Red Hat Linux Fedora 3 Unleashed (Paperback)

~ Billy Ball (Author), Hoyt Duff (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Keeping with the tradition of offering the best and most comprehensive coverage of Red Hat Linux on the market, Red Hat Fedora 3 Unleashed includes new and additional materials based on the latest release of Red Hat's Fedora Core Linux distribution. Incorporating an advanced approach, the information presented aims to provide you with the best and latest information about installation, configuration, system administration, server operations and security. Updated discussions of the architecture of several Linux issues, as well as material on new applications, peripherals and Web development are also included. Get the most out of the latest Red Hat Linux distribution with Red Hat Fedora 3 Unleashed.

About the Author

Red Hat Linux Fedora 3 UnleashedLead Authors

Bill Ball is the best-selling author of nearly 20 books about Linux, including several editions of Red Hat Linux Unleashed, Que Publishing's Using Linux, and Sams Publishing's SuSE Linux Unleashed. He is a technical writer, editor, and magazine journalist, and has been using computers for nearly 30 years. He first edited books for Que in 1986, and wrote one of the first best-selling Linux books, Teach Yourself Linux in 24 Hours, in 1997. He has authored articles and reviews in Linux Journal, developed technical online content for business Web sites, and has developed and released open-source software for the Mac OS and Palm OS platforms. He has been a fan of Linux and XFree86 since 1994 and uses the software on Intel-based PCs, Apple PowerMacs, and MIPS platforms. Bill is an active member of the Northern Virginia Linux Users Group (NOVALUG); teaches Linux courses at Stratford University in Falls Church, Virginia; and lives in the Shirlington area of Arlington, Virginia. He can be contacted through http://www.tux.org/~bball.

Hoyt Duff feels that a good word to describe his life experience is "former"—former senior vice president and senior commercial loan officer for a bank, former community college instructor, former restaurateur, and former special education teacher. He currently meets the needs of his inner ADD child by spending the summer months tending to his family business, a sport fishing pier (the longest on the East Coast), and playing cocktail piano on weekends. Hoyt even finds time to write about Linux as a columnist and regular contributor of reviews and tutorial for Linux Format magazine. Active in the TideWater UNIX Users Group (http://www.twuug.org), Hoyt enjoys the regular Linux installfests the most and will attempt to install Linux on anything that moves.

His computer experiences began with writing college course Fortran programs on an IBM 360/65, Pascal programming on the original IBM PC, and then taking a detour hacking 6502 assembler on a Commodore VIC20. Discovering Linux through an article in Boot magazine, he eventually got his first commercial writing assignment for its sister publication, MaximumLinux magazine. The philosophy that drives his life is "Fix it until it breaks," which is why he enjoys Linux so much. Hoyt can be contacted at [e-mail].

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Product Details

• Paperback: 984 pages
• Publisher: Sams (December 14, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0672327082
• ISBN-13: 978-0672327087
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7.4 x 2.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,568,005 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great Book, not a great distro, April 2, 2005

By	Sonnet29 (Binghamton NY USA) - See all my reviews

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.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Great book! for starting fires with..., July 20, 2005

By	E. Iverson "Software Engineering Student" (MSOE, WI USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.

8 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Really POOR for new users!!!, February 7, 2005

By	Jonathan Robinson (Tasmania, Australia) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.