Customer Reviews

SAIR Linux & GNU Certified Administrator All-in-One Exam Guide

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

 

 

This book was used as a part of my class instruction for Linux certification. It is very easy to read and covers topics in a manner that the beginning student can grasp. It is also a thorough treatment of the topics involved for an LCA certification. It has questions at the end of each chapter and a CDrom (that unfortunately runs on Windows only) with sample exams to test your knowledge of the material. I give this book 5 stars because it is a great learning tool. However, if you wish to pursue a LCA certification, I recommend that you also review the SAIR books. The SAIR books prepare you much better for the FORMAT of the certification exams. My feeling was that I learned Linux with this book and that I learned how to take the certification exams with the SAIR books. They compliment each other well.

I've read through this book, expecting that it would teach me the majority of what I would need to pass the LCA tests. Only about 30% of what was in this book was on the test...the rest was pulled from ?????
I can dismiss a few typos in fictional reading, but when you're dealing with technical information and command syntax, that doesn't cut it. Punctuation errors, mispelled commands, missed switches, etc, are not going to make for an effective learning tool.
The redundancy of information (paragraphs repeated...verbatim) is ridiculuous and unecessary, since this is sort of a "cram session", in my opinion.
Some of the information was also misleading and/or downright contradictory. I spent quite a bit of time searching linux websites to get clarification, which sort of defeats the purpose of an all-in-one book.
I will admit, however, that I must have retained something, either from this book or the hours I spent online--and passed the install/config test. Barely. My advice...look elsewhere. If you're a newbie, this book will only confuse you. If you're looking to become certified, there are much better technical references out there. I should have left this one on the shelf.

I found this book to be very helpful for studying to take the Sair Linux exams. However, this book falls short with the sheer volume of typos and mistakes.

Also, for the CD that is included, I did not find it helpful at all. The mock exam program is also flawed in that some questions did not have a correct answer. Even though it was obvious there was a correct answer, the program did not list one. In addition, about 95% of the questions were taken directly from the book.

All in all this book does an excellent job covering the material thoroughly. If you are purusing this certification, I recommend this book. However, you will be frustrated time after time when noticing so many mistakes.

I used the SAIR GNU Linux Install and Config for the first test and did very well. With the lack of the rest of the books, I turned to this one, seeing that it was touted as a better book. This book has a horrible tendency to repeat itself to the point of being annoying. I studied through the second section, System Administration, and took the test, and about 20% of the test covered material that was not mentioned in this section of the book. Looking through, several questions on the test showed up as items in the next section, Networking. There needs to be a re-evaluation for this book, geared towards training you for the SAIR tests, to actually cover the material the appropriate SAIR test covers.

the book contains information for the initial sair gnu/linux certification exams. it is readable and well-organized. but the cdrom is usable only in a WINDOWS environment! that's guaranteed to loose credibility with the LINUX crowd!