Surfing the web I discovered more interesting reviews on the Linux Quick Fix Notebook. In this case it came from the Utah PHP User’s Group. Sounds like interesting reading.
“If you are at all interested in Linux, this is one book that you really must have in your library. It is a book that you atleast need to check out.
I recently had the opportunity to review a new book in the Bruce Perens’ Open Source Series entitled “Linux Quick Fix Notebook”by Peter Harrison. The book is definitely one to have in your library. The first thing I did when i received the book was open it up to the table of contents and searched out some advanced topics that I have been looking to read. Topics like wireless networks, iptables, and LVMs to name a few. I was impress to see those topics and more advanced topics like software raids, LDAP and Radius, and linux vpns. Harrison wrote the book to follow a simple pattern of providing real answers to questions ranging from the most basic to advanced.
One of the first sections of the book that I read was “Expanding Disk Capacity”. In searching the table of contents this was one section that really caught my eye. My reasoning for selecting this section is two fold: first, I wanted to see if the book could be used as a reference to various topics; and second, because I wanted to check out some of the advanced topics covered in the book. Peter Harrison does a fanatastic job of focusing on the topic at hand and providing simple and intellegient instruction to your questions. The flow of the book allows you to pick it up and start with a section and just move through it.
As I started reading the book, I noticed that the progression of the topics moved in an orderly fashion that a system administrator would follow. It allowed the basic administrator to start from the beginning and progress to an advanced level of configuration, security and optimization. One item that I did not really like is the references to RedHat as the linux distro. Yet, I can agree with Peter, that many users will start out with this distro or one similar. I think that the topics are great, and my only regret is that there were not more topics to read about.
The book in its entirety is definitely a must have for any system administrator or software developer. Mr. Harrison provides valuable information in sizable chunks for the reader to manage. My only real critique would be to have a different layout in each topic. For example, in chapter 7 Peter discusses “The Linux Boot Process”. He does a great job of explaining and outlining the process. Still, I think that perhaps having sub-sections in the topics would allow readers to glean additional information. Like have a security, advanced, and optimization sub-sections to each topic.
All in all, Harrison does an exceptional job in bring many great topics into one book. Harrison’s style allows the reader to move forward or back without losing momentum in the book. The reader can get quick answers to their questions.”
