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Review: Linux Administration Handbook, Second Edition
Review: Linux Administration Handbook, Second Edition
Posted Nov 9, 2006 19:33 UTC (Thu) by smoogen (subscriber, #97)Parent article: Review: Linux Administration Handbook, Second Edition
I would like to say that I still use the 2nd edition of the Unix System Administration book (after loaning it out to a student.. I kept running into systems that should have been shot dead years ago but were still in use.)
These books are as close to a classic that one can get in Systems Administration. The amount of needed detail on getting a RS-232 wired correctly helped me multiple times in getting a customer to give me a kernel dump when I worked at Red Hat... and the old chart on different SCSI connectors came in handy every couple of days. My biggest disappointment with the 3rd edition of the USAH was that it had to drop so many flavours of Unix that I still needed to maintain.
When I have any junior systems administrator assigned to me, I make sure that they have a copy of the Linux Administration Book in their hands... and if I have time we go over particular chapters when dealing with problems.
I am off to the bookstore to order my copy of Linux Administration Handbook (2nd edition.)
[This endorsement was not sponsored by Ms Nemeth or any other co-author of the book]
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RS-232C
Posted Nov 10, 2006 9:56 UTC (Fri) by ldo (subscriber, #40946) [Link]
>The amount of needed detail on getting a RS-232 wired correctly...
Hah!
I can remember when there was no one way to wire an RS-232C connection correctly, what with interfaces needing null modems or not, different forms of hardware handshake, and other oddities. An essential bit of kit was a "breakout box" which had LEDs letting you see which signals each end was sending, plus little switches so you could try various guesses as to what signals it might be expecting.
The young kids these days, they have it so easy. :)
RS-232C
Posted Nov 10, 2006 16:58 UTC (Fri) by a9db0 (subscriber, #2181) [Link]
I remember breakout boxes - don't know at the moment where mine has got itself to, but I do know where the half-dozen different serial cables and gender changers I have are.
As an aside - I wonder how many readers here think "gender changers" is something to snicker at, not an extremely useful tool?
I'll be off to order my copy now. Thanks Jon!