Ubuntu Server Book Needed?

[Luke L]

On 7/11/08, Megan Yockey <meyo at manning.com> wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> Megan with Manning Publications here.  I normally do not post general
> inquiries about books to technical mailing lists, but in this case I was
> encouraged to do so, so here goes.
>
>
> I'm seeking feedback from the community regarding the interest-level for a
> book on Ubuntu Server.  We've had the book in development for a while now,
> but the project stalled out several months ago, and we must now determine
> whether we should push to complete it or not. In the meantime, another
> publisher has put out a book on the subject, and a second book has been
> announced for later this year (see links to Amazon listings below).
>
> So we are wondering, is our Ubuntu Server book still needed? (See
> http://www.manning.com/galvin for more info.) If you have any thoughts about
> whether such a book would be welcomed, please feel free to respond.  If you
> would prefer to keep your opinion on this private, you can write to me
> directly at meyo [at] manning.com.  We would appreciate any input that you
> are willing to give.
>
> Kind regards,
> Megan Yockey

I'll tell you some observations I have about the Apress book to give
you ideas on what to do differently.

1) Better chapter titles, or list subtitles in the ToC. Just looking
at chapter 8, "Making Connection", doesn't tell me what is covered in
the chapter (NIC config and SSH). One could guess it would have
something to do with that, but I don't want to guess.

2) More coverage on virtualization using KVM. Virtualization is
something every system administrator needs to know now. Ubuntu's
"official" virtualization tool is KVM, and rather than intro into both
it and Xen, I'd like to see a more in-depth section on advanced tasks
such as migration (live or not), load/saving states, etc. Covering the
other tools that can be used (especially virt-manager, as far as I am
aware, it is the tool being pushed by the server team).

3) Perhaps cover getting Ruby[onRails] and/or Python integrated with
Apache, instead of just PHP. I don't know how in-demand this is, but
it seems to me that PHP isn't as dominant on the web-language front as
it was when LAMP became a popular platform.

I'll be honest, Apress did a good job on their book. It is great for
someone who needs to have instructions from dropping the CD in to
configuring the system in general. I hope this helps.




-- 
Luke L.