Re: linux admin books & resources?

Logan Shaw wrote:
> Hi everyone,
>
> I've been a Unix user for about 16 years, and was a full-time Unix
> sysadmin (more Solaris than anything, but other stuff too) for about
> 5 of those. Now I am about to be in a new position where I'm going
> to be spending part of my time doing Linux admin.
>
> So, my question is, are there any books or other resources that cover
> Linux admin and are meant for people who already know Unix? So much
> Linux documentation out there seems to be targeted at people who don't
> even know the basics of Unix, and if possible I really don't want to
> have to sift through stuff that tells me what a kernel does, why there's
> a shell, what /dev is for, what rwxr-x-r-x means etc. I want something
> that assumes I know Unix and covers only the things that are particular
> to Linux.
>
> Does such a thing exist?
>
> - Logan

don't expect anything close to the Solaris documentation. If you know
Solaris well, then Linux will be more or less straight forward to
administrate. There are a lot of differences in detail, but most of the
concepts of Linux are similar to the older Solaris release (i.e. up to 9).

Linux docu tends to be scattered all over the place. There are man
pages, howtos, faq, samples, infodocs, and full documentations for
certain packages on their development web pages. Often these docs are
inconsistend or not up to date with the installed software. One of the
reasons therefore is that many distributions do their own customizations
and special solution to integrate with some sort of "control panel" to
offert means of integrated adminstration for the unexperienced.

I would suggest that you ask and look for documentation for the
distribution you will be using. And for everything else google is you
friend. Providing good documentation is expensive - so this one of the
weaknesses of FOSS...

Maybe you would be better off convincing them to get Solaris installed.
Then you could spent your time on more important things then searching
the web for an instruction to configure X on Y using Z with library L
but without option O or hacking yourself all the way through it...

Good Luck!

Tom
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Sun Drops Its Linux Distribution
    ... Linux isn't Unix. ... > adding non UNIX features to the SOLARIS UNIX kernel. ... Your "sURferDuDE" friend, ...
    (comp.unix.solaris)
  • Re: Thinking about upgrading to Solaris 10
    ... As I said before, Solaris is not inexperienced ... I'm a newbie at Solaris system administration. ... I've always found the various flavors of Unix a little ... There seems to be a lot of folklore instead of documentation, ...
    (comp.unix.solaris)
  • Re: Sun Drops Its Linux Distribution
    ... Linux isn't Unix. ... It's just a UNIX wannabe kernel for PCs. ... >> adding non UNIX features to the SOLARIS UNIX kernel. ... Take a Windows, OpenVMS or MAC course. ...
    (comp.unix.solaris)
  • Re: Linux@x86->Solaris@sparc because its easier?!
    ... >> Solaris does not do everything for you, theres no big magic red button ... > Theres sooo many tut's bout teaching linux administration (don't think Solaris ... I've found Linux documentation to be often frustrating and occasionally ...
    (comp.unix.solaris)
  • Re: Linux Advocates Fear Solaris 10.
    ... > coders FROM AIX, to Linux projects... ... You people prattle about Solaris without knowing much about it. ... is that IBM is supporting Linux because they see that as ... who did work on your 'real unix' and then watched as the ...
    (comp.unix.solaris)