The errata list is a list of errors and their corrections that were found after the product was released.
The following errata were submitted by our customers and have not yet been approved or disproved by the author or editor. They solely represent the opinion of the customer.
| Version |
Location |
Description |
Submitted by |
Date submitted |
| Printed |
Page i
The included CD-ROM is NOT Official Debian GNU/Linux 2.1 |
The included CD-ROM contains an Unofficial hybrid of
Debian GNU/Linux 2.1 {slink} + the unstable Debian GNU/Linux 2.2
{potato}. It installs the 2.2.12-20 kernel. This hybrid was
created by Joey Hess of VA Linux, I have spoken with Mr. Hess
myself and confirmed this. He refers to this distribution as
"slink and a half". VA Linux will provide NO support for the
distribution included in this book. Instead they will direct you to
purchase a copy of their boxed distribution.
The book was written with the assumption that you would be using the
Official Debian GNU/Linux 2.1 {slink}.
The book, hardcopy and web version, should clearly, and boldly,
state that this is not the case. Neither the book, this website,
nor the CD make any mention of the non-standard distribution provided.
|
Anonymous |
|
| Printed |
Page Index
Your index shows "Y" index page (and it exists), |
but the other index pages are missing the letter "Y" in
the selection line to access other index pages.
e.g.:
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/9781565927056/chapter/index/idx_l.html
does not have a "Y"
but:
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/9781565927056/chapter/index.html
does show a"Y", and idx_y.html exists.
|
Anonymous |
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| Printed |
Page 30
The second paragraph reads "Do not remove ..." |
The directory "dosutils.." does not exist on the CD Rom.
Instead, these files are found in " ools.."
|
Anonymous |
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| Printed |
Page 36
In Item 5, you need to specify the file name as oot
esc1440.bin. |
The book leaves off the first slash mark.
Instruction 5. should read:
"When prompted, specify the file name of the
disk image source as f:oot
esc1440.bin and press Enter."
Not:
" When prompted, specify the file name of the disk image source as
oot
esc1440.bin and press Enter."
|
Anonymous |
|
| Printed |
Page 36
Step 4 says to CD to a file. It should either be |
"Run the command ools
awrite
awrite"
or:
"Run the command cd ools
awrite, and then run rawrite".
The way it's written now, the CD command won't work.
If you take out the CD in step 4, it's all good. For
that matter, the missing backslash in step 5 is a non-issue.
|
Anonymous |
|
| Printed |
Page 36
In item 4 |
cd tools
awrite2
awrite2and
should be:
cd tools
awrite2
awrite2 and
|
Anonymous |
|
| Printed |
Page 39
last line, last word: "scdx" should be "sdx" |
("sdx" is the Linux naming convention for SCSI hard drives;
"scdx", if anything, must be the naming convention for SCSI CD-ROM drives.)
|
Anonymous |
|
| Printed |
Page 47
On my version of Table 3-3, there was no "net - dummy" |
module. This led me to worry whether I had installed the system
correctly at all.
|
Anonymous |
|
| Printed |
Page 47
As other reader states: There is no net dummy module to install. Should |
it really be something else?
|
Anonymous |
|
| Printed |
Page 55
The book states that "The most appropriate profile for most |
initial users of Linux is the Basic" install. I think the author
must have meant Standard, because the Basic install does not include
a single package that the author then goes on having the reader use
(like X). The Basic install contains only the most essential programs
to run Linux at all - you can't do much of anything with it, and you
can't do anything outside command line.
|
Anonymous |
|
| Printed |
Page 55
Figure 3-21 |
I hate to keep quoting other reader but he's done a very thorough job, and
he's right. I also believe author was wrong to suggest that you should use
Basic install, rather than Standard, since most of the modules he later
talks about were never installed by Basic. And, there's no clearcut method
in text stating how to change the install. So once you've installed Basic
you're stuck with it. I'm still trying to figure out how to install what I
would have gotten if I'd chosen Standard to begin with.
|
Anonymous |
|
| Printed |
Page 58
In the first paragraph, the first message received is |
"Do you want to dleet .deb files ?"
A novice should be instructed as to the best course of action for this.
|
Anonymous |
|
| Printed |
Page 60
The second paragraph "HOWTOs" describes where the HOWTO files will be |
found. Unfortunately, after installing the copy of Linux supplied with the
book I have found that the HOWTO files are not present.
There is also a typo in this paragraph, in the second line 'direcotry'
should be 'directory'.
|
Anonymous |
|
| Printed |
Page 64
1st paragraph |
The command prompt is the RedHat default without
an explanation of why or how. It is entirely
possible to redefine PS1 (an environment variable)
to look this way, of course, but it can be
confusing. For example, I use:
EXPORT PS1='[ ]w$'
in my /etc/profile so my prompt displays
the current time in brackets.
Is the point that the different prompts
are configurable? If so, I think a discussion
of that's a good idea. Letting the reader
change something she is constantly seeing gives
that feeling of power. Maybe a note of it in
chapter 4 (comparing it to DOS $p$g perhaps)
with a pointer to man PS1 for more info
|
Anonymous |
|
| Printed |
Page 64
In the first paragraph, the command prompt I got after following |
the instructions on the CD rom was:
"9781565927056~:#"
The prompt:
"root@desktop:/root#"
is used throughout chapters 4 and 5 and is the one used in the Red Hat
system. By contrast, Chapter 7 uses:
"9781565927056~:#"
This is very confusing !
|
Anonymous |
|
| Printed |
Page 68
The "Using man" paragraph refers to a colon prompt. |
On my version there was no colon prompt, but rather a more complex
one. Figure 4-1 also shows a colon prompt. These appear to be
from the Red Hat distribution.
|
Anonymous |
|
| Printed |
Page 80
There are 2 places in this book, this being one of them, where say an -i |
option is automatically supplied by Linux. That would be nice and I often
set up aliases to do just that on Unix systems. But the version of Debian I
installed according to the directions in this book does NOT automatically
supply the -i option to the rm command. If you run rm filename that file is
removed.
|
Anonymous |
|
| Printed |
Page 90
Under "Useful Linux Programs," the pico editor is not on this |
distribution, but rather the "ae" editor. The Index is similarly
wrong in referring to 'pico' and its commands at these pages.
|
Anonymous |
|
| Printed |
Page 95
If you have a ps/2 mouse you need to configure X to find your |
mouse in /dev/psaux rather than /dev/mouse or /dev ttS0. The book
does not reveal this rather important piece of information.
|
Anonymous |
|
| Printed |
Page 109
Line 2 reads |
"amouse"
It should read:
"a mouse"
|
Anonymous |
|
| Printed |
Page 115
The instructions in the book do not enable you to load the |
GNOME desktop, only the window manager. You will not be able to
proceed without loading the GNOME packages from another source
because they are not on the cd (at least the one that came with
my book.) There are no desktop managers on the cd, only window
managers.
|
Anonymous |
|
| Printed |
Page 140
In the first line |
If a network services fails
should read:
If a network service fails
|
Anonymous |
|
| Printed |
Page 169
In the script in the middle of the page |
inconfig lo 127.0.0.1
should be:
ifconfig lo 127.0.0.1
Also the last line of script didn't seem to work. It is, according to book:
route add default gw ${GATEWAY} metric 1
I had to change it to:
route add default gw xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx metric 1,
with xxxs being my real IP address. I'm not sure if this is an error or
not. I did have GATEWAY correctly defined in line above so it makes me
wonder if script just doesn't work as written?
|
Anonymous |
|
| Printed |
Page 169
In the second line |
if that werver
should read:
if that server
|
Anonymous |
|
| Printed |
Page 169
After the code example |
The lines you're concerned with are lines four through eight
should be:
The lines you're concerned with are lines four through seven
|
Anonymous |
|
| Printed |
Page 170
At the bottom of the page, the /etc/hosts.conf/ file should be the |
/etc/hosts.conf file (without the extra slash.)
|
Anonymous |
|
| Printed |
Page 192
The instruction is wrong if you're running pcmcia. |
The latter manages dynamically the existence of the link /dev/modem.
Futzing with it (as in your example) is a fruitless pursuit.
|
Anonymous |
|
| Printed |
Page 214
Last paragraph: the first sentence of this paragraph staates, |
"If your FTP server fails to respond properly, check the
line you added to the inetd.conf file."
This implies that somewhere you tell what line to add to inetd.conf to
enable an FTP server, but I can't find any such line, or any other
reference to inetd.conf in the book.
|
Anonymous |
|
| Printed |
Page 214
Same error mentioned by another reader. "If your FTP server fails to |
respond properly, check the line you added to the inetd.conf file." But
this is the ONLY mention of inetd.conf in the entire book! What line should
we have added.
I must say I've found a surprising number of sloppy errors of this sort in
the book. I'll try to include the others. But if I hadn't also bought
Running Linux I wouldn't have gotten very far in getting Linux up and running.
|
Anonymous |
|
| Printed |
Page 249
Line 6 reads |
"Suppose the script...permitted read access."
It should read:
"Suppose the script...(read and) excecute access."
{Appendix C} None of the Gnome of Widow Maker packages were available
on my CD rom. Moreover, I could not find all of the ones listed in
the appendix on the web site. Even the ones I did manage to download
would have been too large to transfer by floppy to my half-installed
Linux OS. (I had to use MS Internet Explorer on my Win95 partition
because I could not install Gnome and therefore not use the
Netscape Navigator for Linux.)
|
Anonymous |
|