Book Review: Linux Patch Management: Keeping Linux Systems Up to Date

Author: Michael Jang
Format: Paperback, 288 pages
Published: Prentice Hall PTR; 1st edition (January 9, 2006)
ISBN: 0132366754

Review by James Pyles
March 28, 2006

Anyone who has had to manage patches for a single Windows computer or an entire Windows network, has watched at least some of their hair fall out or at least go a bit gray. Trying to keep your Windows systems up to date and secure, while facing the specter of a well-meaning patch breaking your computers, is not for the faint of heart. Lest we forget however, Linux systems also require patches to update software packages and package management on Linux is not always an easy task. Windows computers have a single web interface...the much vaunted Windows Update Manager...for the user or admin to navigate to and update the variety of Windows workstations and servers...but while “Windows” may be a single, monolithic entity, such is not the case for Linux. Most books on Linux software package management limit themselves to one or perhaps two distros. After all, each flavor of Linux seems to use a different tool for package management on the system. Michael Jang decides to take on all the major systems including Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), Fedora, SUSE, and Debian, plus several others. The range of this book goes from patch management on the individual computer to updating software packages on entire networks.

To read the complete review, go to The Linux-Tutorial.