Customer Reviews

The Linux Problem Solver (with CD-ROM)

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

 

 

It's no coincidence I use this book as the authoritative reference when I'm at work: I'm lucky enough to claim the author as our local unix god.

Anytime something on our network of several hundred linux boxes causes me to scratch my head, I ask Mr. Ward what to do and he replies "It's in the book." Invariably, it is, and he's already covered the specific problems I'm encountering.

The Linux Problem Solver is blunt about which programs are horrible and should be avoided, and which will really make your life easier. The advice it offers is always backed by lots of experience.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who's in charge of taking care of one or more linux machines. If you want to keep your machine(s) secure, get printing to work, or fix your X configuration, you'll find out how in The Linux Problem Solver.

Also makes a great gift for any System Administrator; I've given several myself!

I've made good use of Mr. Ward's Linux Kernel HOWTO and wasn't at all disappointed in his book. It's by far the most useful sysadmin book I've purchased. I've found others to be too heavy on the "theory" of system administration, and too low on practical, hands-on tips. The chapter on printing alone is worth the price of the book, if you've ever struggled with network printing issues, as I have many times. He clearly knows his stuff.

The Linux Problem Solver is that and more. As a new Linux user, I am developing an appreciation of this book in a hurry! The organization of this book is straightforward and logical, each chapter covering an essential topic of making Linux work and how to return it to working order when it stops working right, or getting it to work right after you've made an incorrect change. The author spends a chapter discussing things such as client networking, file systems, networking with Windows and Apples, printing, kernel upgrades, backups and crash recovery, and user environments. One chapter I feel deserves special praise is Chapter 6, installing software from source code, something I haven't found in other Linux books, at least not yet. Since I'm coming from a Windows environment, I'm relieved that someone out there realized new Linux users don't all automatically know how to install software in this environment.
As far as subject coverage, the author tells you the basics of what you need to know and how it works before he starts talking about what can go wrong and how to fix it. Granted, sometimes the information can be sketchy or shallow in places, but there is still a great deal of information packed into 239 pages.
The one small complaint I have with this book is that it doesn't really talk about the initial Linux installation. In fact, I haven't found a really good book that does talk about it in detail, frustratingly enough. Other than that, I can see this book getting frequent use as I explore Linux further and start to do more with it. If you can only buy one book for Linux, this is not the book to have unless you're already conversant with Linux. If you're not, this is a great companion book to have along with a Linux primer for troubleshooting when you do something wrong.

I initially felt the title was a little misleading. However, it might be more an interpretation issue of what a "problem solver" is. I initially interpreted that as "trouble shooter". This books does not cover that aspect of administering a Linux system. Still, the format of "what to do when this occurs" is extremely useful, especially for Linux newbies. If you want the nuts and bolts of administering a Linux system, look elsewhere. However, this has a lot of places where I said, "Hey, what didn't I think of that?"...

Brian Ward writes a good book on Linux Problems. He writes about all the things which took time and trouble out of his own life to figure out. Since he's a good writer, and he doesn't have a burning desire to show us 2 screen shots per page, he manages to do all this in only 240 pages.

His editor and publisher don't feel they could charge 40 bucks for the book without another 40 pages of index, extended table of contents, and a cdrom. The margins get wider, and the information content goes way down...

Because the Linux community is cryptic at best and uninviting at worst, I have found that a manual or two is needed to give clues to administration problem solutions. Although dated( 2000 ), this manual not only gives me a window into the origins of Linux administration, but it also provides expanded information and additional support programs on CD to make this job easier.

I found several references that explained the older tool requirements and helped me to understand the nature of administration on Linux machines a decade ago. Although there are better tools for managing small networks now, I was able to get a good idea of how to develop a network sniffer for identifying network nodes and getting the state of various devices on each node in the network by using these tools.

This book is well worth the price and the information on the CD makes it a portable disk based reference. I am pleased with the information contained in this book and happy to put it on my reference shelf.

If the information had been current, I would have given the book all five stars. But, since most books of this age would only rate one star, the three stars I gave it seems appropriate.

If you were going to be stranded on a deserted island for the remainder of your pathetic existence and you were allowed only 5 books to keep -- what books would you want? For me there would be Dante's Comedy, the Bible, the Complete Works of Shakespeare, In Search of Lost Time, and.......The Linux Problem Solver by Brian Ward. I know what your thinking -- How am I going to run Linux on this island I'm staying on? Well, the great thing about Linux is that it's "Platform Indepedent." Yes many Linux machines happen to have Pentium chips under the hood, but you can run Linux on anything. I feel we need to abdicate this antiquated "LinTel" paradigm. And replace it with what, you ask? We can each decide that for ourselves. I for one installed and configured Apache Jserv for Linux on/in (unfortunately some tinkering was necessary) my cat Sparky last Tuesday night. Yeah that might not work for everybody, but so much is really possible and we all know it. I mean who hasn't done any shell programming on their toaster? The sky's the limit in this life and Brian Ward's book will take you to the limit which, as i just mentioned, is the sky at least in this life and for all of us as far as I know this is the only life we know about and that kind of goes without saying. One warning about this book though: the little part which suffocates when the sharp part which gets hurt is swallowed is contained generously. Only the person who can take responsibility by itself is to read.