Linus might have liked this book, but he probably knew how to manage a Linux server before he read it ;-)

Although the book look like it covers everything, I found it curiously lacking when it came to giving me clear and detailed information on how to do many things.

I actually bought this a couple of years ago, as a fresh-faced newbie. I remember that I wanted to understand device management in Linux, but the section "Adding a disk" didn't make too much sense, despite several readings. (It makes more sense now, but I now understand it anyway so don't need the information).

It might just be me, and I don't think this book is terrible by any means, but I think there are others which cover the same ground better and more clearly.

I found good overview material on the system admin
architecture and the many parameter files which
are used to configure a system. My background is
in the non-Unix Digital proprietary operating systems.
This book helped me understand the basics of
Linux configuration and where to find what I needed
to know. I have supplemented it with man pages
and the web materials on sudo, for example. I
also find that this book is much borrowed by my
co-workers. I would recommend the book if you
already understand the principles of system
administration and you now need to administer
a Linux system. (If you are looking for detailed
how-tos for a specific distribution, emphasizing
the GUI interfaces to configuration, then this
one is probably not for you.) There are comparisions
included between Red Hat and SuSe, but these
examples tend to be command line based.