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Mastering Red Hat Linux 9
The book starts out with an introduction to Linux, and has a good chapter on preparing to install, including hardware checklists. This is followed by a very detailed step-by-step explanation of installing Red Hat, both locally and via network. A nice part of this is a troubleshooting chapter for solving installation problems. Part Two explains the basics of using the command line, how filesystems work in Linux, and using the shell for various tasks.
Part Three includes chapters for administering users and groups on your new system, and how the RPM software package management process works. Other chapters in this part explain the bootup process and how to configure it, various ways to perform system backups, and other common administration tasks such as cron jobs and logs. Especially useful should be Chapter 12 which explains how to update/compile your own kernel. There are very good examples of the myriad kernel options, mostly by using the xconfig utility.
The next several chapters go over how to configure and use the X Window display system, including good examples from the XF86Config file. This is followed by detailed explanations of configuring and using the Gnome and KDE desktop environments. The KDE discussion is very good, considering Red Hat is more known for its use of Gnome as the default desktop. Chapter 18 introduces many of the more commonly used graphical applications in Linux, such as OpenOffice.org, Gnome Office, and the KOffice suite. Chapter 19 should be very handy for Linux/RH new users, as it outlines the Red Hat graphical configuration utilities which allow customization of the desktop look-and-feel and other system preferences.
Chapters 20-22 cover basic Linux networking. The first part of this section gives a very understandable primer on TCP/IP and network terminology. This is followed up by excellent discussions on how to setup and manage networking on your Linux computer, including security recommendations and firewall/masquerading methods. Once you've got your network running safely, there are additional chapters which cover topics such as remote access and xinetd services, and various server applications installation and operation. These include DNS, DHCP, CUPS printing operations, FTP servers (and clients), NFS and NIS, and mail servers (sendmail). Some of these services are probably more than most home users would need, and the sendmail operation in particular is a little difficult to understand.
Chapter 29 (Using Samba) will probably be a great help for people desiring to integrate a Linux system with existing Windows computers on a network. It offers an excellent tutorial on how to share files and resources across the LAN, and includes an explanation of the SWAT configuration utility which greatly simplifies initial setup for newcomers. The final chapter in the book explains how to install and setup a basic webserver using the Apache software. The appendix of the book is a relatively short section called the Linux Command Reference. There is some handy information in this, although it seems to be organized somewhat haphazardly. The book's index, on the other hand, seems to be very complete.
Overall, I found this book to be a very useful reference tool. It is basic enough for most beginners to get all the help they need, and has a good amount of usable knowledge for more advanced Linux users. One thing I realized is that much of the information here is not necessarily Red Hat-specific, so it can be helpful to users of other Linux distributions as well.
You can purchase Mastering Red Hat Linux 9 from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Also see Teach Yourself Red Hat Linux 9 from sams... I'm using it right now to try Linux out for the first time and it's pretty easy to follow so far.
Not quite on-topic with the book review, but relevant to the comments discussing life-cycle. If I've observed anything out of the transition from Red Hat Linux to Fedora, which is nowhere near done, it's that a common standard like the LSB and FHS combined with package managet agnostic repository header information is becoming essential. While waiting for FC to come out I installed Debian unstable, and was quickly reminded that the reason I liked Red Hat in the first place was for the awesome config tools. I actually had to get on irc to figure out not only how to configure my USB mouse but also how to get my IDE controller working! Move forward a couple of weeks and FC is out and installed side-by-side with Debian unstable. I hate having to do so much extra legwork to get ntfs and mp3 support. When LSB/FHS compliance are so strong between the major vendors that an app packaged for Debian can be installed on Red Hat and Red Hat's config tools can see/configure it, or Red Hat's config tools can be installed on Debian and produce config files that Debian will be aware of, there will be rejoicing in the streets. RedHat adding yuma dn apt support to up2date is a huge step. Yum is part of the Fedora Core, and apt is on the way, I believe. But having the tool agnostic repo header info will make it all moot. You setup your package repo and magically apt, yum, and up2date can all process dependencies. What a glorious day it will be.
It doesn't cover it too well IMO. It's a descent book, but no where near the best on this subject.
Wrong, the Fedora Legacy Project will backport security patches.
Regardless of the quality of the review, what's wrong with him writing the review, and posting it several places? What difference does it make?
Spencer Ogden
Here's a 1,296 page book about Windows XP. Does that mean Windows XP is too complicated for the average user and isn't suitable for the desktop? Using the page count of a book devoted to an operating system as an excuse to blast its user friendliness is idiotic.
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
Who cares if Linux uses SCSI for USB Keys? Your distro, assuming it was released in the last two years or so, should come with support for USB Keys pre-compiled. You plug the key in and the auto-mounter makes it appear on the desktop. At least in Mandrake...
/dev/sdX) why are you recompiling your kernel? Windows users don't complain that the system won't work if you delete the registry, so why do they complain that Linux won't work if you open a command-line, CD into an obscure directory, and issue a series of instructions to cause your kernel to be recompiled?
If you can't read the docs and figure out what you need (assuming it's not obvious because USB keys tend to be
What is this? It's like saying your car sucks because when you add a nitrous kit it's easy to screw up the mods.
fedora legacy will provide updates to redhat 7.3 and 9. http://fedora.redhat.com/participate/terminology.h tml
tasty electronic music vittles
This isn't even advanced server. This is RH9 desktop.
Red Hat 9 includes a server install and a large variety of server apps. The only things it lacks are clustering and a bigmem kernel.
Take USB keys for example. You need to have SCSI compiled to use them. Why???
You need to have SCSI compiled to use them under Windows too. Neither Red Hat 9 nor Windows ask you to compile SCSI to use your USB key.
Otherwise thanks for the second intelligent post I've read in this entire thread.
Ctrl-Alt-Esc, click on the application that's hung. Generally works for me, IIRC. Not that I've had an application (outside of beta-builds) that's crashed on me in a while.