I'm guilty; I've been a Windows user for the longest time. However, I've always wanted to experiment with Linux, but the difficulty of most installations and the configuration headaches were just too m uch for me.

This book is an excellent way to get people transitioning from a Windows environment into Linux. Comparisons of Windows configurations and their counterparts in Linux are strewn throughout this book, and the amount of detail is very helpful.

In all, this book is excellent. I highly recommend it.

I'd like to give this book more stars than just five. I'm an experienced Windows Systems Administrator, and I was advised it would be in my best interest to gain familiarity and experience with Linux.

This book explains everything from the viewpoint of a Windows admin. It has plenty of screen shots and explanations for everything.

I can not recommend this book too much.

Computer Guy

Everyone who buys computer books probably has more than a few that cost big bucks, but are somewhere gathering dust. This isn't one of those books. This book is informative and most of all engaging. I enjoy reading it. This is my first review of a book and I buy lots of books. This one is worth recommending.

I now own somewhere around 20 books about linux or associated apps. I am willing to lend several of these to my close family or dear friends but only one that will have to be pried from my cold dead fingers. If there is one essential book for linux users, Linux Administration:ABG is it. It is not only informative but a delightful read.

My strongest recommendation.

This book is what it says it is. A great Introduction to Linux. The book does a great job at showing how features in Linux relate to features in Windows. So if you are used to the Windows way of doing things, this book will make learning Linux very easy. I espcially like the information on compiling the kernel. This book really took away many miscomceptions that I had about Linux.

Steve did a wonderful job with this book. He answers nearly all the important questions you have before finishing the book. It has a really good section on firewalls in Linux as well as compiling your own kernel. The section on DNS was really quite nice. I always had a difficult time understanding DNS in Linux until reading this book and have successfully set up DNS on a Linux Server. The CD in the book didn't work, but that's OK...Linux can be downloaded for free...

If you've been afraid to really get your hands dirty setting up a Linux server, you've run out of excuses. Steve Shah's book will get you through it.

This is a great book for the Linux newbie. Everyone who sets up a Linux box is a defacto admin, so this book is for all newcomers. Does not go into great detail but touches many subjects. Easy to read and just enough info to get you going and to answer your questions. You will need other books to become an expert, but this is the best new user book I have seen for Linux.

Steve Shah clearly presents Linux concepts and common administrative tasks in a straight forward manner. For those of us more accustomed to the MS Windows world, he frequently compares the way Linux works to Windows 2000. A must have for MCSEs living in a heterogeneous network environment!

I used Steve's book, and the enclosed CD, to install Linux on a generic Duron 900 PC.

I used the book as a reference for my first installations of internet networking, DHCP server, firewalling, NAT (IP Masquerading), and it went off almost without a hitch.

I found the description of the init process illuminating. I also really like his approach in general--what are the critical options, which files do I edit to alter the system's behavior (and where are they), and strike just the right balance between description and examples. I found that after a few minutes of reading, I was ready to start implementing.

Due to the nature of the book, there were a few obscurities. The ipchains/iptables chapter was confusing, and felt like an afterthought (but that's the function I was most interested in). A key typo in that chapter, and not quite enough detail put a very minor distaste on an otherwise excellent introduction.

Thanks, Steve, keep up the great work!

I can't say enough about this book. First of all, I appreciate the fact that the author doesn't assume I'm an idiot. I especially appreciate that he uses the introduction of each chapter to not only cover how the subsystem works as a whole, but how it came to be the way it is. After reading this, I don't feel like the hows and whys of everything is so arbitrary and as a result, I've become a better troubleshooter.

The author covers all of the major subsystems (printing, disks, etc.) in a very clear and organized manner. His writing style is fluid, personal, and makes me feel like he's along for the ride of getting everything configured with you. My favorite chapter is actually the networking chapter where the author goes into detail about how TCP/IP actually works from the point of view of a system administrator who has to troubleshoot networks as well as systems. As any sysadmin will tell you, if it's plugged into a wall, you're responsible for it.

Anyway, if you want to learn how to be a system, buy this book.

I have always been a Windows guy, more by force than choice, but this book opened the light in a way. It was easy to read and prompted me to actually try out the things suggested. I liked the tutorials and have to admit that Steve Shah also knows Windows like the back of his hand. He compared both Linux and NT on how to do most everything imaginable.

This is one of those few books that I do not mind reading while in bed, even. It is not a page-turner, but he does make it interesting, too.

All in all, you have to be proud that someone like Steve had the vision to put out an entertaining and informative book that does not slam either Linux or Windows in any way. It just points out the funcionality that Linux has and how that compares to Windows. Highly recommeded for any sys admin coming from a Microsoft tinted world.

I'm an instructor at a junior college and I used this book because it is a good book for beginning administration, except for it lacks anything on compiling the kernel, and it came with Red Hat 7.0 on 1 CD. Well, 8 out of 10 CD's my students purchased had a bad CD or Red Hat 7.0 couldn't handle the Compaq Deskpros (P300MMX 128Mb-mem ATI-Mach64-2mb-video w/IDE HD's) in my class. Eleven minutes into the installation the PC hung. I lean towards blaming the CD because we could identify a few CD's that installed fine but most would not, plus other download and publisher editions of Red Hat 7 installed fine, and Red Hat 6.2 publisher edition installed fine. One student pinned it down to a currupted RPM file but I lost the note where I had it named. The book is fine but be prepared to purchase Linux elsewhere. I won't be using this book anymore unless a new edition comes out with Red Hat 7.1 or higher and it includes kernel compiling info.

I am a senior engineer for network security operations, and fairly new to Linux. I bought this 2nd edition of LA:ABG to gain familiarity with installing, configuring, and optimizing Red Hat Linux 7, specifically. Steve has written THE book for beginning Linux system administrators, and I heartily recommend it.

LA:ABG never wavers from its primary goal: to give new sys admins the knowledge to build and maintain Linux services. The novelty of this "beginner's guide" is Steve's belief that "beginner" does not equal "GUI." Steve explains each service using its command line interface, since that may be the only available interface in an emergency. He also explains how to compile each software package from source, useful when one needs to upgrade or replace applications.

I was surprised by the number of helpful commands and options packed into this 2nd edition. Even when I knew a command, Steve added a new twist; use ps -auxww vice ps -aux for process listings, or netstat -natup vice netstat -a for active sockets. I repeatedly wondered if Steve hadn't read my mind before writing LA:ABG, since most questions were answered seconds after I formed them. Steve also explains new aspects of the 2.4 kernel and Red Hat 7 (xinetd, iptables, etc.) that other so-called "Red Hat 7" books neglect.

On the down side, the book had a few typos, and pages 527-8 seem to misinterpret TCPDump output. I would have liked more information on SSH, too. Be aware that the book is Red Hat-oriented, since it contains a "publisher's edition" of RH 7. Workarounds for other distros are given, and Steve even criticizes certain aspects of Red Hat's file structure!

If you're new to Linux, and not the sort who buys "Dummies" books, definitely read LA:ABG, 2nd edition. It is the best introductory Linux book I've read, and is strong enough to satisfy novices and intermediate-level users.

(Disclaimer: I received my review copy free from the publisher.)

This book gave the information I needed to do advanced admin to my Red Hat linux network I recommend this book for those administrators that need a little more edge and as a great referance book.

This book is a very solid introduction for those who know their way around computers and operating systems in general. It's good to find books that don't treat the user like complete weenies or books that go so techincally deep but speak of very little...

This book as a lot of analogies between the Linux and NT world, including some pretty nice network blueprints showing how a NT network would be server-wise, compared to a Linux network.

Overall this was a great intro level book. My highest recommendations to everyone.

As a web developer, I decided to pick up this book along with O'Reilly's Running Linux to get at least a basic understanding of different conecpts, issues, concerns, etc. that anyone wanting to create a good web site (and a secure one) should be familiar with.

Between the two, I have found this book far more helpful, as it discusses the basics of Linux (to me important) as well as administration concerns, security issues, and principles that every SysAdmin should understand and follow.

It flows well, the writer's style is great and I read the entire thing over a course of 4 days. After reading it and doing additional research on the net, I realize that Steve has covered about 80% of what most authors are writing about when it comes to securing a single server.

The book starts easy and gets quite in-depth, so if you are a rookie (like myself) you should at least have aptitude for computers or a strong will to learn. If that is the case, this is a great reference book which I will no doubt continue to use as I explore Linux further.

I've quite a few books on Linux, and this is one of the best. A lot of the books I have either think you're a Linux guru, or that you have no concept of computers. I have many years of experience with administering NT servers so I know the concepts, but lack the know how of getting it done in Linux.

This book is perfect for people like me. I'd recomend it to anyone. Well done!

Yes this book is for begginers and really helps me a lot to setup my own Server. However the author is trying to go beyond the basic by including in the table of contents some security/firewall stuffs like SATAN, COPS etc but when you look inside the pages, you will not learn anything about it but references to where you can get those info. It would have been best if they included those stuff since they mentioned that in the table of contents anyways and that security/firewall is a hot issue these days. Hope that was not done on purpose for marketing gains.

This book is a quick walk-through of lots of linux-networking topics. Because of this wide scope there's not much room for depth. You should buy other books for that, and Shah gives recoomendations in each chapter. It is also very readable! You should be able to get a pretty long way in setting up your own server with this book. But if things go wrong it isn't going to tell you what to do! (i.e. it tells you of ways the system can disable accounts because of disk quotum violations, but it doesn't tell you how to re-enable them afterwards...)

This book is just what the title claims it is. But what I like about it is that the author doesn't think every Joe Reader is a moron or a brain surgeon. I've been doing NT administration for two years now and with this book I was able to get a small Linux network up and going without losing what hair I have left. I was also pleased to see that he didn't go off bashing NT at every opportunity like so many Linux fanatics. His views are quite balanced and realistic.

My only gripe is that for a computer guy, you'd think he'd have learned how to use a spelling checker by now. It didn't make it unreadable, but really... Is there an excuse?

But the bottom line is that I like it.

I am not usually so cynical, but I know that I wish someone had written this review before I bought this book.

It is not a horrible book, it has some good info in it, however, if you run into errors in compiling your kernel, altering scripts or configuring samba -- you are going to be in trouble. He walks you through a cursory, idyllic example in each section, but seldom more than one, and has very little on trouble-shooting. Some of the info is even incorrect -- which drove me nuts! (small omissions or typos unix gurus would easily catch, but if you know unix, you don't really need this book!)

He probably would have done better to narrow the scope of the book, and go a little deeper rather than being so broad and shallow. He tries to cover too much too quickly.

If you want a general overview of what a linux box can do, this book will fit the bill. However, if you want one solid tutorial or one solid reference, this is not the book.

As the title says this is a Beginner's Guide to administering Linux. I have several more advanced books on Linux administration, but I needed to start at a beginner's level. For example I didn't know much about the rc scripts in the /etc/rc.d/init.d directory. This book helped me to understand the basics of adding a symbolic link to the /etc/rc.d/rc3.d directory which points to the rc script in the /etc/rc.d/init.d directory. The more advanced books I have pretty much figured one already knew how to do that. I have moved on to the more advanced books but still refer back to this book when learning new Linux concepts. The Samba chapter for example is pretty basic. Once you understand the elementary concepts of Samba you will probebly need to move on to a more advanced book. But if you have never worked with or administered Linux before then this book is an excellent buy.

If you are familiar with Linux or Unix and want to start into some network services, this book is a solid introduction. As the title says, this book is for beginner's, but the author doesn't assume that means weenie. He has done a nice job of selecting basic tasks, and for each one lays out the commands, file locations, and basic configurations for the files. Other books either relied on GUI utilities, or used twice as many pages going into too much detail on some sections and not enough on others. This book is just what it says, a beginner's guide to help you get started with Linux servers and/or integrating Linux into an existing NT network.

This is quite a good book. It has some humor, lots of examples (thoughhe rarely shows the output to his examples), and is quite detailed on many topics. However, the book is also deficient in some areas. For example, it never mentions telnet to log in. It mentions telnet to log into a POP server and how to compile SSH, but never anything directly about telnet. He mostly assumes that you know the basic basics (which is probably a good thing since if there is too much basics then everything else can get lost.)

Still, after reading this book, I know enough to do my new job as a linux system administratior.

The book is very intuitive with just the right amount of details for the beginner. It provides a very good overview and contrast between linux and windows NT throughout its content. A must read for those who are interested in linux networking aspect.

Definitely an excellent book to start with. While it is possible to get books which are exhaustive on a given subject (i.e. DNS and Bind by O'Reilly), this book provides a great deal of coverage on everything. I fully intend to use it as a reference.

I have other Linux books and I found this book seemed to have the correct mix of overview and detail for the new admin. Other books with much detail would be a great second book but to get started this is the book.