A Practical Guide to Fedora and Red Hat Enterprise Linux

by Mark G. Sobell

MyITCertificationlabs should be used in an instructor led classroom environment and are not intended for individual self-study

Genres: Computer Science, Reference, Computers, Software, Technology

1266 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2011

About the author

Mark G. Sobell, author of many best-selling books, including A Practical Guide to Fedora and Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Sixth Edition, A Practical Guide to Ubuntu Linux, Third EditionA Practical Guide to Linux Commands, Editors, and Shell Programming, Third Edition (all from Prentice Hall), has more than thirty years of experience working with UNIX and Linux. He is the president of Sobell Associates Inc., a consulting firm that designs and builds custom software applications for UNIX and Linux systems and provides training and support.

Mr. Sobell started working with computers part time after high-school where he worked on the Dartmouth Time-sharing system where they developed the BASIC programming language and on IBM OS/360 systems. He started writing when he worked for microcomputer company Cromemco in the late 1970's. He published his first book A Practical Guide to UNIX in 1982 and started Sobell Associates in 1984. He has been writing and consulting ever since.

- http://www.sobell.com/other/bio.html

Reviews

[Jeanne Boyarsky · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read the sixth edition which isn't currently on goodreads:

"A Practical Guide to Fedora and Red Hat Enterprise Linux" is a long and thorough book that manages to take you from beginner to advanced. It's both a great book to learn from and a great reference book - a rare combination.

For learning Linux, the book starts with basic commands and builds up to more complex utilities. There are hands on "jumpstarts" and tutorials so you can get started with advanced tools quickly. There are plenty of warnings and tips. And cross referencing - appreciated in a 1000+ page book.

For people who already know Linux, skimming/skipping the basic sections is fine. The book more than pays for itself with the advanced materials.

As a reference, there are multiple indices - file names, utility name, jumpstarts and the main index. Plus the glossary. Many chapters contain extensive tables. Also the left sidebar easily hones in on what you want to find.

I particular liked the use of both flowcharts, syntax guides and examples to teach concepts. Whether they were networking terms or how to write a script.

I think this book may replace my dog eared five year old UNIX one as the first book I grab when I want to look something up! My only caveat is that a third of the book is identical to Sobel's other title - A Practical Guide to Linux Commands...". But then you'd already have formed an opinion and not need this review.

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Disclosure: I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for writing this review on behalf of CodeRanch.

[Joredos · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wish that book to covered more about core differences between other Linux distributions not only for his core services.It is helpful book and very easygoing.Must be closer for every beginner in those distros.

[Luke · Rating 5 out of 5]

A clearly written and thorough introduction to using and administering Linux systems, covering both the graphical user interface and the command line. It also contains excellent introductions to shell scripting with the Bourne Again Shell and to programming with perl. User administration, program compilation and installation, networking, printing, security- its all covered in some detail. It explains the three main init systems currently in use: SysV Init, Upstart, and Systemd, so all the bases are covered. I highly recommend it.

[Erik Molnar · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a large book with a lot of information. I read it to get familiar with what I do not know. Turns out there is a lot that I do not know. This is a great starting point for Linux. I will continue by doing other forms of training to supplement what I read in the book and continue to use the book as a reference guide.

[Iain · Rating 5 out of 5]

I installed Scientific Linux 6.5 on a pc and this has Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.4.
The commands and tutorials still apply to Scientific Linux 6.5. The best Red Hat author (Doctor Mark Sobell). Red Hat is great when you need a consistent kernel version (2.32.431) in order to maximize stability

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good overview. Sadly, Virtualization chapters are rather short (that, or my expectations are too high, from working in this field)

[Bookwyrm13 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bit out of date