UnixReview.com
August 2006

Book Review: Red Hat Fedora 5 Unleashed

Reviewed by Emmett Dulaney

Red Hat Fedora 5 Unleashed
by Paul Hudson and Andrew Hudson
Sams Publishing, 2006
ISBN: 0-672-32847-x
$49.99

Fedora Core is a free, open-community, version of Red Hat. Not only does Red Hat Fedora 5 Unleashed walk you through every major aspect of the operating system from installation to game playing, but it also includes a DVD containing the full distribution as well as OpenOffice.org and a number of other Linux programs.

The 1000+ pages of this book are divided into 39 chapters and six parts, with a nice build-up of the material allowing you to smoothly transition from the simplest of topics to those that are more difficult. Part I looks at installation and configuration and begins by just talking about what Fedora is, then moves through installation and post-installation, delivering you to a point where you are ready to take your first steps with the operating system.

Part II, Desktop Fedora, starts with a basic overview of the X Window system, introduces most of the applications that users are likely to encounter, and concludes with an examination of games. The focus on games is unusual since the developers of Fedora decided to remove most of them from the most recent builds of Core. The chapter addresses this and walks you through the installation of others.

Part III, System Administration, can be thought of as the "meat and potatoes" for most readers. In addition to looking at user management, it also discusses automating tasks, understanding system resources, working with backups, networks, and remote access.