Product: 0131470248

[A review of the 3RD EDITION, written 19 July 2006.]

In 2 short years, Sobell has updated his 2nd edition into this latest offering. One immediate and useful simplification is that the 4 CDs of linux that were in that edition have been replaced by one DVD, that covers both the avowedly open source Fedora Core and the Red Hat Enterprise linux.

Much of the text is still broadly the same between these 2 editions, from the user’s perspective. The commands needed by the average user are mostly unchanged. Linux is (thankfully) pretty stable at this level, and has been so for several years. Likewise for the UI that the user might run.

And some chapters, like on networking and the Internet, are also pretty much unchanged. That particular chapter has good background information on the Internet and the Web.

Some sections are VERY topical. On the chapter about downloading and installing software, there is a concise explanation of how to use BitTorrent. A famous or notorious package that came up with the novel means of sharing files across the net. Wildly popular with the masses. I don’t recall if this section was in the second edition, but it is certainly useful to see it here.
Rating: 4
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