Books

Learning Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Fedora

Average customer rating:

Learning Red Hat Enterprise Linux & Fedora, Fourth Edition
Perfect for what I was looking for...
Can't rate because it did not meet my needs
End-user level introduction to Linux
Good intro to Fedora

Learning Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Fedora
Bill McCarty
Manufacturer: O'Reilly Media, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 059600589X

Book Description

The GNU/Linux® success story is well known. Firmly established as a high-performance operating system, its worldwide installations are increasing at phenomenal rates. Much of this success has been on the server side, but more and more PC users are turning to Linux on the desktop, as well. For those grounded in Microsoft Windows® or Apple Macintosh® graphical interfaces, the first look at a powerful Unix-style operating system can be daunting. This book provides a clear, no-nonsense introduction to the popular Red Hat® distribution of Linux. It takes you through installation and shows you the key parts of the system, always with an eye toward what can go wrong and what you need to know to get over the humps. Linux is known as a secure environment and a good platform to run a web server. These topics are among the many covered in this book. But did you know you can also burn CDs, sync a PalmPilot™, and edit slideshow presentations with powerful tools on Linux? Those topics are covered here, too. Red Hat currently provides two distributions, both documented in this book. The first is their commercial, subscription-based product, called Red Hat Enterprise Linux and also available through retail channels as Red Hat Professional Workstation. The second is the freely distributed Fedora distribution. The Publisher's Edition of Fedora is included in this book on two disks. New in this edition are installation instructions for Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Fedora, package updating for Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Fedora, information on the GRUB bootloader, and the CUPS printer system. Learning Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Fedora tells you how to:

Prepare your system for installing Linux
Install and configure Linux and the two popular desktop environments, GNOME and KDE.
Run the most popular productivity tools on Linux: mailers, web browsers, OpenOffice, and Evolution.
Obtain and set up software through the Red Hat Package Manager (RPM)
Set up a Linux system for networking, either on your local area network (LAN), or via a dialup connection to the Internet.
Use the system-administration tools included with Red Hat, GNOME, and KDE, including such valuable utilities as Samba file-sharing and the Apache web server.
Understand and write shell scripts so you can peek under the hood and extend the power of Linux.

Customer Reviews:

Learning Red Hat Enterprise Linux & Fedora, Fourth Edition.......2005-07-12

I found this book to be very readable and a good way of getting up to speed on Linux. The book: (i) guides you how to load Fedora onto your computer, (ii) describes how Linux works, and (iii) discusses Linux applications, networking and scripts. The author also touches on the Red Hat Enterprise version of Linux throughout the text. The Linux installation section is well written with plenty of screen shots showing the various screens during installation. The other sections are also very readable. The book comes with a couple of CDs containing Fedora Core1. A reader may wish to download a more recent version (Fedora 4 is available at the time this review was written). This book is a good springboard in getting into the Linux world with Fedora; however I think that a person will want to supplement this book with a reference on Linux (such as Linux in a Nutshell) in order to get a more detailed coverage on topics.

Perfect for what I was looking for..........2004-10-04

In my quest to learn Linux, I've been working through the book Learning Red Hat Enterprise Linux & Fedora by Bill McCarty (O'Reilly). This is exactly what I was looking for in a learning guide.

Chapter list: Why Run Linux?; Preparing to Install Linux; Installing Linux; How Linux Works; Using the GNOME and KDE Desktops; Using Linux Applications; Conquering the bash Shell; Installing Software Using the RPM Package Manager; Configuring and Administering Linux; Connecting to the Internet; Setting Up Network Services; Advanced Shell Usage and Shell Scripts; Linux Directory Tree; Principal Linux Files; Managing the Boot Process; Linux Command Quick Reference; Index

This book concentrates more on the desktop and graphical interface aspect of running Linux, which is exactly what I was looking for. While this book won't tell you everything you need to know about any specific subject (like shell programming or networking), it covers more than enough to get you up and running with a complete Linux setup. Using this volume, I've been able to get a full desktop and server setup going with little effort or trouble. By following the rest of the book, I'll gain a solid base of knowledge of Linux, and then I'll be ready to move on to more detailed learning.

Perfect level of coverage for where I'm at, and enough detail to get me up and running quickly... I like it.

Can't rate because it did not meet my needs.......2004-09-27

I wanted a book that could help me with fedora in TEXT MODE. This book looked great and obviously, books from Oreilly are always good so I bought it.

This book is absolutely NOT a good book to learn Fedora in TEXT MODE because the book is about graphic mode and it wasn't said somewhere. It's all about GNOME and KDE.

Be sure you use the graphic mode before buying!

End-user level introduction to Linux.......2004-08-10

From the title I would have suspected something about building scalable Linux servers for web applications. Turns out the book is nothing like that. It's a ground up introduction to Linux from the end-user perspective. It starts in Windows with prepping a system for Linux installation, works through the installation (replete with lots of screenshots), then goes into the basics of window managers and Linux Office-style applications. The last few chapters go into some depth on working in the shell and shell scripting, but it's pretty light.

This is a solid introduction to end-user level Linux that should be suitable for anyone who is reasonably technical (no need to be a programmer). The only reason I give it four stars instead of five is because of the reliance on numerous screenshots, which isn't the best way to explain things, and is not the quality that I expect from O'Reilly.

Good intro to Fedora.......2004-06-25

My recommendation is, this is a good book for a Linux novice or someone starting with Fedora for the first time.
Those with experience, will probably want to pass on this book. Its not likely you'll pick up anything new
(I didn't). (For those unfamiliar with what Red Hat has done with the split out of Fedora; think of
Fedora Core 1 as Red Hat Linux 9.1 or 10; if Red Hat had continued the product line.)

This book focuses on the "NEW" Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Fedora Core 1 Linux user. The book is a relatively
easy read. Bill McCarty writes a clear and well organized book. From a novice's perspective, the author gives
you, what you need to get Fedora installed, running and usable. The author does a good job of pointing
the reader at additional information sources on each topic. The book is short, less than 300 pages.
This is nice compared to some of the other 1,000 page plus Linux novice tomes; which try to be a "how to get
started" book and a "general reference" all at they same time; except they don't do either well. Linux should
be friendly, not scary. First timers shouldn't have to read a Encyclopedia to get started in Linux. I agree
with the author's choice of brevity for his book.

One suggestion to the author, would be to include output examples with the CLI (Command Line Interface) examples.
He does it with the GUIs, so why not with the CLIs???

I bought the book because "Red Hat Enterprise" (RHE) was in the title. I was disappointed in the fact there wasn't
more detail about RHE. In retrospect, anyone doing RHE, is probably an experienced Linux person working for a
company, where RHE is deployed and may even have had formal training on RHE. So why would they need this book?

My bona fides; I've been using been using various flavors of Unix for an embarrassing long time, Red Hat Linux
for 8 yrs (from release RH 3.0.3 to 9) and I have been running Fedora Core for about 5 months now.

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