GERONIMO!

I've taken the plunge. I purchased one of those "Learn X in 24 hours" for Red Hat Linux 9 and, as I sit here typing this, my measly little P100 with 48MB of RAM is running through the installation.

I know, I know, that's a pretty puny system to be running Red Hat 9 on but its price was right. It's a donated computer (thanks, Ron!). I don't mind waiting on it because once I set it up as my web server, I don't plan on noodling with it much at the console.

Enough about that... let me give you some observations about the book. First, I bought it at B&N for 50% off so it was only $15 instead of $30. This is a very good thing because I'd be pissed about what I've seen so far if I'd paid $30 for it. As it stands, it's kind of humorous.

It's obvious that the same writers put together the Red Hat 8.0 book... much of what I've seen is a copy and paste job. How do I know? It's not that I have the RH8 book, the editorial staff missed a few (several, actually) references to 8.0. It appears as though Red Hat 8.0 and Red Hat 9 are interchangeable. The laughable thing is, as I started going through the installation process, I noticed som BIG differences in what they say is going to happen and what actually happens. For instance, the book says the installer will give you options for personal desktop, workstation, web server, or custom installations... it doesn't. It gives you default (desktop) or custom.

I'm not too worried, though. I'm confident the book will teach me the basics. If not, the publisher is going to get a nasty-gram.

Looking at the progress meters on the P100 I see we haven't gotten very far. The first package shows aobut 80% done since I started typing this and the overall progress is... well, it's just not yet. I think this is an overnight installation.

Happy Shaving,
Uncle Bubby