If you miss all your "not there anymore" How-TO's from the TLDP .... this one has them all (1997 and prior) so ... i beleive the cost of the printer INK is far more costly than the price than the 2000 pages this provides ..... even if you don't need it all .... Sometimes its better to get away from the box to read the info .... :-)

This book has many useful articles in it and will be useful to any linux users at any ability. It includes a lot of things that other books leave out like gcc and teTEX. This book also includes an excellent discussion of how the linux file system works --essential if you want to work with files effectively. The Network administration section is excellent as is the section on being a SysAdmin. The book would be helped by a better organized table of contents and perhaps by grouping similar HOWTO's together. As it happens, it looks like Mr. Purcell has glombed a bunch of stuff together and then slapped together a quick index and table of contents and then sent it off to Walnut Creek. Also, the pages are too thin. I think I am going to tear the book when I turn a page. Havoing said that, this will be a cherished possession for many years and I will read it often.

I would say that sales of this book should be left to the stores dealing in obsolete computer merchandise. Most (if not all) of the applications mentioned in this book are obsolete, having been upgraded to the point where a great deal of the advice given is no longer valid.

This is not, however, to say that this book would only be useful as a boat anchor. It still has a good deal of useful information in it, and can still be quite helpful, ...

My only burning question is, where ... is the 8th edition?

My comment to that person who only gave it one star would be; Sure, it's the HOW TO pages. All neatly bound and printed. Do YOU want to sit down and print out all that ...? I have better things to do, and I, for one, prefer hard copy. Easier to read.

What a dissapointment - this book is just a collection of the Linux Documentation Project's "how-to's." Back that up with a horrible index (a measly 7 page-index covers 2000 pages of text), and these guys get an F for effort. The installation-guide wasn't any help for me because I bought a specific guide for that. What I needed was a comprehensive and well indexed reference.

The book contains a complete walkthroug of the installation and a lot of howto's. It has all the answers.