[plug] rute.sourceforge.net

[Colin Muller]

On Thu, Jun 06, 2002 at 09:49:32AM +0800, James Elliott wrote:
>  I have been reading
> sections of it on the Internet and have been thinking of buying the book.  I
> would be interested in hearing what you and others think about it - in
> particular, how recent/up-to-date is it?

I have *not* read the whole thing, so these are my initial
impressions.

Reasonably up to date (the version on the Web is dated August 2001).
You can download the entire book for non-commercial use at the
sourceforge address, so you can evaluate its suitability to your needs
very thoroughly.

Good things:
- Covers a *lot* of stuff, and for the most part, manages to cover the
  most important bits of each topic
- Technically solid in the bits I've looked at.
- One of those books which are useful when you already know a fair
  bit, because even pretty knowledgeable people will be picking up
  stuff they don't know or have forgotten or never bothered to
  _really_ get their heads around.

Bad things:
- Some surprising holes (e.g. no postfix or qmail, although he does
  mention them).
- I don't think it's as usable by beginners as he intended it to be.
- A really irritating tone: "XYZ is the best/only way to do this",
  even what he's expressing is debatable opinion.

But try it for yourself: it will only cost the bandwidth.

Colin