Ron Savage

Recently, Packt published a book called Debian 7: System Administration Best Practices.

Some time before they had emailed me asking if I would be a reviewer. I know some readers have in the past been disappointed with Packt's books, and thought that since I had time I might be able to contribute enough suggestions to help make the book better. I explained that I am a Perl programmer, not a Debian administrator, and on that understanding we agreed.

I was not told the name of the author, and from his point of view I would have been one of the anonymous reviewers.

During reviews, I made many suggestions. I have received a paper copy of the book, but have not counted how many were adopted. I did check a couple of chapters, and see a few were, and some (a clear majority :-) weren't. The number doesn't matter - what matters of course is the resultant book.

Have a look at the Table of Contents, and you'll see a wide range of topics are covered. You'll have to decide for yourselves if 98 pages are sufficient to at least introduce the many issues you believe ought to be discussed. The back cover does say it's a high-level guide, so it isn't claiming to be an in-depth reference manual for all things Debian.

I have to add that the material printed about me (as a reviewer) consists of what I sent them to include, plus a largish chunk from my resume, which of course should not have been included, and I certainly didn't expect to see there.