Rating: 
Summary: 5 stars for the right book
Review: Dear BONEHEADS at Amazon:I am the author of this book (Bill Ball), using my wife's account to write this review... I want to state that Amazon is seriously misleading its customers BY POSTING INACCURATE, OUT-OF-DATE, AND WRONG REVIEWS for Red Hat Linux and Fedora Unleashed. I WANT THIS FIXED NOW! I emailed a correction SIX WEEKS AGO in an attempt to correct this situation... My publisher, Pearson Eductation, is apparently unable to convince Amazon to fix this problem in a timely fashion. So, for the first month of my latest book's appearance on Amazon, it has been hobbled by a review of a title that is nearly SIX YEARS OLD! Please, please, please, can we get this fixed????
Rating:
Summary: A reference book for the Linux enthusiast
Review: This review is for Red Hat Linux and Fedora Unleashed. When I was considering purchasing this book, I had mostly come across inaccurate reviews referring to older editions that bear no relevance to this one. I am writing this review (the first one I have EVER written) in support of this particular edition of the book. Before I had purchased this book, I considered myself to be just an average user of Linux. Coming from years of experience in the "Windows" world, including knowledge of scripting and programming languages, I felt that I was ready to explore the Linux world. Sure, I managed to get along rather well, but there was still more that I wanted to know about Linux. This book provided me with the knowledge I needed to get to the next level. Red Hat Linux and Fedora Unleashed is a book that no Linux wannabe expert should be without. It covers basically everything from installing and configuring a Linux workstation to writing shell and Perl scripts. I could never have done the things that I do now in Linux without the help of this book. You can tell how useful this book is just by paging through the index! Don't get me wrong, I am still learning as I go along here. But now I have an advantage. In fact, I plan to set up a couple of Linux servers in the near future and I am looking forward to utilizing the several chapters in this book that cover server configuration.
Rating: 
Summary: Good Book
Review: Being the first time I installed Linux, I had to read the chapter on how to install it twice. However, now that I have more expertise I look back and realize that the instructions are not wrong but down to the point. I also had to read the chapter on how to get XWindows to work twice but I got it to work just fine. This book is excellent once you have intermediate knowledge of linux. sincerely J.Brenes
Rating: 
Summary: A reference of sorts, but not a good "how to" book
Review: I bought this because the book had the RH 5.2 CD and the liner said the book would help me install it. I was disappointed. A Linux veteran helped me get it installed, and told me the install steps were not all correct. I never got the X stuff to work. Later I could not find simple stuff like how to mount a DOS floppy diskette. I did get started with Linux, but overall I paid too much and would have returned it if I could.
Rating: 
Summary: bad instructions in books
Review: I followed the instruction of this book but found I could not get any xterm works. Linux looks like another DOS on my computer. It was a waste of money. If I buy a compiler in store and follow the menu, I can install it. But this book is not help at all.
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding - A quick Unix refrence and programmers guide
Review: If you want to get ur feet wet into the world of programing this is the book for you, now when it comes down to getting your feet wet into the world of linux....you want to reconsider. But all-in-all, I thought it was a great book for linux wizards and programmers alike.
Rating:
Summary: Horrible
Review: I purchased this book-a big mistake! The book is really a reference for those who allready know Linux. Allthough, if you allready know linux why would yo buy this book? I found the intallation shaky. I found myself going to Redhat's web site and reading their instruction on my other computer while I installed linux on another computer. This was awkward and would be impossible for a large amount of people. After the installation was complete I could not log on-why because the book did'nt mention logging in on as "root" right after the installtion chapter. I got fustrated and bought Linux for Dummies. It was much better. Once I got that running I bought an OEM CD of Redhat 6.0. It cost my only $12.00 including shipping and handling(allthough you can download it for free). The dummies book I got for around twenty dollars. If you really want a book buy the dummies book. If you can download the software from a network and use Redhat's and other web sites and you will be better off.
Rating:
Summary: Great reference... but VERY hard to follow
Review: I bought this book in hope of a good first book. But, I was really wrong. It is a reference book; you can't read through it. It tells about what is in the configuration files and tells about what each line does. It is a reference on config commands; it has some help on commands, but not much. If you are a new to Linux and want a book to read through get Using Linux by Ball published by Que.
Rating:
Summary: Great SW, but the book isn't detailed & even inaccurate.
Review: The unleashed series give a very broad over view of a given subject. i have both slackware unleashed and redhat unleashed. both are very similar and only touch on the hundreds of facets to LINUX. the software cd's are great it includes red hat linux, xfree86, GIMP, apache, sendmail, netscape, and a bunch of others (including the source). the rpm based install is a dream compared to slackware96. the HTML based manual on the install CD tells exactly how to install redhat (especially how to make the boot disks), complete with screen shots. the write up in the book is not accurate in the least. it makes little mention of hardware troubles or how the install should go. it does cover several programming languages, (c, c++, perl, cgi, even html and java to a certain extent), the basics of UNIX, some system administration, and even web, mail and ftp server basics. if you are brand new to linux (and even UNIX), read the book from cover to cover to see what all you can do, if you like what you see then browse the cd to get started. if you are a veteran, buy an O'reilly book instead. one thing is true about linux, YOU WILL PAY MORE FOR BOOKS THAN YOU WILL EVER PAY FOR SOFTWARE!!! ***** for the software PLUS ***** for the breadth of the content PLUS ** for the detail of the content PLUS *** for the accuracy of the content EQUALS 15 stars divided by 4 categories. that averages out to 3.75 stars.
Rating:
Summary: Chock full of incorrect examples and poor explanations
Review: If you're thinking of buying a Linux book, do _not_ buy this one. This book is _so_ full of errors! For example, as a part of setting up user accounts by hand, the author gives a set of instructions. Here's what's in the book (p.480): 1. cd /home/new_users_name ex. cd /home/tpowell 2. chown -R username.group ex. chown -R tpowell.user 3. chmod -R go=u, go-w 4. chmod go= . Step 1 is correct. However, step 2 is missing something that causes it to fail and, of course, he doesn't explain what in the heck it's doing so you are totally on your own. Step 2 should read: chown -R username.group . That final dot is _very_ important! But he leaves it out and then leaves it up to you to figure out what is wrong! Since I'm a seasoned expert on figuring out stuff like this, I found it but I really feel sorry for a poor novice. This is the kind of thing that makes people go running back into the arms of Bill Gates! Save your money and go to the Red Hat mirror of the Linux Documentation Project.
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