The Definitive Guide to CentOS (Books for Professionals by Professionals) [Paperback]

Peter Membrey (Author), Tim Verhoeven (Author), Ralph Angenendt (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1430219300 | ISBN-13: 978-1430219309 | Publication Date: July 9, 2009 | Edition: 1

This is the first book on CentOS Linux, the completely free and unencumbered Linux server distribution based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux. CentOS has been installed more often than Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and is built from Red Hat sources while adding its own tweaks and tools. It is the only Red Hat-base distro that has had overwhelming success. The CentOS project is endorsing this book as the first and so far, only authoritative guide on CentOS.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Hailing from the UK, Peter Membrey has worked for Red Hat, holds a RHCE certification and worked and taught at a number of educational institutions since the beginning of his career. He knows what Linux users like and need, and hopes that CentOS will get the kudos it deserves. He lives in Hongkong and is teaching and consulting on all matters to do with Linux Enterprise networking, while studying for his master’s degree.

Product Details

• Paperback: 329 pages
• Publisher: Apress; 1 edition (July 9, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1430219300
• ISBN-13: 978-1430219309
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 7 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #442,931 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Peter Membrey is a Chartered IT Professional who holds a masters degree in IT specialising in Information Security. He is the youngest person to have passed the RHCE (which he did when he was 17) and had the honour of working for and with Red Hat for many years. He is currently studying for a PhD in Software Engineering at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. He lives in Hong Kong with his wife Sarah and son Kaydyn and is still desperately trying (and still failing) to come to grips with the various Chinese languages.

His personal site is at http://peter.membrey.hk

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Almost nothing in the book is CentOS-specific, November 28, 2010

By 

Philip M. White (Cedar Rapids, Iowa) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Definitive Guide to CentOS (Books for Professionals by Professionals) (Paperback)

I bought this book because I am an advanced Linux user considering switching to CentOS. I expected this book to explain to me the philosophy behind Yum, RPM, upstart, configuring services, and everything else that's specific to RedHat and CentOS.

Instead, the book explained to me in detail how to install CentOS using the GUI (as if it's rocket science), then spent the remainder explaining how to set up common services that are configured the same way between all distributions. For me, who is already familiar with other distributions, there was nothing CentOS-specific or even insightful.

The only informative and CentOS-specific information in this book can be boiled down to two pages: where the authors discuss the five or six repositories available to CentOS users, and where the authors list a few 'yum' commands. Everything else is either trivial or unrelated to CentOS.

Basically, the use of CentOS in this book is a means, not an end. If you want to learn about how CentOS differs from other distros, look elsewhere.

A better name for this book might be "An introduction to running a Linux server".

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A fresh, clear book, August 16, 2009

By 

W. Thielen (Tokyo, japan) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Definitive Guide to CentOS (Books for Professionals by Professionals) (Paperback)

This book covers the main reasons why anyone would want to run a Linux server: Apache, mail, DNS, Samba. CentOS is a good, userfriendly choice, and this guide goes well with it.

For the more advanced, enterprise user, this book also covers topics such as high-availability and clustering.

Written by experienced Linux users, it also contains tips and tricks they learned while working with Linux, such as frequently forgotten things, frequently reasons for getting stuck somewhere, etc. As an experienced user myself, I recognize those little things no-one would ever care about. This book also tells about them, which is a good thing in my opinion.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars CentOS introduction, October 1, 2009

By 

Vanja Luk - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Definitive Guide to CentOS (Books for Professionals by Professionals) (Paperback)

When you start to explore the huge possibilities af an OS like Centos this book is a good starting point. I recommend it to all the newbies like me. I found it very useful with a lot of nice advices and helpful how-to-procedures.