Yes, Essential System Administration is good. I've read some of it. But I think it is more oriented for sysadmins, while the Linux Command Line book is for begi

Yes, Essential System Administration is good. I've read some of it. But I think it is more oriented for sysadmins, while the Linux Command Line book is for beginners, who may or not go on to become sysadmins. Aside: One of the good points the ESA book maks, IMO, is that when doing sysadmin tasks, try to make your changes reversible, i.e. you should be able to go back to a previous state (of a config file, or whatever). That can save you from a hell of a lot of trouble later.