Rating: 
Summary: Heavy Handed But Better Than Redhdat Documentation
Review: Unless you need Redhat tech support, buying this book to get you started with Linux isn't a bad idea. The author has titled the book "Learning" so if you are not experienced in Unix/Linux then this book will get you started. The fact that the author goes through the trouble of explaining a Redhat install from beginning to end was very useful. Unless you have some odd hardware (i.e. a 3d video card) you should have X runnng as well. You will immediately want to know more however, and this book will leave you wanting more. That is you will have to purchase another book in the near future. The Unleashed (i.e. Redhat 6.0 Unleashed etc...) are typically pretty good, and they also include a Redhat distribution. There are some mistakes/misprints however. Using the instructions as given you cannot get Quake2 running for example. Also there is nothing in the book about how to keep your installation up to date...a must for Linux users as the OS is constantly changing. The one thing though that really irked me was the authors insistence that Gnome was "the most popular desktop environment in the US". Even after updating Gnome on my Linux box with the most recent stable releaes I find Gnome to be unstable and somewhat puzzling. The author spends alot of time talkng about the basics of getting around Gnome, but ignores the other popular desktop for Linux....KDE.Alot of this has to do with an almost religious war within the Linux community regarding what software qualifies as "free software" and what doesn't. The author is obviously a free software zealot and therefore leans towards Gnome. You as a user don't have to worry about this war ...you only have to be concerned about how to use the software on your pc. I think the book is lacking severely becuase it didn't cover KDE as it should have and worse yet, took a slap at KDE. Gnome is unstable. KDE is not. KDE is "free" as far as the user is concerned. In defense of the author though, Gnome is the preferred desktop at Redhat and the book is entitled Learning Redhat Linux, and thats is the desktop you get unless you take other steps on your own. I am happy to report that I am typing this from KDE using Netscape as my browser. A testament to the fact that I got Linux working, and I used this book to get me started.
Rating: 
Summary: Good for beginers!
Review: With so many books about Linux on the market, it is really a difficult to know which books are good and which are not. Learning Red Hat Linux, published by O'Reilly at their famous book series, shows the basic steps at the Linux world, based on the Red Hat distribution. This book doesn't show Linux's advanced configurations, but this is the greatest point of this work: it is a very easy, quick and pratical guide for all those who need to quickly learn this new operating system and doesn't want to spend time reading complicated and hard to understand books.
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