[techtalk] Re: Computer Books

[Telsa Gwynne]

On Thu, Dec 28, 2000 at 01:03:50PM -0600 or thereabouts, ktb wrote:
> On Thu, Dec 28, 2000 at 07:34:48AM -0800, RobertWichert wrote:
> > Speaking of books...
> > Does anyone know of a book on Red Hat Linux 7?  I have Linux 7
> > installed, but it seems to be just different enough from 6 that the step
> > by step instructions (yes, I am new to Linux) for 6 are not enough to
> > get me going. 
[snip]
> > Thanks for any guidance.  I think a good "step by step" book for Linux 7
> > would be perfect, but I find nothing in the stores.

I think the problem is that a good book takes time to write, and RH
7.0 is new. I actually distrust books which arrive simultaneously with
a new product, on the grounds that "the beta started a month ago, and
this person has written a complete guide to all the wrinkles and got
it to press in that time?". Especially with RH's .0 releases, which 
tend to include more changes and differences. (eg: inetd->xinetd,
movement of many file locations from /usr to /usr/share, and other
things which are _just_ different enough to make a "type these
commands exactly" list break.

I did find that if you install the docs off the documentation CD,
there is good information there in the big rh-install and rh-something-
else docs, but you have to find it. Trying to find one item of info
when you're not familiar with the whole thing is a pain, though, so 
that may not help? 

Exactly what are you trying to do? If it's something like "set up
a webserver" or "find the programs that do foo", then with luck,
someone on the list will know where to find info for that and
any RH6.x/7.0 differences.

> I'd take 7.0 back and pick up 6.2 if it were me and I really
> wanted redhat.  I know the guys at work who use redhat couldn't

If you have a RH 6.x book, this is a good approach, I think :) 
Except that you'll miss out on the wonderful Gnome 1.2, should you
care :) (It includes a doc I did, so it must be good, you see...) 

> get X to work with a couple different vid cards and as a result
> 7.0 isn't running on any computer at work.  The cards weren't
> anything unusual and the person installing has used linux for
> quite a while and knows his way around.  On the flip side having
> to work at an installation can teach you a lot.  My first stab at
> it was debian hamm.  Talk about an ordeal:)  Of the
> installations I've done I think maybe Mandrake was about the
> easiest.  

I agree that you learn a lot when messing with an install, but I
am not sure how transferable a lot of that to "running the thing"
is. I speak from bitter experience there :) 

(In fairness, RH 7.0 was the first RH install I did which correctly got 
my particular hardware and then set up X properly. X set up is the
bane of my life anyway. And I've not had trouble with RH 7.0, myself,
although I did discover a bunch of missing URLs in the ftp HOWTO when
I was trying to set up anonymous FTP.)

What I tend to suggest when people are stupid enough to ask my opinion 
on different Linuxes is "get what your friend down the road is familiar 
with". I realise we don't all have Linux-running friends down the road, 
but  the principle is the same: get whatever you have the most 
readily-available help for! Because the install is just once, with
luck. Running it is 99% of the time. The machine I do most work on
started as RH 5.2 and has not been re-installed since: it has had
experienced upgrades to 6.0, 6.1 and 7.0, but that's still only
four rounds with the CDs. Even assuming a day for each, that's
four days out of the however many years it's been alive. My limited
messing with Debian (which I have of course managed to break as well
as I break everything else) suggests long-term Debian users would
be aghast at even those four days :)

Telsa