i have the red hat linux 7.2 unleased book by bill ball. are the commands in this book that much different than the same book but with version 9 . hate to spend the money for red hat linux 9 unleased if the material is redundant

It can't really hurt you to learn basic system admin. and commands from the book you have. You will, however, find that tons of stuff has changed since 7.2....in fact a lot of the system structure...and certainly the X stuff will be pretty out of date...installation is vastly different too.

I would use that book to learn rudimentary Unix stuff you want to learn, but I would rely on more recent online documentation for the newer Redhat configurations.

You can also do a trial membership (free) at safari.oreilly.com ...they give you 14 days free. You can read newer Redhat books there if you want.

But honestly, Redhat is pretty well-documented online either here, on Redhat's site, or on google. You hardly need a book for Redhat these days.

thanks , interesting info. aware of some of the commands have changed, such as the x-confugurator in 7.2 has chaged to redhat-xfree86-config i believe, may be wrong. i have been reading some out of the online book -linux-rute and tutoring quide, it gets into the linux system well and really expains the nuts and bolts of linux. just wish i had more time. see ya