Description:
For those willing to exchange the glossiness of mass-market operating systems for better performance and greater flexibility, Linux is an excellent choice. In Linux Companion for System Administrators, Jochen Hein has produced a highly readable treatise on this operating system's design and capabilities. Generally, Hein focuses on characteristics that all versions of Linux have in common and highlights differences among distributions where appropriate. He starts with core aspects of Linux (such as the file system and the boot process) before moving on to ancillary programs and capabilities. (Coverage of multiple-language capabilities is especially good.) Readers also will find plenty of information on networking--there's full coverage of all aspects of TCP/IP implementation and documentation of many network applications. The main shortcoming in Linux Companion for System Administrators is its lack of specific procedures. You'll find plenty of tables and option lists, plus prose that's clear despite its translation from the German, but there's very little explicit how-to information. If that's what you need, you'll want to supplement this book with a more basic one. --David Wall
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