Customer Reviews

Mastering Red Hat Linux 7

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

 

 

First, it's probably the latest book on the market, whcih means that it has an advantage over other older books. The structure of this book is very organized, and the substance well written: easy to read and explanatory, but concise. The auther always alludes to the big pictures or the key concepts behind the specific subjects so that I know where each little puzzle should fit into the big frame.

The book focuses on the transition from a Windows-family OS to Linux and Unix in general. It is well organized and clear, though sometimes wordy. "Mastering Red Hat Linux" is primarily oriented at beginners, but also covers some more advanced topics like installation and configuration of mail and web servers.

This book has some serious shortcomings. As noted by other reviewers, it lacks depth for linux admins. A good alternative maybe texts from linuxdoc.org. It also suffers from the page bloat that characterizes computer books. Many pages are taken up with redundant instructions and useless screenshots (why attempt to explain a change in color with black and white graphics?). But perhaps the greatest shortcoming is that the book lacks good integration with the accompanying CD. If you think by following the text's installation instructions you can work through the book, think again. Early in the book, instruction is given on GNOME. However, two critical apps for the GNOME demo are missing from the install (The Gimp and Gnumeric). The chapters on KDE are even worse. To top it off, if you followed advice at the start of the book, you would not have net connectivity and could not get out on the web to get the files necessary to follow along with the text. Ughhhh! If the software matched the book, this product could be a gem. Instead it is another overpriced, over-promising, and under-delivering heap, not worth the (...)price (...). If you have experience with Linux, this book may disappoint you. If you lack experience with Linux, save yourself some $$ and frustration and don't start here.

Please note that since this book's release this summer, Red Hat 7.2 has been released.

The book is nicely organized, easy to read and clear. The installation instructions helped me from step one. I don't understand some of the other reviews, but maybe they purchased this book for other purposes. (...)

I'm very disappoinded this book . It's focusing to Linux Newbie escpecially using Linux for Desktop .
I wanna know Red Hat Linux 7.1 Server Technology , but It was too bad to know Server Technic .

Mastering ? huh ! NO THIS BOOK !

I'm a newbie in Linux so I found this book very informative and easy to read. It explains very clear the main topics about Linux and about RedHat. However, some commands are not explained so you have to look elsewhere for help (rpm, vi). If you want to know the Linux basics this is the book but if you want to master RedHat you have to buy some other complementary books and read a lot of HowTos.

There are NO clear, step by step instructions like in most of the "Mastering" series. I'm on my 12th forced reboot in trying to follow what instructions (not sure what these sentences are) that are provided. From this book, it is impossible to intall Linux Red Hat. I will have to purchase the software and instructions direct from Red Hat if I wish to get this far. I have purchased 5-7 books from Sybex, but I will never purchase another book authored by Mr. Danesh or Mr. Jang.

The book is comprehensive and very helpful for people with
little experience in Unix in general. However, the word
"Mastering" in the title does not definitely meet the
expectations of an average administrator, who buying this
book would expect himself to become a Linux Guru. Finally,
this is my advice to the new readers of the book:
Unless you have the luxury to have a computer just for playing,
don't even think about to upgrade your kernel from source
code following the directions of this book.

Nice book for the non-begginer but non-expert either. Ideal for a babtism in installaling linux. However, Redhat 7 works very well and you end up not needing much of it.

Being a Linux newbie, I give a 3 Stars. The books covers a lot of topics, but very thin. It does have a good coverage on installation and configuration. Coming from a Windows background, this book helps me get started. It is very weak on most of the server applications, like Samba, Apache, Database... I'm more interested in Linux server apps, not desktop apps.

NO BODY BEATS MICROSOFT ON DESKTOP APPS, BOTH IN QUALITY AND QUANTITY! That's just a fact most Linux people can't deny.

Overall it worths the money. The online Docs from Red Hat is just too dry and hard to read.

Conclusion:
Good for Newbies, Bad for Gurus...
Good for Desktop, Bad for Server...
Good for Installation, Bad for Administration...

Advice:
From Linux newbies, use this book for the 1st month or two to get you started. After that, just use the Red Hat Documents and various Linux websites for references. They are free and broad.