This is Marcel Gagné's third book with Addison-Wesley following, Linux System Administration: A User's Guide and Moving to Linux: Kiss the Blue Screen of Death Goodbye!. Marcel is also the well-respected author of Linux Journal's, Cooking with Linux. The author has written this excellent book with near-perfect timing.
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I -- like others of TLUG (Toronto Linux Users Group) -- got to meet Marcel Gagné when he gave a presentation at one of the meetings, he is very knowledgeable...and I enjoy reading his article in Linux Journal; I have read his two previous books and find them to be very well written and I have high expectations of this one as well.
Michael
Too bad that he could not have done one extra page, then it would have been an evil 666 pages!
Well, it's definately cheaper to learn how to use free software, I mean - moneywise, but, if it's not one's hobby to tinker with new software, why whould one spend valuable lifetime, which could be used to do something much more amusing or at least to earn some money?
Sorry but I don't know of any companies going to the linux desktop. What a lot of people forget in the land of linux is that companies use 3rd party applications that are not available for linux. I'm not just talking about web browsing and email, i mean those specialty apps. Sure you can suggest WINE, but WINE is shoddy at best.
Yeah? I heard there's a few small companies moving to Linux on the desktop.
Really small operations though that don't make much money...I think their names were Novell and IBM. Not very big names, I know. They are in the tech industry. I think that they both have a website that you can visit. You might have to google a bit for them.
As soon as I can scrape up enough pennies I am going to purchase this new book. It's well worth my time to purchase and read.
With Mr. Gagne's knowledge, I was able to go "redmond" free in October of 2003.
I have read the book and I agree with the author it is a good book. Marcel goes into great detail in this book about the Linux desktop. The only thing I have with this book is that he is striking at pree 200/XP Windows Operating Systems and that many of the solutions that he covers are available for the Windows OS. Speaking from a business point of view this book would not sway my decision on whether or not toi choose Windows or Linux. If I was planning a definate move to Linux or just migrated to Linux this is an excellent resource.
Is the new book written in his "Linux Journal Style"? Some people like his "french cooking style", others (myself included) find it a tad too "overcooked".
I've not seen a Blue Screen for a very long time.. is the author still referring to Windows 98? (which was not meant for business use anyway)
I would love linux on the workfloor, but this kind of argument will not convince experienced windows administrators. Stability is quite good with the latest flavors of Windows.
Windows 98? (which was not meant for business use anyway)
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really?. can you please ask MS to admit that. what about "ME"
really?. can you please ask MS to admit that. what about "ME"
The NT line has always been the version of Windows Microsoft pitched at business. That so many chose to ignore Microsoft's recommendations is their own stupid fault.
A small list of (large) companies using Linux: http://www.aaxnet.com/design/linux2.html
Finding such a list for small businesses in yer local area is harder obviously, but you might want to ask yer local LUG.
BTW, found that link using Google, which just happens to be on that same list 
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/ntwrkstn/plan/sysplan/...
There are many reasons why Microsoft® Windows NT® Workstation 4.0 is fast becoming the operating system of choice for all business users. ....
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/ntwrkstn/plan/sysplan/...
So small businesses should take the advice of a document from 6 years ago ('Published: December 1, 1998')? *Some* things have progressed since then you know?
The last thing on my mind is an operating system
Washington IT Analyst,
I see that the culture of your namesake has rubbed off on your POV. This book is not about blue screens and the author makes no claims that Linux will solve all of your problems. The Windows 2000+ lines are more geared towards business than their predecessors, however, rock-solid stable? You have made a baseless and unsupported claim. Many times, when applying security hotfixes the operating system REQUIRES a reboot - how can this be considered stable by any rational individual.
Why does competition have to imply an anti bias at all?
gnillort is fun, but the facts are better - every time you say NO, it simply is not true.
Practical, senseful and honest.
RE: The last thing on my mind is an operating system
Just to quote your unsourced reference, "Unisys found that, in a stand-alone configuration, over the course of two years, the ES7000s running Datacenter Edition provided an average of 99.9% system availability in a stand-alone configuration. That's with no high-availability clustering."
Wow, Datacenter Edition running in stand-alone configuration without high availability...
Oh, and this is even better from the same source, "Microsoft co-sponsored the reliability study initially".
That is rich. Not that Unisys would ever report anything but the truth about Microsoft, in the first place....
Here's an article that might be of interest to you [Shankland 2002]:
Unisys, Microsoft to launch anti-Unix ads
http://news.com.com/2100-1001-870805.html
Let me suggest that you read the book before making more erroneous conclusions - the entire book is devoted to discussing numerous business software applications.
My father bought this book and burst out laughing when after a few minutes using the customised Knoppix supplied with it it had a kernel panic :-)
It was overall far, far less stable than XP. Hence he's still using XP, albeit with OO.o and Firefox, which he picked up from Linux
Still, its somewhat false advertising. Linux may not BSOD but it sure as hell can crash fatally.
Linux may not BSOD but it sure as hell can crash fatally.
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yes but there is a different between bsod's every other minutre and kernel crashes due to serious faults
Read all my post - I said Linux crashed a LOT more than XP did. Might have been a bad configuration on the part of Knoppix, or whoever customised it, but it was less stable than XP. Hence my point about the book being ironically titled - Linux crashed MORE than the Windows he was telling people to "leave behind the BSOD" on.
"Sorry but I don't know of any companies going to the linux desktop. What a lot of people forget in the land of linux is that companies use 3rd party applications that are not available for linux. I'm not just talking about web browsing and email, i mean those specialty apps. Sure you can suggest WINE, but WINE is shoddy at best."
Really! Attempt to convince a whole raging herd of teenagers running Linux in their parents basements of this.
They will set you straight...
btw: Have you ever read the teachings of RMS?
To be fair, on both of my Athlon systems, and a laptop I recently installed Mandrake 10 on - almost no modern Linux will boot without me passing 'acpi=off noapic nolapic' parameters to the kernel.
This is most likely due to buggy ACPI implementations from both Asus, Soltek and whatever chipset was in the Acer laptop - but the fact that Linux is incapable of detecting this and falling back to a 'safer mode' instead of simply freezing, kernel-paniccing or crashing seems a bit of an omission.
I can only imagine how confusing this is for newbies who have heard how wonderful linux is and the kernel just crashes on boot on their machines.
