> -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Behalf Of J. van Baardwijk > Sent: Friday, March 21, 2003 7:27 AM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Books on Red Hat Linux 7.2 > > > I am considering buying two books on Red Hat Linux 7.2:
Do you know that RH 8.0 has been released, and it is a fair bit different from 7.x? Although I eagerly buy reference books for languages, I've never gotten enough out of any operating system book to feel like it was worth buying. If you have a reasonably fast, reliable Internet connection (that's available when your Linux box isn't working!), you'll find a lot more useful problem-solving information on the net than you'll get from a book. The one exception I'd make is some kind of inexpensive basic reference to Linux commands, so that you can quickly look up syntax. > 2. Do they complement each other, or is there so much overlap that I'm > better off buying just one of them, and then find some other book that > covers what the recommended book of those two doesn't cover? At the risk of repeating myself... I'd say skip them, partly because they're already out-of-date (although you could definitely run RH 7.2 for a long, long time) but mostly because they'll probably be of relatively little use when you really need help -- when weird things go wrong. And when something strange happens on Linux, it can be very strange. For example, I went nuts the last few days trying to get the Python MySQL module installed (on the server that used to be www.mcccmedia.com). Finally, after endless dependency problems, I got the source and found that it built on the machine with no problem. Who'da thunk it? I suppose I should add a disclaimer that I just don't learn from those kinds of books. I cannot read them. I can look things up, but one of the blessings of realizing I'm ADD is that I don't even try to read them any more. I jump in and start doing things, looking up what seems relevant as I go. I guess I'm smart, experienced and lucky enough not to get into real deep troule with that approach. Nick _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
