http://www.osnews.com/story/1175/Book_Mini-Review_Solaris_8_Administrator_s_Guide Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2009, David Adams adam+nospam@osnews.com Mon, 09 Nov 2009 03:08:11 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif http://www.osnews.com http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I've seen better heads on boils. Fri, 07 Jun 2002 01:27:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? >>>The book, published in January, is current even for Solaris 9, mostly because not many changes to the way Solaris works have been made in the new version of the OS. Fri, 07 Jun 2002 02:32:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Solaris books have this annoying habit of saying very little in a lot of pages. They cover the stuff that I can figure aou for myself, and gloss right over the stuff that I could use some help with. The only admin utility that any of them cover is admintool, which doesn't help much when you SSH in to work on a remote box!

From what I've seen, this book is no exception. It's too basic. Is there really a need for this? Any desktop Solaris user who isn't already supported by an administrative staff is probably a geek already. Fri, 07 Jun 2002 08:42:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I'm second for that.
"admintool" is for sissies.
Judging by the chapter about netwrok configuration
it really sucks - I would definitely give it much lower than 8/10. Of course, it's must have for Solaris sysadmin - to put it on the shelf where everyone can see it, especially boss.

"touch /reconfigure ; init 6" - hammer-like solution.

I wanted to change from static IP to DHCP and it took quite a few keystrokes (and I couldn't avoid reboot) and this chapter doesn't cover it at all, although I consider it a basic task. Fri, 07 Jun 2002 14:01:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? It's not a bad book. I really think it was mostly geared for a
MS or Linux weenie (not that Linux == weenie) that scammed a Solaris job. Light on the difficult stuff, lots of basics.

About fluff: most O'Reilly books are good about fluff, but this several useless files included. For example, I know what /etc/services looks like, I don't need a copy "as an example" on paper.

I guess I'm just wating for O'Reilly's Advanced Solaris 8 book.

Matt Fri, 07 Jun 2002 21:23:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I really think it was mostly geared for a MS or Linux weenie (not that Linux == weenie) that scammed a Solaris job. Light on the difficult stuff, lots of basics.

I think you have a good point there, Matt. When I started off in IS, I was already accustomed to working with professionals who really knew their stuff. And for the first few years, that's pretty much how it was -- I felt that there was a ton of things to be learned from more senior co-workers. But recently it seems like I meet more IS "professionals" who are total BS artists. I suppose that the IT bubble that preceeded the dot-bomb created a gold-rush syndrome that pulled all kinds of wannabes out of the woodwork. And those wannabes couldn't very well show up to work with a stack of "Dummies" books!

The sad and ironic consequence is that jobs that once were highly respected are now almost unskilled labor. Good people are leaving the field in disgust, rather than put up with the back-stabbing pretenders. When I run the numbers, I can't understand how management can justify $50K/yr employees who spend millions on turnkey systems (because they don't have the skills to build their own) vs. $75K/yr employees who actually save money on software. No wonder stock prices continue to tumble! Sat, 08 Jun 2002 09:31:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments