RHCE Red Hat Certified Engineer Linux (Exam RH302)

RHCT Red Hat Certified Technician Linux Study Guide (Exam RH202)

Red Hat Linux Bible: Fedora and Enterprise Edition

Red Hat

Mastering Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 (Mastering)

Format: Paperback
Author: Michael Jang
ReleaseDate: 19 October, 2004
Publisher: Sybex
Rating:

perhaps a reference text?
The breadth of topics is commendable and certainly encompasses much of what you as a sysadmin will probably want to do on a linux machine or cluster. This may be more of a reference book than a text on its subject.

Jang's choice of the Red Hat linux is good; the most common implementation of linux around. On such a system, the first thing anyone sees after logging in is the desktop. He describes the two choices evenhandedly, KDE and Gnome. Functionally, there is little truly different between them. So it may just come down to your personal preferences as to which you adopt.

He goes carefully into describing network security. Pointing out that linux and open source gives you very powerful free tools to defend against intrusion.