Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Did they get paid by the page?, May 3, 2006
I needed an in depth course on SuSE 10 and thought this would be it. Unfortunately, the authors wrote as if they got paid by the page. They would regularly rehash what they had discussed in the last section as if the "last section" wasn't still visible half-way up the page and they would constantly give instructions about neophyte computer skills such as how to pull off a ctrl-D or put a CD into a drive (shinny side down, apparently). But, when more information was definitely called for, such as when they list a shell command with half a dozen options, they would suddenly become quite sketchy. I didn't expect a complete command list for Linux that described every option, but if you rattle off a command with a sizable chunk of the alphabet as options, then maybe a brief description of what you're suggesting someone do on their computer is in order. Another annoyance is the authors' insatiable desire to give everyone a few history lessons along the way. If I need to know the back-story of Linux, the various other Novell products, Linus Torvalds, the Internet, the ISO OSI model or the personal computer, I'll look it up online. I needed an in depth course on SuSE 10. Instead, I got a bloated introduction riddled with inane redundancy, tangential trivia and dubiously helpful instructions while completely lacking in any comprehensive detail. This book was at least four times as long as was needed for their level of instruction.
I would have given the book 1 star, but the DVD with SuSE 10 on it was great once I added a few applications and updates. After playing around with over 15 different distros, I've settled on SuSE. The current version is head and shoulders above anything else I've tried and a new version (OSS 10.1) is due out any time. If you need a great Linux OS, I highly recommend SuSE 10.x, but if you need to learn about it, I would suggest a different book.
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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great for budding admins & home networking geeks, March 12, 2006
This is not a book for complete beginners. The reason is that applications are not covered, and the book is sorely lacking the step-by-step guides to enable multimedia features, nvidia drivers, java, flash, etc - you know, the first things you need to do anyway. So don't buy this to your grandma. This is why I give 4, not 5 stars.
Instead, this is a great book for someone with some Linux experience. The emphasis of the book is on the Command Line, Network services (servers) and some small enterprise needs. With each topic, the authors always first explain how it is done from the command line, and after that, with Yast (SUSE's 'Control Center'). They also explain technical concepts quite well - for example when discussing DHCP, they take several pages to explain what is really happening in the network, then start with configuration examples.
I loved this book, I actually read all of it. After 3 years of Mandrake/Mandriva desktop use, I think this is a perfect book for my SUSE transition. I have learned a load of concepts and tricks from it. And a surprisingly large proportion of the material is applicable to any Linux distribution. With it's price and 800 pages, it's good bang for the buck!
PS. The DVD included is SUSE Professional, not OpenSUSE.
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12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Leaves much to be desired, March 27, 2006
Particularly lengthy book. Repetitive to the point of confusion. And with several contradictions as to its "spirit".
For example, it mentions just in passing the scenario where the computer doesn't have adequate capabilities for running the YaST graphical interface. In that case, SUSE linux will revert to a cumbersome text based installation interface which is considerably more painful than -i presume- YaST. It takes a brief google search to realize the large numbers of users who run into the problem. Yet, the 1000-page book provides no help. In case case you are a novice, you have to be a lucky one in order to be able to install relying on this book. Because the text version is not straightforward for the unlucky novice who gets treated with it. I am one of those.
Yet, when the authors decide to talk about partitions, they assume that everything has been installed successfully and then they start describing partitioning using "fdisk". In that case, they present something that no novice would ever use once successfully installing in the first place. Who is this book's target audience, after all? Those who wouldn't need help installing with the considerably less accomodating text version, or those who will mess with partitions using fdisk?
Furthermore, they devote three lines as to the introduction of the concept of mounting. Very clumsy explanation of the concept, with no examples whatsoever. Yet, they devote a long paragraph to suggest that you shouldn't pick your name or that of your spouse as your password.
And several other inconsistencies of that sort. These inconsistencies make it a rather hard book with nonnegligible holes for a novice, yet an unnecessary long one for the experienced user.
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