[Aslug] Linux books

[Brian and Regine Haynes]

When I dropped by the Alice Springs Book City store in the Yeperenye Centre
a couple of days ago, I was rather horrified to see a Visual Quickstart
Guide to RedHat Linux 6 on the shelf for just over $60.  I am acquainted
with one of the employees there, so I quietly inquired how often they
reviewed their computer books and either got rid of or heavily discounted
the old stuff.  I pointed out that I didn't think it was a very good choice
of Linux books to have on their shelf, and particularly not for that price.

Surprisingly, they had just received the book from their distributor last
September.  They said they had a local person in the IT industry who
periodically came by the store to help them with clearing old stock and
suggesting new titles to stock.  I'm guessing this IT person does not use
Linux.  I know there are bound to be quite a few people out there in the
world that are still using RedHat 6 and perhaps even older versions, but
surely they are the exception rather than the rule.  At any rate, I
eventually spoke with the manager, Andrea, and she said they would take that
book off the shelf and see if they could return it to their distributor.
Andrea said that she generally prefers to keep her stocks of computer books
to a minimum, and she is always happy to special order any titles that she
can readily obtain.  However, I mentioned to her the existence of the local
Alice Springs Linux User's Group, and said that if she was genuinely
interested in stocking some Linux books, we could probably make some
recommendations.  She liked the sound of that.

I'm not trying to endorse or advertise Book City in any way, but it seems to
me to be a good PR move for ASLUG members to pass them some tips on good
(and recent!) Linux or Open Source books.  Any suggestions for good,
all-purpose Linux or other Open Source related books?

Brian
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