[ Thanks to Chris
Moewes for this link. ]
“Linux books are starting to be a dime a dozen these days. I
still remember the days before the 1998 Linux boom when all I could
find as far as Linux literature is regarded was the Using Linux
book published by Que and O’Reilly’s Running Linux, aside from the
wonderful online documentation put together by the Linux
Documentation Project (LDP). But things are quite different these
days. It’s pretty much impossible to go to any major bookstore
without seeing a few shelves in the computer section exclusively
dedicated to Linux books. The only problem I see is that most of
them are nothing but the proverbial different shades of gray, since
many of those books seem to be aimed only at the new Linux user who
has been using Windows all his life.”
“Professional Linux Deployment is a little bit different. It
assumes that the reader already installed Linux, and it doesn’t
bother to teach her how to move around the shell, create user
accounts or even how to set up a printer for that matter. Instead,
the goal of the book is to help you deploy Linux for any of the
multiple functions where it excels at (file and printer
serving, web and FTP, directory services with LDAP, groupware,
database applications…), and when it comes to these issues the
authors definitely take their time to provide detailed step-by-step
directions on how to install and configure the different packages
to the point that in some instances it becomes too repetitive to
read the same tar -xzvf [packagename] or instructions on how to
compile with make over and over again in different chapters of the
book.”
“That this book is aimed at business types (or at least the
technical people who work for their IT departments) becomes obvious
already in chapter 1 (Linux in the Enterprise). Quite a few pages
are dedicated to explain what is Linux, its origins, history, some
short description of the philosophy behind the open source
movement, and a really good discussion of which ones are Linux’
strengths and shortcomings. Now, I must say I have read many books,
articles and postings on the advantages and disadvantages of open
source and Linux in particular, but these pages are by far one of
the most objective descriptions I have ever seen. No penguin
dogmatism or FUD (fear, uncertainy and doubt) propaganda leaked
into these common sensical section. I am pretty sure business
reader will definitely like that chapter.”