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Title: Linux for Windows Administrators (Mark Minasi Windows Administrator Library) by Mark Minasi, Dan York ISBN: 0-7821-4119-6 Publisher: Sybex Pub. Date: 12 November, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $49.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.12 (17 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: Good, Not Great
Comment: Most people reviewing this book either love it or hate it. I won't go to quite that extreme, but I do have to say that the book missed the mark in a number of areas.
While it is most certainly a matter of editorial discretion, the author seems to have a habit of giving some subjects hardly any mention at all, while providing us with pages of agonizing details on other subjects that most readers will simply want to skip over.
Probably the biggest lost opportunity in this book is the author's one sentence devoted to Webmin, which is unquestionably the single most useful tool for Windows admins transitioning over to Linux. There are entire books devoted to Webmin that will have most Windows admins running a Linux server in no time, and without having to learn any of the exhaustive command line skills that the author recommends.
For those who DO want to learn Linux from the inside out, there is an amazing lack of depth when it comes to basic command line skills. This book would have been immeasurably more useful if it devoted a chapter (or appendix) to explaining some of the more useful commands. I learned more about grep than I ever wanted to know, but there are dozens of just as useful commands that the author never touched upon. So, if you want to learn the most basic command line skills, you are going to need to buy another book.
As some of the other reviewers mentioned, the author comes off as being a bit snobbish when it comes to Linux; quick to complain, slow to compliment. I would rather have had the author use the space reserved for complaints and grumblings with some useful information. It does get a bit old after awhile.
That being said, the author does do a good job of keeping your attention and moves from chapter to chapter in a very logical manner. Unlike many Linux books, the chapters in this book do not seem thrown together at random. It's a book that you will most likely want to read from cover to cover, instead of just using as a reference.
Despite the author's occasional whining, I really enjoyed the book's flow and progression through various topics. The book must have been very up-to-date at the time, but is starting to show its age. The author bases all of his experience with RedHat, who is now dropping out of the "consumer" market, and only offering a very expensive server version now. Thus, RedHat is not the Linux distribution that most of you will want to start off with.
All in all, the book was well worth reading, despite its age and shortcomings. This would be a good first book for you to read if you are a Windows admin trying to learn Linux, but you will definitely need other books on the subject before even considering deploying a Linux server on your network.
Rating: 5
Summary: Best of Class!
Comment: This books is different than anything else on the shelf.
First Minasi doesn't spend 2 chapters discussing the history of linux. Second, this is full of concise, accurate information and examples. Third, this book does presume you are a guru, or an idiot but EXACTLY what the title says a "Windows Administrator(s)". Fourth, Minasi's wit had me laughing aloud several times. This is a FUN read. I have read (cover to cover) this book 3 times; my other books I reference.
I used this book and a few others to learn enough about linux to land a linux engineers job (from an MCSE System Admin) and grab a 29.5% pay hike. A great ROI. Paid for itself in about an hour!
Rating: 3
Summary: Skip first three or four chapters
Comment: Skip the first three chapters, 37 pages, you'll miss nothing except some bad info about Windows 2000. If you can use Partition Magic to prepare your disk for installation and the nic was identified during setup, skip Chapter 4 and start at page 101. If you can make up your own mind on where to use Linux or NT (the author didn't understand 2000 Dir. Svcs. yet so he only compared Linux to NT), skip Chapter 10 and stop at page 471. That leaves 370 pages of Linux info. provided by the co-authors. Browsing through these chapters, X seems to be an important feature. That matches with my limited understanding. Lots of important topics are mentioned but none covered very deeply. The comparisons with Windows technology weren't that important or were just uninformed (DNS comparisons ignored services) and most features, RPM for instance, don't benefit from a Windows perspective. Too bad they wasted 200 pages on fluff. That's why it gets a three. Don't pay retail for this book, it is already dated material and should be heavily discounted. As an MCSE Network Admin on NT & 2000, I saw 2000 and Server 2003 leave NT in the dust along with Linux. Directory Services and group policies are vital to distribution and central management. Linux has only SNMP so far. Soon Linux will be ready for [self-installing on] client desktops which may be it's future. Directory-based services and integrated business software (Exchange, CRM) will run on proprietary server OS's from IBM, Windows, and maybe Oracle OS in the future. Clients will stream XML of secure managed code from these servers and back via open protocols. JIT compilers and local code libraries will assemble client executables that use remote web services and data. Admins: read about web services and Mono on Linux.
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Title: Mastering Windows Server 2003 by Mark Minasi, Christa Anderson, Michele Beveridge, C. A. Callahan, Lisa Justice ISBN: 0782141307 Publisher: Sybex Pub. Date: 07 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $59.99 |
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Title: Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Administrator's Pocket Consultant by William R. Stanek, William R. Stanek ISBN: 0735613540 Publisher: Microsoft Press Pub. Date: 12 March, 2003 List Price(USD): $29.99 |
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Title: Mark Minasi's Windows XP and Server 2003 Resource Kit by Mark Minasi, Peter Hipson, Robert R. King ISBN: 0782140807 Publisher: Sybex Pub. Date: 05 May, 2003 List Price(USD): $139.96 |
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Title: Red Hat Linux 9 Bible by Christopher Negus ISBN: 0764539388 Publisher: John Wiley & Sons Pub. Date: May, 2003 List Price(USD): $49.99 |
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Title: Mastering Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 by Barry Gerber ISBN: 0782142044 Publisher: Sybex Pub. Date: 25 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $49.99 |
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