Distributions

Linux: The Complete Reference, Fifth Edition (Red Hat 7.3 DVD Included)

Format: Paperback
Author: Richard Petersen
ReleaseDate: 15 August, 2002
Publisher: Osborne/McGraw-Hill
Rating:

it is useful book
If you need quick initial training take "UNIX essentials" DVD. It is not the best first book of Linux or UNIX but it may be very useful if know what are you looking for. It is complete course of UNIX and pare it with the book. They make nice couple. .

It made me understand something
Its text is quite easy to understand and clear. I have just read 2 or 3 chapter of this book. At least I learnt from it how to set user/password in Samba. I have read 4 or 5 Linux books about setting Samba but nearly all of them just can confuse me or just can teach me how to set Samba in share level but not user level security.
And it used 2 pages to tell us how to use emacs which gave me the basic step on how to use this famous text editor.

Who's the target audience?
I generally found that the author went far into depth about things that I (a personal linux user as opposed to a network admin) did not care about, and only skimmed the surface of items that I found truely interesting and relevant. This book is decent, but there doesn't seem to be a target audience that allows the book to be more cohesive. Moreover, the audience seems to range from someone who has never touched a keyboard (I read an explination of what he backspace key does, last night), to budding admins.