Rating: 

This is the third book about Linux that I've purchased. I'm very glad that I purchased this book! I'd installed Red Hat Linux 7.2, on 2 of the boxes on our home LAN, to dual boot with MS Windows 98 Second Edition. Until now, our use of Linux has been minimal. My wife boots into Linux to play games in KDE and I use the Konqueror web browser. This book will make it possible for me to know what I'm doing with Red Hat Linux 7.2 and eventually discontinue the use of MS Windows. There are many illustrations in the book, which show what the reader will see on their CRT screen and the text explains what to do. The book explains, for example, how to configure the SAMBA server, which will enable us to have File & Printer Sharing, between Linux and Windows boxes. The majority of the book, probably 90%, is very easy reading. There are two chapters about the BASH shell. The first is easy to read and the last chapter in the book, "Advanced Shell Usage and Shell Scripts", is harder to read, but both chapters contain data that's very important to the reader, as do the appendixes. I found one error in the book. On page 100, the author says, "you must be logged in as ROOT to shut down your system". Probably that is true for the "Server" installation, which would be appropriate and necessary, but it is NOT true for the "Workstation" installations which I've done, or the one "Custom" installation I've done. Users on our systems can shut down the system, without knowing the ROOT password. I believe if you want a book that will help you install and use Red Hat Linux 7.2 on a Desktop, this book is an excellent investment. It explains how to do many things that I wanted to do. The other books I'd purchased are: "Linux for Dummies, 3rd edition". It came with CD-ROMs for Red Hat Linux 7.0 and when I tried Red Hat, I discovered that I liked it better than Mandrake. I'd purchased the boxed set for Mandrake Linux before that! "Running Linux, 3rd edition" is a super book, which came highly recommended to me, by a man in Red Hat Technical Support. It's a classic, but tough reading for a Newbie. I've read the first 488 pages, twice.