★★★★★ 5
Very useful book on the latest Ubuntu distro
Format: Paperback
Disclaimer: Longtime follower and subscriber to Jay LaCroix’s YouTube site, Learn Linux
TV.
Several high quality authors (Jang, van Vugt, and Ghori the most well known) have been
introducing new comers looking for more in-depth guides to Linux to the Red Hat world
through their RHCSA Study Guides. The same cannot be said for Ubuntu. While books do
exist for Ubuntu, they are too general in this reviewers opinion. A noted exception is
Matthew Helmke. The other is Jay LaCroix.
Mastering Ubuntu Server, 4th Edition by Jay LaCroix addresses Canonical’s latest Ubuntu
release, 22.04 LTS (Jammy Jellyfish). Mr. LaCroix’s book follows the same outline as the
RHCSA books of installation, user management, package management, navigating the file
system through the terminal, command-line usage, up to and including storage and
networking. These chapters lay a solid foundation for the rest of the book, and all but one
chapter ends with a section for further viewing or reading which either point to Mr.
LaCroix’s well produced videos on his YouTube channel, Ubuntu’s wiki, or to one of
several informative websites. The YouTube videos are a good complement to the book,
and also raise the bar for what we as readers should expect from other authors and
publishers.
The last part of the book was my favorite. Where as the RHCSA books are confined to the
scope of the test they are aimed at, Mastering Ubuntu Server has no restrictions. Chapters
covering the installation of databases (MariaDB), web servers (both Apache and Nginx),
virtualization (QEMU/KVM), containerization (LXD and Docker), Ansible, AWS, and
Terraform along with their corresponding videos (except for Terraform) create a
comprehensive learning platform. Having worked through some of these chapters along
with the videos, one does get up to speed much quicker in understanding while adding a
new skill to their skillset. This is important in a competitive job market.
I would recommend Mastering Ubuntu Server, 4 th Edition highly to anyone wanting
something current for the 22.04 LTS distribution. Having said that, I do have some
admittedly subjective criticisms.
In the chapter on storage, the fdisk command is introduced for formatting and partitioning
disks. In an industry where it is becoming less likely to install a hard drive of 2TB or less
and manufacturers have 20TB hard drives in their product line, why not also introduce the
gdisk command.
My other criticism is directed at the virtualization chapter and its use of Virtual Machine
Manager for KVM. I got my start working with KVM through the Virtual Machine Manager
as well, but on the advice of a Systems Engineer I knew, transitioned to creating,
configuring and managing all my VMs through the command-line only. I wished that the
author pushed more in that direction. As I said, subjective opinions, and minor overall, for a
well written book by Jay LaCroix.
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Reviewed in the United States on September 9, 2022
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