Linux. Assuming that you can indeed read, and don't get freaked out by an occasional command-line interface, you should be fine. I know most things have a GUI command interface available, it is nice to know exactly what that little GUI applet is doing. "It is editing this text file, that is linked to this one," and so on. I also strongly recommend it for the hardened Linux user/admin, as I believe it would be a worthwhile thing to have on the shelf. You probably will get a little bit more use out of it than you do that Windows NT4 server book you have up there. I find this book relevant, accurate, helpful, logical, and insightful. It has a few typos, grammatical mistakes and spelling errors(show me a programmer that can spell in English!), and sometimes I wish the authors had spent more time on the graphical tools rather than the text/console based tools, but on the whole, excellent.
Acemics' review of Red Hat Linux 9 Professional Secrets Red Hat Linux 9 Professional Secrets author Naba Barkakati pages 1038 publisher Wiley rating 9 reviewer Vince ISBN 0764541331 summary A great Linux guide for experienced users as well as newbies.
The task of learning Linux can be a burden that some people just do not want to take on. Trying to find the right book to learn more about Linux or to use as a reference can be a mind blowing task given all the choices that are available. Red Hat Linux 9 Professional Secrets by Naba Barkakati is an excellent option for the Linux newbie or the experienced Linux user who wants a useful reference guide.
Weighing in at over 1,000 pages, Red Hat 9 Professional Secrets provides many useful insights and behind the scenes tips on the inner workings of Red Hat Linux. I have used many different books on Linux and specifically the Red Hat distro, and over the past few weeks I found myself going back to this book as a reference and easily finding the solutions I was looking for.
Such a large book can sometimes be a "turn off" for someone looking for their first book to learn something new. The fear being that they will never be able to navigate through all the technical advanced jargon that one usually finds in a 1,000+ page book. However, I feel the author does a good job introducing Linux basics and fundamentals in Part I: Setting Up Red Hat Linux, and Part II: Exploring Red Hat Linux.
The first two parts of this book which compose chapters 1-12 are only the first 373 pages. Parts III, IV, and V discuss in detail Internetworking with Red Hat Linux, Managing Red Hat Linux and Programming Red Hat Linux. These sections of the book deal with more advanced subject matter such as setting up Red Hat Linux as a Mail Server, News Server, Web Server, FTP Server and Samba Server, and how to manage, secure and administer your Red Hat Linux system.
While some may consider the first two parts to be strictly for the Linux newbie and the second three parts for the more experienced Linux user, I believe that these areas mesh well with each other providing the experienced Linux user with install tips in the first two parts that are often overlooked and providing the newbie with the definitive Linux guide that will walk them through the simple tasks as well as provide them more in-depth detail to the more advanced concepts that are often only found in a separate Linux administration book.
I would highly recommend this book to the experienced Linux user and the Linux newbie who are looking for the ultimate guide on Red Hat 9.
You can purchase Red Hat Linux 9 Professional Secrets or Red Hat Linux 9 Unleashed from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Ref: Amazon has Red Hat Linux 9 Professional Secrets for $5 less and with free shipping.
Free shipping on Red Hat Linux 9 Unleashed (same price as bn).
You're thinking Gentoo.
spelling errors(show me a programmer that can spell in English!)
Hi there, damn good to meet you.
Yeah, I make typos or grammatical mistakes every once in awhile, but neither I nor most of my coworkers (on the C++ side at least... the Java coders are another issue) have major spelling problems.
Of course, that doesn't change the fact that we all hate writing docs.
The fact that blank pages are the best part of the book doesn't really encourage sales.
That's right, we've beefed up our blank page count! Need to blow your nose? You no longer need to rip out pages from the index or the TOC! Call in the next fifteen minutes and we'll blank out another twenty pages ABSOLUTELY FREE!
So long, michael. Don't let the door hit you...
RHL changes every 6 months. These books are like toilet paper.
Karma: The shiznight, mostly because I am the Drizzle.
Definitely. They realize that Women are not configurable enough and definitely not efficient enough for said Gentoo user.
You want somethin to drink with that crack you're smokin'? Maybe a little kerosene?
Learn a little more about the file structures yer dissin' before you compare them to a frelling swiss cheese like Win2K.
Infant.
Mnem
Oh yeah, fanboys looking through the documentation might find mention of mandatory locks. But guess what! To be able to use mandatory locks on a file, the file must have the setgid bit enabled and the group execute bit disabled in its permissions. Even if a process holds a mandatory lock on a file, another process may remove the setgid bit from the file's permissions, which effectively turns the mandatory lock into an advisory lock!
Give meor don't call yourself an operating system, as the concept of actually operating is unknown to Linux.
The second review is dry, pretty much contentless, and really not very helpfull at all.
Recent technology advances have addressed your "con" issue.
Don't forget that amazon's patent policy will cost you dearly someday
LOL
Win2k, the world's only operating system where the super user gets an "access denied" error!!!
Hobbyist OS - you silly child! Enjoy your orphaned file handles that when removed with a third party application cause your OS to crash. When you've grown up you can come and play with the big boys.
You're a stupid stupid fanboy. Read this comment before you make assumptions. Dude, I was a lead architect for one of the filesystems that is probably running your machine right now.
Yeah, like they got no "Darl McBrides" working at
IBM. Don't forget that IBM is a huge company, who
in the final analysis owes it's allegiance to only
one group: it's shareholders.
"Money changes everything." - Cyndi Lauper
Oh man RedHat is great! They include EVERYTHING AND ANYTHING you could EVER want in the god damn distro... But set it up with weird defaults so you don't know how to use it or set it up. Fuck you redhat, I'm gentoo bound now. (RH7.2 pissed me off too many times)
Windows NT! The worlds only OS where the super user gets permission denied!
And you call Linux a hobby OS - hoo boy, I can feel the hatred boiling out of you . . . Doesn't your mom let you out to play?
Are there any recommended Linux books for people who do not have the root password?
I support several users where I have given them normal user accounts, but all of the books I've seen spend a significant part of the book on features requiring root access. I'd much rather save money on a book that did not have these sections, then these books would be slightly less scarey and more relevant to these users' needs.
Linux OS - the only OS where no one gets a permission denied. On any filesystem!
Just in time for Red Hat 10 beta!
The global economy is a great thing until you feel it locally.
and that's why I got so confused using it. After changing distribution time and time again I finally settled on Gentoo.
Sure it takes a little longer to set up but once it's done you have a base install with no fluff. SSH isn't turned on, the RHN agent isn't there with me wondering how it got there when I wanted a streamlined system. Those bloated distros are there only to confuse the n00b.
With the portage system I get Gentoo to install a base system then I install applications using portage. For example to install X windows and mozilla I silply type:
emerge xfree
emerge mozilla
Come back a few hours later and they work. Nothing else to it.
I'll never use a bloated distro again.
John the Kiwi
http://www.johnthekiwi.com
Unless of course, they don't have permission. But I guess you don't know how to set that eh?
Ok, I have to admit my ignorance. Teach me how to lock a file from a root-level account on Linux. As soon as I learn that, I promise at least 1 box from 200 in this organization will start running Linux.
Now that so many trees have been sacrificed to print books about Red Hat 9, I am wondering where is the next RHL 10 (Severn) beta release? More information about the new world order of RHL development was supposed to appear at rhl.redhat.com today, but not much seems to be happening.
Red Hat seems to have realized something about shrink-wrap + dead trees releases that the book publishers have not: a 6-month release cycle is too short for physical media. It may be more convenient to read about RH configuration in a book rather than on a screen, but parts of these books will be obsolete in a few months (if not weeks) and everything that is contained in them can be learned from online documentation now. The computer books that remain useful for years tend to be thin (think K&R).
"The Red Hat Bible just didn't have the same smart feel to it."
Being a RHL Bible user (3 months), I stake my life on that book. Smart feel? It gives the user every file location, server information, and allows the user to understand by explaining the settings; allowing the user chance to play with them. It has assisted me through FTP, NFS, and Apache server setup and tweaking without a problem. Its security information for all things linux are excellent. I have not read or even looked through the books mentioned in this review, yet I did not find a book which was comprable when I was looking.
I guess if you want to have a smart feel, you should buy a book which is not intuitive. The bible is. It allows the user to figure out how the OS works by assisting the problem-solving process.
Dont buy a book because it explains all the information, buy a book because it gives you the tools to learn through action. the bible does.
"this is the gloaming"
radiohead
First, my disclaimer: I am a newbie to *ix. I am confident that I can handle any reasonable system administration task in Windows and/or DOS, as I have dealt with those OSes since 1990.
My experience with Linux has been one week of trying to make the GUI work with RH7.2 and my Radeon 8500. I believe that at that time XFree86 was just plain incompatible at that time, though I'd bet some uber dudes made it work. I couldn't, and if there is no GUI, then it is not the kind of OS I want to use at home. Later I tried RH7.3, and X worked, but with no hardware 3D acceleration. Tux Racer was a slide show. Since I will not pay Xi for drivers so I can game at home, and ATI's binaries didn't work well enough for me, I abandoned 7.3. I skipped RH8 entirely because by then I had sold the 8500 and installed a 9700 Pro (love that card!). So now I have RH9 up and running, ATI's catalyst 3.7 drivers working reasonably well, and RTCW:Enemy Territory and UT2003 working great, so I can say that I believe I now have an OS acceptable for my home use.
As for *ix, I know there exists a command line prompt, and the operator can do many things provided he knows what to do there. I am not one of these people. I am the guy who needs a HOW-TO page to use rpm. I want to know how to use bash and the like. I want to know how to make KDE and GNOME do exactly what I want. I want to know how to install drivers correctly and understand the steps. I want to be as proficient in Linux as I am in windows.
That said, I do have a Linux book--The Red Hat Linux Bible (for RH7.2) It is a comprehensive book, with enough information for a beginner to install RH Linux and not much else. I'd say that unless you are already familiar with Linux and similar OSes that 95% of the material in that book is going to be over your head. About the only useful newbie information I found was installing RH. I understand that not everyone is going to use the same procedure, but for me, it was pretty much insert disk 1 and follow the prompts.
Don't get me wrong-- while convering installation is a great idea-- maybe some easy to understand tips on configuring X would be nice. Would you believe that changing the desktop resolution is covered in an obscure paragraph some 300 pages into the book? How about changing the refresh rate? I'll bet I'll have to edit my config file, but perhaps someone made it possible through the GUI. You Linux uber coders did that, didn't you?
How about sound cards? I'd bet that millions of computers sold in the last 4 years are capable of 4- or more channel audio. I don't know how to activate the rear channels. (Disclaimer-- i accidentally got them to work in RH7.3)
Guess what else? I sure would like my logitech 3 button + wheel mouse to work correctly. When connected via PS2, the only selection that works is 2 button wheel mouse. Changing to the USB port, RH discovers it nicely (I was floored to see the mouse discovered when booting!), but I have no idea what the thumb button does nor do I know how to change it.
My guess is that those of you who have read this whole thing are saying RTFM. Well, sure, I'd love to RTFM. Just give me a manual I can understand! Man pages are not good reading for the beginner, and unless you have a laptop, hard to take with you when you need a break from getting the fvcking screen resolution fixed.
Ah, well... just venting. I'll probably have to take a class at the community college, as none of my friends use Linux. Me, I am bored with windows, and want to be ready for the time when it is not worth the effort to get an unliscensed wopy of windows to work. I'll see if I can find a copy of RH9 Unleashed... thanks for the review!
However, you want to use some external firewire drives? Do some video capture? Write to a DVD? Neither book addresses these issues to any depth. And some of the things they do put in there to make their "heavy enough to justify the price" length verge on silly. I really don't expect to see a page on Xine if I can get a URL to the home site and be more up to date.
In both cases, the book seems like a way to sell RH CDs at a decent price and with a "Help" manual. For that they are adequate. But I'm still looking for the RH (or Mandrake) book that can get into the challenges my team faces.
... when this hobby OS gets a real file-locking features. Instead of that "advisory locks" FUD that is poured onto us.
Linux does offer mandatory locking. It is not enabled by default, because it really does have major drawbacks. If you really want mandatory locking, you can choose on which filesystems and files to use it. The problem with mandatory locking is, that it is PITA and can in some cases even cause DoS attacks. Advisory locks is all you need. The purpose of locks is to prevent corruption in case of simultaneous updates, and inconsistent reads while data is being updated. As long as the programs reading and writing a file use locking and behaves correctly, it will work eventhough the locks are not mandatory. Mandatory locks does not prevent broken programs from corrupting the data, so what does it give you? First of all mandatory locks prevents you from reading the file while it is being updated, even if you really want to. Linux (and UNIX) does not prevent you from doing stupid things, because in doing so, it would also prevent you from doing clever things. Sure you can probably mess up some files by reading/writing while there is a mandatory lock. But you shouldn't be prevented, because often you know what you are doing, and really want to read the file. One of the most annoying things about Windows (the versions I have seen) is, that you cannot start reading a file before it has been completely written. I often want to start reading a file while I'm still not finished downloading it.
Do you care about the security of your wireless mouse?
Teach me how to lock a file from a root-level account on Linux.
OMG you actually believe that locking is a way to implement security don't you. *sigh* Let me guess, inetinfo.exe is running default app permissions, and you propagate Everyone:full control down from the top of your filesystem.
Stick to windows buddy, we don't want ya . . . . Well, not for a few re-installs yet, anyway.
Mmmmm... fan, perhaps. To a limited extent. Stupid, absolutely not. You are comparing apples and eggs. Win2K is still a swiss cheese, file permissions are only as good as an administrator's diligence in maintaining proper limitations on resource access. Active Directory is in itself a security hole big enuf to drive a truck through, and when I was still in school for Win2K we discussed numerous patches regarding the very issue in question here - processes and users vying for control of specific file permissions.
Don't confuse relative inexperience with stupidity.
Mnem
Has anyone noticed the huge proliferation of "RedHat as Linux" over the linux literary and driver (closed-source drivers, generally) community? The amount of articles that go on about teaching linux, and then teach "Red Hat" are huge. In addition, if you notice hardware that "Supports Linux" you will often find that it supports "Red Hat" (IMHO, the only way to support "Linux" properly is to have an Open-Source driver).
If you search for linux on chapters you will find a lot of literary material. 8 of 20 results are specially about redhat on the first page...
Searching for "Red Hat" Linux shows that at least 106 books specifically contain the words "Red Hat" in addition to linux.
While I'm all for use-your-own-distro, and I'm sure that RedHat is a good OS for newbies... I get this tingling feeling that there is a whole mentality that "Red Hat" IS linux. I understand that distros like Debian Linux might be more daunting with text-based installs, etc, but I hate to see future admins being taught that the "Red Hat" way is the only way.
Of course, it may be because many of those in the Debian-oriented mentality simply hate to document or make book-like material, whereas many more RedHat newbies have gone on to share their experience with the masses?
Give it a few months, and I'm sure we'll see a few more "Using RedHat 10" books to add to the pile. Version-chasing AHOY!
Teach me how to lock a file from a root-level account on Linux.
No fuck that, you teach me how, in windows, to delete a log file that is chewing my HDD, without using a third party app or stopping (if possible) the service that is locking it.
This will be my last journal entry, but you've been fun troll, thanks!
OMG you actually believe that locking is a way to implement security don't you.
Yeah, what's wrong with that? Locking is thebest way to implement file-level security and avoid displaying sensitive data to an attacker who managed to get an Administrator or Power User account (through either password guessing or yet another Microsoft exploit).
Can you suggest anything better?
Teach me how to lock a file from a root-level account on Linux.
. html
http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Secure-Programs-HOWTO/files
Do you care about the security of your wireless mouse?
-Dave
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF -8&q=site%3Aslashdot.org+%22insensitive+clod%22&bt nG=Google+Search
You people say "insensitive clod" too much. What's wrong with you?
The "administrator" account is not the equivalent to "root". The "system" account is.
Ok, the most intelligent answer out of all. Learned something today, thanks.
Unlike the below discussions with Linux fanboys, as educational and objective as pissing contests.
One of the most annoying things about Windows (the versions I have seen) is, that you cannot start reading a file before it has been completely written. I often want to start reading a file while I'm still not finished downloading it.
Are you sure about that? I can always start viewing or listening to video/audio before its done downloading in Windows. This may be more of an issue with which software you are using to download. I remember there being some apps I've used where I couldn't do this, but in those cases, I could make a copy of the file while it was downloading and then open the copy.
--Drunk as in Beer
yet another Microsoft exploit).
Can you suggest anything better?
Yeah....avoid Microsoft exploits, by not running Microsoft!
Maybe not running server daemons as system/administrator/root would be a good start, but when you do that on a Windows system, things start to screw up.
And the concept of Users vs. Power Users is totally a Windows concept. Unix and Linux can give out permissions on a very granular basis to various users. There aren't only 4 levels of access. There are unlimited levels of access. You want someone to have no access to the sound card, but still be able to bring up a dial-up ppp connection? Fine. Make them a member of the dip group, and make sure they're not a member of the audio group.
Simple as that.
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
Ok, you seem earnest, so I'll bite (again).
But first of all I'd like to point out that file locking in no way protects you from file deletion in the exploit situation you describe. Builtin administrator allways has rights to kill processes / locks, it's just a matter of having the code. Hard locks are really just to stop corruption when you accidently open up two instances of MSAccess, or whatever.
1. create NT user accounts for your critical apps, eg sqlsvrusr, iisusr, perlusr, etc. Don't trust the installed builtins for these apps under any circumstances.
2. Assign the required rights to these users. (Winnt -> usr manager, user rights assignment. 2k -> group policy administrator / domain / local policy) It will take some time to figure out exactly what those are. There are many useful resources on the web.
3. Configure your apps to run as their respective users. (Services) Configure IIS to use the new IIS user for filesystem access (IIS console -> master properties -> security)
4. Assign the necessary NTFS perms. Start by removing "Everyone: Full control" from the top of the heirachy. Give sqlsvr usr access to the dbs, etc. Again, this will take some doing. Use WWW resources to assist.
There, that wasn't so hard. Now if someone cracks the "Administrator" account, they won't have access to your web content or sql db's. They can kill processes / locks, change the filesystem permissions back (It's a funny old OS) and generally still wreak havoc, but that's windows for you.
Now look AC, I'm sorry I said "we don't want you", because I didn't mean to get personal, and the truth is we do wan't you (I feel the good in you!!) But windows and Linux have totally different security architechture. You need to realise that and stop mocking what you don't yet fully understand.
You really want mandatory locks, which not even root can break. you can set the behavior per-file, as well. It seems to work circa 2000 (Mandrake 7.2) as I just tried it on said box.
Any questions?
As far as "hobbyist" OSs go, you do realize Solaris has the same limitation (but doesn't have the mandatory lock extension). So Solaris is a hobbyist OS, right, cuntwhack?
Fuck Beta. Fuck Dice
as educational and objective as pissing contests.
But not as much fun, once dreadfully but now not so badly misguided one.
And as for pissing contests not being objective, I take exception to that. I can't think of a more objective way of determining who can piss the furthest than a pissing contest.
Did you get out-pissed today? Don't worry, we 0wnzd j00.
- as the author of Red Hat Linux 9 Unleashed, i like to say thanks for all the kind words regarding the book (and also any unkind words, as i have a thick skin and take constructive criticism to heart)...
/. as i'm aware that there are many of you out there who are far more talented and knowledgable about Linux and other software services than i... all i can say is that i hope that the information i present is technically accurate, helpful, and well-organized...
- i'm not sure about the blank pages you found in your copy of Red Hat Linux 9, as my copy doesn't have these blank pages, and i don't think Sams Publishing (Pearson) would allow a printing like that (of course worse things have happened, such as corrupt CD-ROMs)...
- i think the Linux Bible series is good too, and i have copies of many different books about Linux... i've met many other Linux authors, but have not had the pleasure to chat with authors of the Bible or 'Secrets'... this is something i look forward to (perhaps in NYC this winter?)...
- i also wrote Linux Unleashed, which covered Caldera, Red Hat, and Debian, and SuSE Linux Unleashed... and a book on using Linux on your Apple PowerPC... i would like to see more books on Debian and SuSE, but you know what? publishers won't do them because they don't sell! (or fit into the publisher's marketing scheme)
- i write about Linux because i believe in Linux... believe me when i say that writing technical books is no way to make a living - horrendous deadlines, sweating out revised content based on beta releases, and authoring contracts that turn your book efforts into a vanity press pursuit...
- i have been dreading a review of my book here on
content is another matter (the Unleashed series are *supposed* to be aimed at intermediate to advanced users, but it seems that newbies, God bless 'em, buy the book anyway - i'd much rather write books for the total newbie than the astute user, because i remember the excitement i felt when i first started using Linux and realized just how powerful it is...
anyway, thanks for not scorching my shorts on this one...
bb
p.s. i'm sure hd would chime in here, but he's trapped on a cruise liner with a number of Linux madmen at the moment (the Geek Cruise)...
Winbind is usually a footnote in most Samba books, and the RH documentation has nothing on it (big surprise there) and how to either enable it or effectively use it.
We're looking to shift some of our file services onto Linux, and would appreciate not having to create user accounts (and synchronize passwords) on our Linux boxes by relying on our already well-managed W2K domain accounts.
The directory /etc/sysconfig holds various
short configuration files. This document unlocks
the mystery. It is very easy to do; merely edit
these very short little files per the guidelines
given in sysconfig.txt.
I own and have read Bill Ball's Learn Linux in 24 hours re: Redhat 5.x. I also own and have read his Linux unleashed for Redhat 6.2 or so...
I must say that even for a guy who's been using Linux for more than 5 years, these books are not a very good read. Not due to the subject matter, but due to Author style.
Learn Linux in 24 is obviously Linux Unleashed in a very very pared down format. If this book were a driving instructor, the teacher would give you the keys and then say "Put this in the ignition and turn, when you fill your tank, don't light any matches, and turn your wipers on when it rains."
Linux Unleashed was the same, except there really isn't much middle ground. The aformentioned driving instructor would then pop the hood, point out the timing belt, and tell you how to adjust the carbeurator for maximum fuel efficiency.
Example, the C programming chapter as I remember starts talking about overloading operators within a few pages of finishing "Hello, world." The fact that there is a C programming chapter in Linux unleashed seems a little strange to me, period.
I found Bill's writing to be the most confusing hair raising epic for learning linux. Fear instilled by the writing prevented me from compiling my own kernel for a very long time. My recommendation for Learning Linux in a straightforward manner is the LPI certification in a nutshell book. Every chapter is laid out very neatly with command descriptions. Not only that, it is written in a generic format which applies to most sane distros. Great reference material, period.
It's obvious Bill knows what he's talking about. If the new Unleashed reads at all like the old ones, I think his editors could use some help with technical materials.
Always try O'Reilly first. Just my 2 pennies.
-non sig- Man with hole in pocket feel cocky all day long.
When I ordered "Red Hat Linux Personal 9 + Official Red Hat Linux User`s Guide" it came with the "Official Red Hat Linux User`s Guide" for version 8! I know there is hardly any difference, but it was never stated. What if I had bought it just for the docs, and already had 8? I'd be wasting money. I expected better practices than this. Fool am I.
Great tip - I just put a symbolic link to the file in /etc/sysconfig
I've been pretty determined to force myself to settle on Mandrake, but books particularly about that distro are few and far between, and not too meaty. Would these books, especially the Unleashed book, be helpful to a person, not a newbie any more, but hardly a guru yet, who's trying to make the most out of a few not very demanding installations - a couple of low-volume deadicated servers, an MP3 jukebox, a couple of public machines in an internet cafe. Just curious about how much help I could expect, and whether the book would send me off on very many wild goose chases (drake chases?). Richard
Everything possible to be believ'd is an Image of Truth - Wm. Blake
Sorry for the time delay, honestly, I read the book a long time ago...and then wrote a review. I still recommend it to just about anyone though!
Who is this that even the wind and the waves obey Him? Surely this computer must submit also!
The material will not age nearly as fast as a book only for Red Hat.
(Reality reasserts itself sooner or later.)
Good point. Usually my first place to look when having problems with a given package/app is "man packagename".
Of course, they're not all *good* man-files, but usually something is better than nothing.
I've met people who ask me the same thing in real life.
Cuntwhacks, all of them. And you too, tutz.
NOW SUCK MY DICK MOTHERFUCKERS!
Fuck Beta. Fuck Dice