The next book I need: 'Linux System Administration' by Tom Adelstein and Bill Lubanovic

"Linux System Administration," one of the newer books in the category from O'Reilly, is another must-get on my list. My recent book acquisitions include both the No Starch and O'Reilly "Linux Cookbook" volumes, plus a fourth-edition "Linux in a Nutshell" that I got used for a couple bucks.

Those O'Reilly books are truly worth their weight in the proverbial gold -- and they're damn heavy, so that's a lot of weight.

From what I've seen -- and you can see a lot at the O'Reilly site -- "Linux System Administration" really helps you get things done, with lots of step-by-step to take you through setting up a server, handling mail, doing backups and bash scripting -- all the things you'd need to know if you were suddenly thrust into the position of acting like a sysadmin.

I can't vouch for the many suse- and Red Hat-focused books out there, but "Linux System Administration" focuses on Debian due to its stability and freeness, and it's a book that many of us need, whether we can admit it or not (and I'm admitting it big time).