LincolnBlogs

http://www.informit.com/store/linux-system-administration-livelessons-video-training-9780133551310

Wow, where do I even start. This is a LOT of material and really, my first review of a lengthy video (series). The series consists of 9 downloadable .mov files which total up to approximately 1.3Gb of space and around 350 minutes of video, or about 5.5 hours according to my video players calculations.

The first noticeable bonus from a video series as opposed to a book, is, well, video. You get to watch commands and examples in real time along with the information. Of course, the inverse is also true and if you are looking for quick reference or brevity then a book is really the way to go. Somehow, however, it almost seems as though I tend to get less distracted from the content with video than with a book. That can indeed be a bonus!

There are 9 video sections or selections in this series and the are as follows: Where to start, The Shell, Booting and Shutting Down, Access Controls and Root Powers, Controlling Processes, The File System, Log Files, TCP/IP Networking and finally, Security. This really is an exceptionally wide range of information to cover, I think, and that brings me to my review.

This videos series says it is aimed at Linux beginners, Administrators familiar with other OSes and Anyone interested in learning about Linux. All in all, I think that covers exactly everybody, everywhere. If you combine that with the enormous amount of information that wants to be covered in the subject material it just makes the objective impossible. I found the information good in some areas, too advanced for general and new users in others and completely missing in places as well. Even topically it seems a bit disjointed to me, for instance talking about how to “start out” without ever stepping through an actual Linux install, just use some pre built virtual machine copy. You hear a lot about running Linux via Vagrant and Virtualbox but as an actual System Administrator, I can assure you, that is not how most people run it. I realize we are talking nuts and bolts OS stuff here but I also found the content a bit dry. Some user or admin stories would have helped a great deal in that area. I would think finding a way to keep the interest of your audience would be even more paramount when dealing with dry technical content.

Now, does this mean it was all bad? Not at all and don’t walk away from this review with that impression. There is some genuinely good information buried in there for most Administrator levels, just realize that if something sounds too advanced or technical for you, skip to the next video chapter, much like you would in a book. Ben seems to not only know what he’s talking about but I don’t think I noticed him saying “er” or “ah” or “um” in nearly 6 hours of video 🙂 Usable as it is, the perfect fix for this would be to split the info up into 2 *much* shorter general videos. Aim one of them at the total beginner and aim the other at advandced. You may even want to break off some of the heavier topics for their own videos where they can get more specialized attention. Networking would be a great candidate for that.

I love Pearson to death as they have some of the best techie content out there, but this one needs some work I think.