Rating: 
Summary: Lots of good material, poorly edited
Review: I have been over this book several times to review the material and have found some mistakes. These mistakes come mostly in the Q & A sections, but there is also some conflicting information in the chapter material. I feel it has a wealth of information, just not edited very well.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent source but don't let it be your only guide
Review: I really like these Osborne books. They are friendly, easy to read, well illustrated and concepts are concisely explained. Out of all the publishers on Tech certification books, I look to Osborne first.The Linux+ book is what I expected in terms of quality and user friendliness. It's quite thorough and got me probably 80% of the way to passing the exam. One area that I can see for improvement is they way they break up the information. Since Linux leaves such a large area of ground to cover, it has to be broken up into digestible chunks; starting from easy to grasp concepts to progressively more difficult. This tends to make information on certain applications a bit scattered. For instance, we know early on that a Linux machine can be used as a web server, but we find out in the next chapter that its configuration file is kept in the /etc/ folder before we know that the application is Apache. Since I prefer to read and digest information in more of a straight shot (Apache from start to finish, FTP from start to finish), this process annoys me a bit. It's almost like watching a Quintin Tarantino film where all the bits you've seen throughout the book suddenly make sense at the end. However, learning things from start to finish is my particular way of remembering the most, while others appreciate the progressive manner, so it really boils down to personal preference. I find myself taking a lot of notes by hand to help me remember. The quizzes and exercises in the book are good and prepared me quite well for what was on the exam. The CD that came with the book provided a good engine to get me familiar with what to expect. I did end up passing the Linux+ exam, but I also downloaded some Cram Session sheets and took some mock tests. It's always best to do that to not only get a second explanation of the technology, but also to ensure the concepts have properly sunk in. I like Osborne books, but once again, get a second or even third way to review the field before the test. Good luck!
Rating: 
Summary: Great material
Review: If you are new to Linux as I am, this book will ease you into it. This book and the question CD is all I needed to pass the exam and on the first try. It is clear and follows the Linux exam objectives very closely. I definately recommend it!
Rating:
Summary: Seems to have all the information needed to pass.
Review: Linux is the fastest growing operating system around today and learning the ins and outs is important to making sure your system and
network run properly and flawlessly. CompTIA has recently released Linux+ Certification and certification material is important to
passing this exam.
In this 675 book every exam objective is met although there could me more coverage of the hardware side of the certification. Starting
off the book is and overview of Linux and the Linux+ Certification followed up with networking.
From there you'll move to hardware configuration of ESD, SCSI, IEEE1394 and troubleshooting. Moving on to the installation,
configuration and administration of Linux along with system administration and troubleshooting. I found this book to remain neutral in
the coverage and give you more than enough information.
There are over 25 exercises, lab questions & answers with the 2 minute drills in each chapter. Also included are exam hints, tips and
tricks to make taking the exam easier. Included is a cd with CertTrainer for self paced training and ExamSim with practice exams that
can be set in different modes. Also included with the cd is LabSim with different scenarios.
Rating:
Summary: Wish it had a bit more
Review: The authors are knowledgeable about Linux, but not as knowledgeable about the Linux+ exam. I cam across
a few questions on the Linux+ exam that I did not find in the book. If you are an experienced Linux user
you should get by on the exam with your experience. If you new to Linux I wouldn't use this as your only study resource for the exam.
Rating:
Summary: Covers the objectives but lacks detail
Review: The book covers all the objectives but it doesn't go into enough detail. It seems to spend a lot of time talking around a subject instead of giving you what you need to know straight away. I found the little editorial comment columns annoying considering the info given is common sense. There are many errors relating to the correct switch commands. They make the mistake of giving you capital letters instead of lower case, which is wrong and confusing. The questions and answers are also riddled with little errors. One glaring error I found was on page 328 in the answer reviews "There is no such file as boot.log" Well there is under /var/log and I got two questions in the exam on this log file. Another problem I had was with the questions that come with the CDROM Cert trainer. There are not enough of them and they are too easy and not challenging enough. The book is ok to read for someone new to the Linux OS. It covers all the objectives but if you want to pass the exam and if you are new to the OS I would recommend maybe some other books or Linux Internet guides to go with this one.
Rating:
Summary: Windows needed for the CD!
Review: The book looks very good - coverage seems to be in the right depth. There are however lots of typographical errors and it seems odd to me that a certification book on Linux has a CD-ROM that needs to be installed in Windows to get access to all of the software!! In the words of the book "A limited version of CertTrainer for Linux is included on the CD". When you are learning Linux, you need Linux going.
Rating:
Summary: Windows needed for the CD!
Review: The book looks very good - coverage seems to be in the right depth. There are however lots of typographical errors and it seems odd to me that a certification book on Linux has a CD-ROM that needs to be installed in Windows to get access to all of the software!! In the words of the book "A limited version of CertTrainer for Linux is included on the CD". When you are learning Linux, you need Linux going.
Rating:
Summary: On the verge of being an excellent book
Review: The Osborne book was very enjoyable reading and quite helpful. The only reason it did not get 5 stars is that there are ALOT (and I mean ALOT) of typos that could throw people without much linux experience way off track both in the QA and in the text. I am not sure this would be recommended for true linux beginners because of the typos but if you have at least a little linux experience it is a great read.
Rating:
Summary: On the verge of being an excellent book
Review: The Osborne book was very enjoyable reading and quite helpful. The only reason it did not get 5 stars is that there are ALOT (and I mean ALOT) of typos that could throw people without much linux experience way off track both in the QA and in the text. I am not sure this would be recommended for true linux beginners because of the typos but if you have at least a little linux experience it is a great read.
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