Customer Reviews

LPI General Linux I Exam Cram (Exam: 101)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

The General Linux I Exam Cram (Exam 101) is one of the best Linux books on the market. There is something odd with the reviews posted here, though. As I look at the page numbers listed by some reviewers as containing errors, they don't match with the book I hold in my hand. In fact, they don't even cover the same topics. My assumption, therefore, is that reviews for more than one book are being posted here - explaining why some reviewers are rating it well and others poorly. If you are reading the reviews because you are interested in the General Linux I Exam Cram (ISBN 1-57610-923-2), then you won't find a better title anywhere. On the other hand, if this review is - through some Amazon fluke - posted for any other book, then I have no idea about that title, and I don't know who Chris Hare or any other authors mentioned in some of the reviews are (the book I hold in my hand is written only by Emmett Dulaney).

I just completed my Linux Professional Institute Certification Exam. I passed by a wide margin. I do have extensive experience in UNIX but only a little in Linux. I used the Exam Cram books as my exclusive preparation for the test. I felt that the "LPI General Linux I" did a good job of preparing me for the LPI 101 test. This is not a book that someone with limited experience in Linux and/or UNIX should use but for a more experienced person it provides a good course of study.

There are some minor problems with the book; the occasional inaccuracy and an unfortunate choice for the font which made it impossible to differentiate between certain letters; but over all I was happy with the book and felt well prepared for the test.

This book will get through the exam (Level I, 101), but barely, even if you memorise and understand everything verbatim. Excellent as a portable revision tool, but only after you have gone through a more thorough reading of a more comprehensive book on Linux. For more indepth stuff, I would hertily recommend "LPIC in a Nutshell". Costs the same and covers both Level I exams (101 AND 102) with double the material and pages.

Overall, LPI General Linux I Exam Cram: Exam 101 is very readable and can serve as a good intro to the world of Linux for those Linux gurus wannabes.

I didn't use this for the test, but it was still a good overview of topics in Linux. It's a good way to find the holes in your knowledge, and get an idea of different ways to do things. It's definitely not as good as the more popular system administration classics.

Every objective and subobjective on the actual LPI exam has been addressed in this book - something I can say about no other exam cram/prep/guide title. You won't score 1000 on the exam after reading this book, but that's only because the scale used on the exam does not go up that high! If you read the book from cover to cover and pay attention to the Exam Alerts, and other items, you WILL walk out of the test center with a big smile on your face.

Simply put, this book is well structured and easy to follow. Although it does have some minor errors, I used this book to prepare for the exam and found it covers all the main essentials. The chapters are followed up with questions at the end of each chapter, and a full test at the end of the book. Overall, I have to give it very high marks.

This is sad indeed! Mr. Dulaney has written over 3 dozen books on MCSE or related topics, and very VERY few on Linux. This man shows how truley new he is to this topic.

There are so many errors in this book that I could not even finish it. I spent more time correcting mistakes than actually reading through the content.

It would appear that this book was written in a huge rush to get a LPI book onto the market. Unless you already know a lot about Linux and are looking for a humerous read, then do not pick this book up. I am serious, if you are new to the operating system and expect this book to help you, it will NOT.

This might seem very different from some other reviews. This book is a comlete waste and full of mistakes. I m not talking of spelling mistakes here. But conceptual mistakes because the author himself has not understood the idea. 1. Page 123 . The number that appears in the brackets ( after you have launched a process to execute in the background with the & command ), is equal to the number of jobs you have currently running in the background. It s actually the job id and is not related to the number of jobs running in the background. Screen print from my linux system

/home/valdner> sleep 100 &

[1] 1115

/home/valdner> sleep 100 &

[2] 1116

/home/valdner> fg %1

sleep 100

^C

/home/valdner> sleep 100 &

[3] 1119

/home/valdner> jobs

[2]- Running sleep 100 &

[3]+ Running sleep 100 &

see it showed [3] although only 2 jobs were running in the background.

2. Page 121 there is a vague description about process A "calls" process B "calls" process C. ( his calls is to be understood as launches ). But the funniest part is this.. "For a non-normal condition, assume that process C has a glitch and does not end after reporting back to process B. It continues to run. This prevents Process B from ending because it still has a child associated with it.". There s nothing that prevents a process from "ending", as long as its main() returns or calls _exit() system call or receives a signal. It s not even related with how many children are alive. In fact most of the daemon programs will fork() at least once and the parent will exit(), so as to throw away the controlling terminal.

Also the content of the book is very very thin. I read almost 200 pages in 2 hours or so. From what I have heard from newsgroups the test is not that simple.

Dont waste your money on this book.

Actually if you look at the authors background all his qualifications are in microsoft related subjects. This is not even useful for a biginner since it s full of vague and superficial mentioning of topics.

Very well done. I've found that it contains exactly what is on the exam - very thorough. My favorite feature was the large number of questions (at the end of each chapter, and in a full test at the end of the book) - many of which closely resembled those that came to be on the real exam. It found a niche on my bookshelf and will stay there for some time to come.

This book single-handedly allowed me to pass the LPI exam. Not only that, but it also filled in blanks in my Linux knowledge and helped me troubleshoot a problem at customer's site that popped up within days of my studying.

I would highly recommend this book - and its II companion - for pass the LPI exams and becoming a Linux Professional.