Customer Reviews

Maximum RPM (RPM)

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

 

 

The other reviewers' negative comments are mostly on track. The book is not all that well organized. It is an absolute necessity if you are going to develop RPMs, however. The man pages are really incomplete, so you need the book to do what the man pages should have done. The book provides more than man pages would have, since it includes many examples.

I find with the latest versions of RPM that the book is getting obsolete. The syntax of the .rpmrc file has changed. Important rpm version variables such as EPOCH are not documented. One must also read the source code to develop RPMS and RPM tools.

I would give this book a B+ for when it was originally published, but it only gets a C+ today because it is getting obsolete. Red Hat should produce a 2nd edition and spend a little effort organizing it.

At least the current version actually contains much technical information. Let's hope it doesn't degenerate into a non-technical book in some future edition.

The other reviews puzzle me---I was able to get any and all information out of this book I needed. I read it yesterday and today am creating relatively complicated RPMs with subpackages. I find the book to be well laid out and the index to be comprehensive and helpful. If you want to learn all about RPM, this is an excellent book. Despite being a couple of years old, this book didn't appear to have any out of date information; I don't think RPM has changed enough in the past few years to make this book obsolete.

This book accomplishes what it set out to do, explain how to use RPM and build packages, and it does a fine job.

This was probably a good book when it came out, but since then rpm has changed significantly. If Redhat would at least publish a consise list of the changes to the commands, I'd change my rating to 3 or 4 stars. As it is, you cannot use this book to diagnose problem in creating spec files or designing high-quality spec files. Until it is revised, you are better off looking at the man pages and how other people have written spec files.

I have been using portions of this book for five years and because it contains basic information, it gets 3 stars. That is the only reason.
It was a very good resource in 1999. This is 2005 and it is barely acceptable.
Amazon should not even have this book listed anymore. I am shocked that it is still here and even more shocked that there has been no update to this extremely out of date text in the last five years!

The maximum rpm book is full of detailed information on how to make the spec file work for you, demistifying what many people see as a difficult thing to create.

Not only is the spec file well detailed, but the book explains how to write a good spec file- not just any spec file- taking into consideration the fact that people will want to build your source rpm on other platforms and other linux distributions.

Now, if only the people out there wriying rpm spec files would follow the guidelines so clearly outlined in the book.... (sigh)

As the other reviewers mentioned, since this book was written in 1997, it is becoming outdated. The book talks about RPM version 2.0, but the current version is 4.0.

This book is primarily for developers. It does have a section on using RPM, but that is included only as an introduction. If you're not planning on making your own RPMs, then there's little reason to get this book. The online documentation is enough for most people. If, however, you're going to be making RPMs, then you need to get it.

This book covers the most difficult part of creating RPMs: understanding the basics. The online documentation (man pages, HOWTOs, whatever) for RPM is woefully inadequate. If you program for a living, this book will pay for itself the first day you use it. That's why this book is still useful even though it is outdated. The differences between RPM 2.0 and RPM 4.0 can be learned using online resources once you understand the basics.

I do think, however, that Red Hat really needs to update this book. It's been four years, and that's an eternity in the Linux world.

One third of the book describes how to use RPM while the rest is about developing your own RPM packages. The book is quite comprehensive, well-organized, can be used both as a guide and a reference.

The book was written 3 years ago, so it already is becoming obsolete and incomplete, but it's the only one on the subject and still is a good starting point.

I don't see much sense to buy this book unless you are a developer preparing your own installations. Any decent Linux guide contains information on the most useful RPM commands, which is sufficient for regular users. But if you really need to know the RPM underhood and digging into the soulless man pages doesn't make you ecstatic you have to buy this book.

Maximum RPM discusses all aspects of RPM. No Linux user should be without RPM and no RPM user should be without this book.

Try "Red Hat RPM Guide" which is slightly more current. But even that book is now getting long in the tooth.

The book is well structured to take account of the needs of the different users of RPM (developers, end users).

It is very clear and well sequenced, with lots of good examples and well-paced explanations.

It contains comprehensive reference material as well as the tutorial material.

A model of good software documentation.