Rating: 
Summary: Good place to start.
Review: Found this good place to start since my new job consisted primarily of LINUX servers (DHCP/DNS/MAIL). Picked up some good tips and tricks off this book. I wished that they would have concentrated more on Red Hat. Not a bad buy.
Rating: 
Summary: Settles some issues, brings up more
Review: I agree that this is a book that has been needed for a while, but is incomplete and somewhat misleading.For one thing he completely glosses over both the free and commercial versions of the ASP engines (Apache::ASP, mod_perl, ChiliSoft), and spends little time in explaining something as essential to the Open Source and Linux movements as _make_. Also, he completely misses the point of Linux throughout the book, attributing Linux's success to free as in beer, vice free as in speech and the licensing and fair use issues. The major contribution this book makes is as a bridge to the Windows script kiddies. Linux and Unix admins beware! More of them will know where to go in your file systems now! Marginally fair to good as an intro, but dangerous.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: I always thought that a decoder ring was something that you got out of a box of cracker jacks. But Minasi's offering is no prize. The problem: Minasi tries to cover every popular distribution of Linux in just 500 pages. He generalizes, much to the frustration of the novice user. Indeed, there is useful information contained within "The Secret Decoder Ring" , but as the reader you often feel that you need a decoder ring to find it.
Rating: 
Summary: The King of Communication (or at least a prince)
Review: I am a relatively new administrator with little formal networking education and I have come to rely on Mark Minasi's ablilty to communicate on a level that I can understand. Apparently I am not alone. Trying to find a mentor to help me gain a foot-hold in learning Linux has proven difficult, the terminology is cryptic, the system is just slightly less user-friendly than the horde of Linux techies. Mark starts out by giving us an overview before moving on to solutions to setup problems encountered by most first-time users. Building on what we have already learned he then continues to add to our knowledge with his wit and wisdom. I gave this book five stars because that's the most they have.
Rating:
Summary: THIS is DA BOOK for NT peple want to learn Linux FAST
Review: I am so happy when someone wrote a book about Linux for NT/2000 Administrator, and couldn't be more happier when this person is Mark Minasi-- DA MAN. I have been waiting this book to be out since July.. I got it on Oct 9 and I being reading since then. I read every words, front cover, back cover, Intro.. (I work 10 hrs+ everyday and in 3 days I already on page 87) I'd try to learn linux since beginning of this year, but all the books that I buy about Linux is too hard to understand, It doesn't explain in a NT/2000 term that I understand, so, I finally gave up the ghost, gave up Linux... This book is so easy to understand... It explain everything in NT terms... The book come with a Linux Mandrake CD, and the book does not base on Mandrake, It also talk about other distributions... I know NT/2000 pretty darn well, but I am a newbie on Linux... With this book, I know it can get me up to speed with Linux... THIS is DA BOOK, if you know NT/2000 and TCP/IP and want to learn Linux FAST.
Rating: 
Summary: Now it is out of dated
Review: I bought this book three years ago, there was no problem. Now, it is the end of 2003 and people are still writing reviews. I like to write one thing. This book was written when Redhat Linux was 6.x. Now, it is Redhat 9 and Fedora Core 1. I noticed that Mr.Minasi started to write this book during Windows NT era BEFORE Windows 2000 is on the market. Now, Windows 2003 is on the market as you know. You would get a concept,however, each detail would be out of dated.
Rating:
Summary: As advertised
Review: I can't say enough about how much this book has helped me transition to Linux! It is so much easier to learn a new system using parallels drawn from familiar knowledge. I have enjoyed Minasi's writing style and own several of his books.
Rating:
Summary: I am so happy to have this book. Excellent!
Review: I find a lot of Linux books waste too much coverage for screen shots of installation and copy of how-to documents. And forgot to tell me how to do REAL things. If you are sick of 1000 page Linux books without much useful information, try this book.
Although the book comes with Mandrake CD, which I do not even bother with, it is not limited to Mandrake. I use Redhat 6.2 but I don¡¯t have any problem. (P78, Installing Framebuffer was interesting. It did not work on my Redhat 6.2 though)
Rating:
Summary: The book does what it sets out to do!
Review: I have worked with Dan York in the past and I can tell you he is a really smart guy (and lots of really smart guys would be happy to back me up on that)! Minasi is a great author, and that is coming from another technical author (I've written about 30 tech books). So, is this book great? If you know your way around a Windows system, but find most Linux books a pain to read - this is your book. If you can't read this one, then you should probably give up on reading anything and take a class. Notice I didn't say give up on Linux because that would be crazy. The Linux "movement" is one of the most noble, useful, and wonderful things to happen to computers since the PC.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent!
Review: I normally don't write reviews, but this book was the best Linux book for beginners that I've ever read. Dont let the cheesy title fool you. I'm well past the beginner level at this point, but this is the book that started me off. I would highly recommend this book for someone trying to learn Linux.
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