While this rather large book does cover many Red Hat topics, it does so with little depth. You'll be much better informed by actually installing and configuring Red Hat/CentOS and reading the man pages. Caveat Emptor.

If I could I would give this book two and a half stars, but 2 will do. I am a complete noob when it comes to Linux and got this book for class. The book is getting really outdated. I had several different problems installing fedora and it was no hope. Not a great guide for a true beginner but makes a decent reference. I like a lot of examples when starting something new and the examples in this book are lacking. For being 1,000 pages its surprising what is left out.

I have been working in a Windows IT environment for over 7 years, but had no Linux experience except for installing it on a test machine (but then again, even a 5 year-old could install it since it's so easy). But I never had to work with it in an enterprise level until now. Without any solid experience with Linux and armed only with this book (and 7 years of "figuring it out" IT skills), I managed to get Redhat ES v3 running on an old server class machine with an older RAID controller. I even got it to talk to Windows clients AND the old HP-UX servers (I didn't have Unix experience either!). The boss was impressed! This is an excellent book that doesn't get annoying (like those Dummies books) or pretends to be a "Linux Admin book for Beginners" like that other book that's out there. I started with an older version of this book from the library, and this new version is even better. This book is a great investment and I'm glad I bought it.

Now in its third edition along with a DVD that includes Full Fedora Core 4, the latest (as of 10/18/05). People have complained that this book (in its earlier editions) are too simplified and beginnerish. I guess then that I'm not enough of a guru to go to something more advanced.

I find the background that this book gives is exactly at the level I need. Some books that simply say 'type this in.' Other books take a few hundred pages to explain what's happening at a level where I've forgotten the question by the time I get to the end of the description. This book is positioned at a nice level inbetween. I know what to type in and I have some understanding of why.

I further like the writing style and the way they use bold face, 'Notes' and 'Tips' to emphasize things. These features enable me to find out what I need more quickly. Finally, there are additions from the earlier editions which explain things that caused questions or were left out.

I'd rank this as an intermediate level book. It's not a here's how to start with Linux book. Nor is it an in great depth geek level book. I guess I like it so well, because it's at about the level I need.

Very good book with lots of information, but sometimes the author gets carried away with his so-called version of MAN pages. If you need more detail on some stuff, you will need to reference some other book or check online. The book did have some errors and wrong diagrams, just wished someone have proof read it better....

Don't listen to any reviews on this page that are dated before 2004 as they refer to the first edition of this book. The second edition covers RH Enterprise. What I like about this book is that it doesn't have all the "fluff" found in may sys. admin. books. By fluff I mean, introductions to basic commands, piping, ect. The System Administration sections contain a lot of little, specific details that most books simply don't include. Overall, an excellent reference book.

It's a great book with very thorough descriptions of things that other books (e.g. RH 8 unleashed) gloss over or don't cover at all - NIS as an example. Doesn't just tell you the commands to use like some ceritifcation books but explains how things are structured from the ground up. It's getting a little outdated although fundamentally it's still ok.

As some of the other reviewers have said, this book is very watered down. The names of various utilities and how to install them from the command line & the graphical interface are mentioned, and in some cases a small amount of detail is provided. This book provided a good starting point for most linux networking utilities but that is about it.

The book is terrific but I found a virus on the CD. I notified Mr. Kabir but it is the publisher's responsibility and they did not provide an email address for complaints.

virus is the Unix PSite virus and it is in the VetesCan-8-9-200.tar.gz file.

Buyer beware!

Hello all,

I bought this book together with Red Hat Linux 8 Unleashed. I have been working on a small corporate linux server for a month now. I have referred to these books many times. Compared to RedHat Linux 8 Unleashed, this book has very little in it. Although it is "supposed to be" dedicated to administration, you will find more in general linux books. I must admit that the book is good for referencing. For example, you try to set up something. You look up the subject in the book and read the corresponding section. The material is most likely to be outdated and probably the scripts written in the book do not work anymore. (Or they are wrong from the beginning) However, you get to have an intuition about the subject and know where to start searching the web for the required material.

To sum up, if you have a limited budget do not go with this book. I would recommend RedHat Linux 8 Unleashed instead of this. However, if you got the money, this book may have some additional stuff in administration bussiness that may be helpful to you.

Good luck.

I bought this book several months ago and have been using it nearly everyday. I am relatively new to Linux and thought that this book might be too advanced for me. After using it, I did find many areas that were way beyond me, but the explanations and examples were so clear that I began to understand. I think this book has really helped me to rapidly advance my Linux knowledge and skills. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to truly master Linux.

If you are using, or thinking about using Red Hat Linux, you should buy this book. I found this book to be very useful for nearly everything I wanted to do on my system. Following the examples in the book I was able to configure Apache, Samba, NFS and anything I needed to use the system on my network. I highly recommend this book to Red Hat Linux users.