Rating: 
Summary: Takes too much for granted...
Review: I had great expectations when I first opened the book, expecting a tutorial format leading me from novice to accomplished. I'm pretty disappointed... On the surface, the book appears to head in that direction, but I soon found myself being "exampled" to death with commands that had not been previously introduced or explained. I got the distinct impression that Mr. Jang was trying to show us readers just how knowledgeable he is on the subject. I'll grant him that, but that's not what I needed.The book has lists of "things" in many places, but I'd much rather have an explanation of the relevant items before I'm tossed the entire set of "things" with no way to discern what's most important from what's less so. I've learned more from the online RedHat documentation than I've learned from this book; if I had the chance to learn Linux all over again, I'd spend my money elsewhere. Caveat emptor, as always....
Rating:
Summary: This book has good intentions, but...
Review: I have been a Solaris system admin for some time, so I understand a bit about this subject. However, when going through this book word by word, I have found mistakes that make it almost impossible for the average user to learn. Fortunately for me, I can look and say, hey, this isn't right and figure out what figure he should be referencing; figure out that his IP address was added incorrectly, figure out what the heck he is REALLY talking about. Whoever proofread this book should be fired! IE. page 375, Table 13.3 stop (table says this command STARTS a service)! Too many mistakes to mention individually. Some of it is well written, but certainly not much of it for my mind.
Rating: 
Summary: Great book about using Linux and Red Hat 9 distro
Review: I needed a reference to make the transition from Windows to Linux easy and less painful. This book pretty much covered everything from installing Linux to using the command line and the Redhat GUI. The book contained great screen shots to give you a good visual step by step guide to working within the Redhat GUI. Good book that I would recommend to anyone interested in dabbling in linux.
Rating:
Summary: Great book about using Linux and Red Hat 9 distro
Review: I needed a reference to make the transition from Windows to Linux easy and less painful. This book pretty much covered everything from installing Linux to using the command line and the Redhat GUI. The book contained great screen shots to give you a good visual step by step guide to working within the Redhat GUI. Good book that I would recommend to anyone interested in dabbling in linux.
Rating:
Summary: Dude! Excellent book for creating a server!
Review: I'm a Microsoft Windows admin, who wanted to learn Linux. A friend told me to pick up this book, and I'm glad. It just amazed me. The other big Linux Bible book has like no pictures showing how to install. This book shows me step by step! I thought I did a stupid thing not backing up before installing Linux on my old D: drive. Not a problem! This book helped me do it easy. Didn't even touch my C: Drive. Kickstart? It's like installing Linux automatically like MSBatch. Others told me that NFS was hard to do. Not if you have this book! The graphical tools that Red Hat got work well for me. What a relief that I don't have to work at the command line - and this book shows me how. I wish it did more of the GUI though.... the coverage of the desktop is like too few words on every last thing in the GUI. Not enough GUI for me. I know, the people in my Linux user group tell me that the command line is better, but I'm just not used to it. Takes time to read through all those commands. But this book is better than the man pages! And hey, I got it working on my LAN easy with Red Hat's GUI network tools. Wish they had a GUI for DHCP though. Next step - I want to see if I can make my Linux computer into a gateway for my network. That Red Hat Security Configurator looks promising. Then I'll be able to run my Web server off of this Linux box. But so far with this book, no problem! And I just found the extra Web material on the Sybex Web site - it's gonna help me figure out what I need to do with all these Linux certifications.
Rating:
Summary: Nice for a Windows user who wants to learn Linux
Review: I've read a number of different books on Red Hat Linux, and this is the best I've seen. The writing style is easy, the server setups work. Yeah, it has it's share of typos, but it's shown me how to recompile the Linux kernel for the first time! Explanations of the kernel in other books confuse the h#(# out of me. Starting with the intro, Chapter 4 helped me set up a network server for installing Linux. Several chapters gave me the courage to use real commands at the command line for the first time. As a Windows user, I wish it went more into the stuff you can do at the GUI. But I've set up FTP and Web servers that work on my home network.
Rating:
Summary: The Best of Its Class
Review: Michael Jang's Mastering Red Hat Linux 9 is bar-none, simply the best of the BIG books on RH 9. Beginners through advanced users alike will find it invaluable as a reference. It's obvious this book was written from scratch -- so many books suffer from over revision with errors and sentences stuck in here and there that don't make sense, but not this book. Jang is an excellent author -- thank you, Michael, for putting so much effort into your writing. It's clear you have the reader's needs in mind and that you understand the challenges Linux users face, and the questions we will inevitably come up with. In the perfect world, Red Hat would give authors like Michael some of the profits, since his book will most definitely help their company sell more product.
Rating: 
Summary: Good Book, can still be improved
Review: The book is pretty comprehensive and generous with examples. It serves well as a guided instruction on those who are just starting with linux. This is book is also a good refernce material, however, there are certain topics I was hoping would be included, like OpenLDAP, mySQL, TACACS+ and how these tools integrate with Linux for it to become more rounded. Overall, Mastering RH9 is still book worth having on our shelves.
Rating:
Summary: Good Book, can still be improved
Review: The book is pretty comprehensive and generous with examples. It serves well as a guided instruction on those who are just starting with linux. This is book is also a good refernce material, however, there are certain topics I was hoping would be included, like OpenLDAP, mySQL, TACACS+ and how these tools integrate with Linux for it to become more rounded. Overall, Mastering RH9 is still book worth having on our shelves.
Rating:
Summary: SUPER How-To with online Bonus material!
Review: This is a great book for several types of readers--it can help Windows users ease into the Linux world, demonstrate the latest changes for experienced Linux users, and illustrate how the most recent Linux developments differ from familiar Unix procedures. This particular version possessed several major transitions (i.e. Apache and Samba.) Mastering RH9 covers them thoroughly and explains them extremely well. The author provides a practical guide with understandable how-to directions for any reader/user/admin. There is even BONUS material online at the Sybex.com site, which I found particularly helpful.
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