Acknowledgments

Writing can be a lonely endeavor, but in the course of writing a book like this, there are all sorts of people whose paths you cross and who make the result better. Many thanks to Jenny Watson, my acquisitions editor, who gave me the chance to do this. Also thanks to my agent, Carole McClendon at Waterside Productions. Endless props to Rob Shimonski, who tech edited the bulk of the text and pitched in at the end to get this project completed. Scott Meyers offered excellent advice, Mandie Frank shepherded the review process, and Barbara Hacha did a marvelous copy edit. Special thanks to Scott Villinski at Novell, who helped with the installation chapter, and offered a few tips (with Tim Kresler) to the Milwaukee Linux Users Group; and Don Bangs, who got me my first computer and always responds to hardware emergencies.

To all the developers, testers, documenters, and users of SUSE Linux and all the wonderful applications that go with it: Thank you isn't enough, but I hope it'll do for now. To the participants on all the mailing lists: Your helpfulness to me and all the other users should never go unnoticed. To my friends in the Boulder and Milwaukee Linux Users Groups: Couldn't have done any of this without you.

Finally, to my wife Jeanette, who always believed I was a writer and my two favorite distractions, Hannah and Ben (and their parents, Bev and Bob): May you grow up happy and in a Linux world.