My New Book on Fedora Core 2 (In Progress)

[Loner]

Hello,

I'm in the process of writing a new book about Fedora Core 2. This book is made of 4 parts plus appendices:
Part I: Overview of GNU/Linux Operating System.
Part II: Home User.
Part III: System Administrator.
Part IV: Network Administrator.
Appendices:
General Introduction to the Internet.
The Rise & Disappearance Of The Unix Market.
How to get help.
Linux & Open Source Programs Vs. Microsoft.
Specs of My PC.
About the Penguin's Picture.
Non-American Movies.
Thank Yous.
Contacting Me.
Linux & The Matrix.
Who Am I?
Last Page.

So far, I've finished Part I and the appendices. I saved the book in PDF format, a total of 113 pages and 3.3MB in size. You can get this beta 1 version of the book from this Web site:

http://www.jedlug.org/files/fc2-book-beta-1.pdf

I would like to get some, hopefully positive, feedback on this work in progress.

By the way, my email is on the last page of the book ;-)

Peace out.

Loner

[Quella]

Do you have this in Word or Open Office format for change tracking or editing? Some of the type-Os would take more than just an email. It would be better if a user could place comments into the text.

Quella

[kosmosik]

it would be better as wiki page... flat files sucks. especialy for multiuser editing.

[Mindcloud]

I read through most of the book and its pretty good. I've been using Linux since about Redhat 4. Only thing I would say is that there is a lot of opinion for a tutorial. Instead of explaining what color depth is, you simply say "Leave it alone" and instead of saying that if you are on a permanent lan/wan it is RECOMMENDED you enable firewall, it says you MUST. Perhaps instead of insisting the reader do something, give reasons why they should. Also I would take out the parts where you say what you want in Fedora, for instance the portion about the soundcard. If I were a new user I may not make the connection between what you say you'd like to see and why you want it since I may not have a soundcard issue at this point in the install. Plus its irrelavent. Also as its nice to promote open source software and Linux in general and why someone would pick Linux over some other option, there is a lot of anti-microsoft in it. To me it takes away from the credibility a little as each OS has their place. Other than that it looks like its coming along good and I'll have more feedback after I dig deeper into the content.

Hope that is what you are looking for
Jeff

[Loner]

Hey guys.

Thanks for your comments, specially to mindcloud (Jeff).

Jeff, you are very right in saying that there is too much opinion in the book. You see, it's a very personal work, a labor of love, per se. I need to inculde my personal feelings in it, otherwise, I'll get bored or tire from all the dry technical stuff.

Once the book is complete, I intend on posting the whole book in OpenOffice.Org format in addition to a PDF format, so that people can edit it to their hearts desire, for example, to remove the 'personal opinions' and 'anti microsoft' stuff.... ;-)

I hope to finish the second part within a 6 weeks from now.

Once again, thank you all for your constructive comments and keep them coming. I'll do my best to take them into consideration and make as many changes as possible. After all, this is a beta.

Loner

Email: faisaldsc@yahoo.com

[crackers]

If it's difficult to separate opinion from fact, then you're doing any potential readers a disservice, "labor of love" or not. I haven't read it, but from what the others have said, you may want to consider doing this kind of thing in a blog where you can freely mix subjects - and easily label them as "tips" or "opinions." What you have here sounds more like that, or a screed, instead of a "book."

[Jman]

I agree with Mindcloud that the M$ is lame and a little unprofessional. Maybe cut the Microsoft rant down a little bit, it's a bit much.

I like the conversational style, the organization into chapters, and the pictures.

Follow your table of contents, if you include all of that this will be great.

You do have a number of things that aren't strictly Fedora related, so maybe have a subtitle "And Other Neat Open Source Things" or something.

The Internet was not built to survive a nuclear war, that is a myth. It was created to link then-scarce computing resouces. See this history (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Internet) and this definition (http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/I/Internet.html) of the Internet.

Overall looks nice.