Customer Reviews

Red Hat Linux Fedora 3 Unleashed

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I've been running Linux for a couple of years now, but my background is pretty spotty, because I've never taken the time to read through a book on Linux. I needed something general but aimed toward intermediate to advanced users. I also wanted something up-to-date. I'm finding that Fedora 3 Unleashed is pretty close to perfect for my purposes.

But there is a fly in the ointment-- which is that, in my opinion, Fedora Core 3 is something of a dog-- and I'm not the only one who thinks so. On my system, it runs slow and crashes so often you'd think it was Windows, and there are some inconvenient problems with permissions. For me and many users, you have to edit some file in order to eject CDs from a normal user account.

I ran FC 1 and 2 and they were both pretty good-- so I'm hopeful that the bugs will be ironed out for the next FC release. In the meantime, I've gone back to Debian Sarge, which runs like a dream, even though there isn't currently anything like an up-to-date published Debian manual available. Nevertheless, I'm finding "Fedora 3 Unleashed" to be be well worth my time, even if Fedora 3 itself is not.

I'll start by saying I'm not a linux guru by any means. I've played around with Red Hat, starting with 7, then 9, and now FC3. I also have used Debian a bit. Further, a long time ago in a city far, far away, I used Solaris exclusively when I was in college.

That being said, this book reads like VCR instructions. In olde english. Upside down.

I installed Fedora BEFORE I bought the book, and had an OK-running system. I got the book to start doing more with it -- set up Samba, Sendmail, DNS, etc. I would have been better just reading the FAQ's online. This book has no flow, no good examples, and makes even the easiest tasks difficult (at best) or just plain rediculous (at worst). Get a different book.

If my review hasn't dissuaded you, then I'll give you my copy. Anything to get this thing off my shelf.

I tend to be extra generous in comments about computer books, but not today. If I can figure the example out for myself with enough guidance from the text I'm relatively happy. As a new Linux user this book is really bad. I wish I had of bought the Fedora 3 Bible, or absolutely anything else instead. It's easy to misunderstand or read over the product description 'Incorporating an advanced approach...'. Is this some sort of code for 'This book is for advanced users only', but without hurting sales to newbies? Clear as dum.