Linux Troubleshooting Bible

Rating:
Summary: Troubleshooting Linux yourself
Review: Linux systems have become easy enough to use that you no longer have to be a computer expert to operate a Linux desktop or set up a simple server. However, making the leap of faith to bet your organization on Linux requires a decision to:

* Purchase expensive support contracts from Red Hat Inc., Novell, Inc. or some other Linux vendor, or

* Take the responsibility to configure and troubleshoot Linux yourself.

Knowing how to safely deploy a Linux system on the Internet, or debug server software or desktop hardware, can take years to develop. Contributors to the Linux Troubleshooting Bible condense their years of experience into a few hundred pages that will set you on your own road to becoming a Linux guru.

I put together the team of writers on this book to save you the thousands of hours it would take to start from scratch learning Linux troubleshooting on your own. Among the contributors is Tom Weeks, who trains technicians that support and protect literally thousands of Linux systems at Rackspace Managed Hosting, and Jesse Keating, founder of the Fedora Legacy Project, which provides critical security updates to Red Hat Linux and Fedora Core Linux systems. I've tried to leverage more than 20 years of my own experience writing about UNIX and Linux system administration to make the information interesting and entertaining.

I took on this project because I felt strongly that the Linux community needs cohesive resources to take the Linux enthusiast forward to where he can become a skilled Linux professional. With a focus on Red Hat (Fedora and RHEL), Debian, and SuSE systems, I hope you find the Linux Troubleshooting Bible to be a useful way to expand your hobby into a powerful profession.


-- Chris Negus
Co-author Linux Troubleshooting Bible
Author Red Hat Linux Bible (all editions)

Rating:
Summary: From a RHCE, Sys admin, and Linux daily user.
Review: This book contains a great amount of information regarding the troubleshooting of key services like Bind, Samba, NFS, Apache, FTP, SSH, and Sendmail. I found very useful information related to printing services, system tools, and backup solutions. The book contains some key "Tips and Tricks" that seem very useful for the everyday issues I see as an administrator. As and RHCE and experienced system administrator, I found the book very useful and find myself picking up the book very often to review and test some of the ideas mentioned on its content.



Rating:
Summary: Not applicable for the desktop user
Review: This book hasn't been of much help to me. My review might be too strict. This book may be useful to people running Linux on servers and networks.

But to the average desktop user, I'd dare say, it's useless. Linux has been very smooth to me so far. I've used SuSE and use Fedora Core. All (minor) problems that I've faced have been easily solved through the various Linux forums.

I have not read this book cover to cover and this may be an unfair review but, still, I can't recommend it to the average user; either newbie or advanced. System administrators should not read my review!

Anyway, the book focuses a lot on Fedora Core 1. It has two chapters for Debian and SuSE. I guess that if this book addressed more to system administrators, it should focus on distros like Red Hat Enterprise Linux or Debian.


Rating:
Summary: Very good. Great assistance information
Review: This book is the best I've ever used for working on my systems. Though it leans heavily on the Red Hat and Fedora distributions, the reader can apply most of the information to their favorite distribution. If I hadn't used it, I never would had known that BIND is now chrooted.