* A reader reviews Novell's course; O'Reilly publishes Linux internals book
Last week’s newsletter pointing to Novell’s “Bridging NetWare skills to Novell OES for Linux” training prompted reader Mike Ossing to drop me a note with his impressions of the course. Ossing had gone through it last fall when it was first announced. His impression was that Novell “…barely scratched the surface, and if I hadn’t had the chance to previously play with the Novell [Linux] desktop and the SuSE 9.2 install, with my ‘Dummies’ book close at hand, I’d have been a little lost. Maybe a lot lost. I think I’d classify them more as an overview course. I got about 60% of the questions right the first time through.”
You’re mileage may, of course, vary. But it is probably fair to say that some Linux knowledge before plunging into the course would make it more understandable.
In that light, I noticed that Tim O’Reilly has just published a new book called “Understanding Linux Network Internals”, described as “a no-nonsense guide to Linux networking.” Author Christian Benvenuti works at Cisco and has developed software based on the Linux kernel, is a former scientific consultant for a project on remote collaboration, and served as an instructor for several training sessions on networking for scientists in the European community. He doesn’t have any NetWare experience, but that’s what you, the reader, bring to the party.
The book may be overkill if you concentrate mostly on networking software, since the topics include:
* Key problems with networking
* Network interface card (NIC) device drivers
* System initialization
* Layer 2 (link-layer) tasks and implementation
* Layer 3 (IPv4) tasks and implementation
* Neighbor infrastructure and protocols (ARP)
* Bridging
* Routing
* ICMP
But what the book can give you is the Linux point of view about networking. In other words, it can give you the vocabulary and background to complement your NetWare knowledge when you approach the “Bridging NetWare skills” course. The book lists for $49.95, but I’ve seen it online for $36, which makes it a good investment – especially for those of you considering the move to Linux, or who have already made the leap but feel you’re simply treading water.
