Customer Reviews

A Practical Guide to Red Hat® Linux®: Fedora™ Core and Red Hat Enterprise Linux (3rd Edition)

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I am an IT professional and would consider myself a master within a purely Windows based enterprise (MCSE since 1997). That being said - after my last job was outsourced I found that every position I wanted to apply for required some Linux experience and I had never used it. Enter this book.

Linux is not a very intuitive OS. Many commands have names or switches that barely resemble what they do making it difficult to remember or learn. This book is remarkable. It starts out assuming you know nothing and helps you install Linux. It then presents an overview of the different Desktop Environments (GNOME or KDE) and how to navigate / customize them to your taste. This is probably the first 100 pages.

Linux was designed to be more functional than easy to use. This book does a great job of balancing how to perform an operation via the GUI or the command line. After reading this book, it is obvious that the GUI was an afterthought to Linux and the command line is where it's true strength lies. The Author gives you the most commonly used commands in a logical order along with examples to follow to help understand variations like redircting output from one command to another and achieve a result that is much more useful than the desktop environment can currently present. As a total beginner to Linux, I appreciated that he spent just enough time on each section to explain what it is and how to use it but didn't run it into the ground making me feel like I had to skip a section to keep it flowing. Each section & chapter is divided up into task oriented modules allowing you to jump anywhere in the book and get a quick primer on a topic like apache server or directory structure.

This book is not a bible - if you need extensive information about a specific topic you will want to look elsewhere. This is a wonderful resource for beginners who want to learn Linux and decide where they want to go with it or intermediate users who want a task oriented reference. Starting as a total novice, I now feel I have a solid working knowledge of Linux which is exactly what I was looking for.

If you're looking for a very comprehensive guide to running the Fedora Core and Red Hat Enterprise distribution of Linux, you'll want to check out A Practical Guide To Red Hat Linux by Mark Sobell (Prentice Hall). This book is packed with information...

Chapter list: Welcome to Linux; Installation Overview; Step-by-Step Installation; Introduction to Red Hat Linux; The Linux Utilities; The Linux Filesystem; The Shell 1; Linux GUIs: X, GNOME, and KDE; The Shell 2: The Bourne Again Shell; Networking and the Internet; System Administration: Core Concepts; Files, Directories, and Filesystems; Downloading and Installing Software; Printing with CUPS; Rebuilding the Linux Kernal; Administration Tasks; Configuring a LAN; OpenSSH: Secure Network Communication; FTP: Transferring Files Across a Network; sendmail: Setting Up Mail Clients, Servers, and More; NIS: Network Information Service; NFS: Sharing Filesystems; Samba: Integrating Linux and Windows; DNS/BIND: Tracking Domain Names and Addresses; iptables: Setting Up a Firewall; Apache (httpd): Setting Up a Web Server; Programming Tools; Programming the Bourne Again Shell; Regular Expressions; Help; Security; The Free Software Definition; The Linux 2.6 Kernel; Glossary; Index

At nearly 1100 pages, this isn't a small book. But as you can see from the chapter list, it packs a lot of information inside. The content is predominantly targeted at the Linux server and network environment, so getting the book to learn how to run the Linux desktop may not be the best idea. If you're looking to set up a Linux network and learn how to effectively work with the command line interface, this book works.

Interspersed throughout the chapters that contain numerous figures and code snippets, you will find a number of sidebars. There are cautions, tips, and security sidebars that add flavor to the core information. On top of that, you'll feel like you're back at school with the exercises at the end of each chapter to test your comprehension. If you go to the website www.sobell.com, you'll even find the answers to the even numbered questions. I haven't been through that process (looking in the back of the book for answers) in years!

I was really impressed by the book. As a Linux newbie, there's a lot here for me to learn from. But it isn't so simplistic that I'll outgrow the book in six months. This volume will reside on my bookshelf for a long time.

I keep searching for books that collect everything you want to know about a subject in one place, and keep getting disappointed. Usually the books leave out some important topic, while others go too deep in some areas and must skim lightly over the others. A Practical Guide to Red Hat Linux: Fedora Core and Red Hat Enterprise Linux (Second Edition) (APRtRHL) is one of those rare books that actually pulls it off. Mark G. Sobell has created a single reference for Red Hat Linux that cannot be beat!
I will admit that Mark did not, nor could not, go into excruciating detail about every single aspect of Linux and the more common applications programs. For example, the Sendmail book by Costales/Allman covers just one application, and it's 100 pages longer!
Mark has written APRtRHL with exercises at the end of each chapter. This way, the book can be used as a text in a course on Linux. Many chapters include a JumpStart section to get you going quickly. In addition, he has included many, many cross-references throughout the text. This makes the book as close to "hyper-linked" as print media can get.
After the obligatory history of Linux, Mark propels the user into Part I of the book, and through the exercise of planning the installation and acquiring a copy of Fedora Core 2 (included with the book). He then takes you through the installation process step-by-step. Now that you have Linux installed, you need to know what you've got to work with.
Part II covers the basics of using Linux. After spending time showing you around the KDE desktop (GNOME is also reviewed), Mark gets you acquainted with the standard command line utilities, the Linux filesystem, and the shell.
Part III digs into the nitty-gritty of using Linux. He discusses the X Window System, GNOME, KDE, and then BASH (Bourne-Again SHell) is re-visited. He concludes by talking about Networking, distributed computing, and the web.
In Part IV, Mark details the various administration tasks a typical user needs to know. The core concepts chapter is rather lengthy, as he discusses the various run levels, rescue mode, and how to set up and secure a server. Software downloading and installation with rpm, yum, apt are covered, printing with CUPS, rebuilding the Linux kernel, boot loaders, user management, backups and restores, and configuring a LAN complete this part of the book.
Part V is constructed with nine "roll up your sleeves and get started" chapters on using clients and setting up servers. We start with OpenSSH, move to ftp, and configure a secured ftp server. We handle sendmail, Spam Assassin, Webmail, IMAP/POP3 servers, and KMail. Next Mark teaches us about NIS (Network Information Service), NFS (Network Filesystem), and SAMBA, the three main file-sharing *nix applications.
The last three chapters of Part V cover more Internet-oriented subjects: DNS (BIND version 9 particularly), firewalls (iptables), and web servers (Apache).
The penultimate part, Part VI, starts with a chapter that uses a sample C program, tabs.c, to show how to use make to build application binaries, how to tackle debugging problems with gdb, and how to manage source code with cvs. The other chapter delves into the programming of the Bourne Again SHell. Part VII is actually a set of five appendixes covering regular expressions, help, security, the Free Software Definition, and the Linux 2.6 Kernel.
If you've never read any of Mark Sobell's other books, you're in for a treat. His 25+ years of experience in the Unix/Linux field have given him a depth of knowledge that is evident by the way he writes. This marvelous text (with a 4-CD set of Linux Fedora Core 2 included) is well worth the price. This is as close to an "everything you ever needed to know" book that I've seen. It's just that good and rates 5 out of 5.

[A review of the 3RD EDITION, written 19 July 2006.]

In 2 short years, Sobell has updated his 2nd edition into this latest offering. One immediate and useful simplification is that the 4 CDs of linux that were in that edition have been replaced by one DVD, that covers both the avowedly open source Fedora Core and the Red Hat Enterprise linux.

Much of the text is still broadly the same between these 2 editions, from the user's perspective. The commands needed by the average user are mostly unchanged. Linux is (thankfully) pretty stable at this level, and has been so for several years. Likewise for the UI that the user might run.

And some chapters, like on networking and the Internet, are also pretty much unchanged. That particular chapter has good background information on the Internet and the Web.

Some sections are VERY topical. On the chapter about downloading and installing software, there is a concise explanation of how to use BitTorrent. A famous or notorious package that came up with the novel means of sharing files across the net. Wildly popular with the masses. I don't recall if this section was in the second edition, but it is certainly useful to see it here.

Now in a newly updated and expanded second edition and enhanced with the inclusion Fedora Core on 4 CDs, A Practical Guide To Red Hat Linux: Fedora Core And Red Hat Enterprise Linux by UNIX/Linux expert Mark Sobell is an in-depth reference, instructional, usage guide and resource for users, administrators, and programmers of Linux. An exhaustively comprehensive fountain of information A Practical Guide To Red Hat Linux includes everything from deep coverage of GNOME and KDE, tips on file sharing with Samba, NFS, and FTP, a practical introduction to writing "bash" shell scripts, thorough instructions for assorted problems and tasks from rebuilding the Linux kernel to tracking doman names and addresses, a 500+ word glossary and comprehensive index, and much more. If you only have the budget for one Linux book, A Practical Guide To Red Hat Linux is the book to get because it leaves nothing out!

Mark Sobell has always been easy reading for the most complicated technological tasks. His first book still sits on my book shelf and is still used even to this day. No book can be compleate in the subject matter of Linux because Linux is always changing. This book involves the Linux kernal 2.6 and as such will become outdated. But the book is compleate as far as the 2.6 kernal is concerned. The book is written in a terse easy reading style that is a Mark Sobell trademark. This book has excellant refurals throught out refuring you to different sections or other parts of the book for more information on the same subject matter.

I teach a class on Linux and chose this book for several reasons
1. price - Linux 'textbooks' run around $150
2. more than enough good material to fill a semester
3. Sobell's books are consistently the most readable I have seen - topics are explained well in a style that is interesting - a rarity in tech books

As a course book, this is simply wonderful. It is a step by step education in Linux (RH and FC, specifically) and it leaves out nothing of importance. The word "comprehensive" should have been in the title somewhere.

However, I can't agree that this is extremely valuable to an experienced person. Even if your only experience is Windows, there will be plenty here that you already know (basic networking, for example). If you are an old Unix hand, there's a LOT here you don't need to review.

What about if you are in between? Maybe you know a little Unix, or a little Linux but want more? Definitely: this is the book for you.

Mark Sobell has done a great job with this. I don't give out five stars very often, but he deserves 'em here.

I can't fault this book for how big it is. I usually find super huge tomes to be of inconsistent quality across the chapters, but this book has consistently high quality organization, text and use of graphics across all of the chapters. As you would expect the book starts with installation, it then covers use of the operating system from the desktop level. After that it goes into the file system using the shell, and ends up with the with shell programming.

All of the code and shell stuff is hilighted for clarity. The text is not stiff, but isn't so loose as to be annoying. This isn't a reference, it's an end to end walkthrough. If you are looking to use Linux at the end-user level this is a well balanced book that will familiarize you with all of the basics.

To keep it simple...THIS IS THE BOOK!!!
You'll only need one. Learn everything in this book!
Easy to read and lots of examples.
You won't be disappointed!