I browsed the computer book section of my local Borders this weekend, looking for something that might make me a better system administrator. Among all the books for applications ranging from web tools, programming languages, and others there was a noticeable lack of books showing how to manage the systems that run these applications. The only book I saw that came close to this was a book devoted to Ubuntu server administration.

Good system administration does not come by accident, it comes by many accidents! It takes years of experience dealing with the headaches that computers can cause before one finds their sysadmin sweet spot. While it takes most of us many years to gain that knowledge, it would be nice if a few books were available that would condense this hard-earned wisdom into helpful advice, independent of the actual platforms involved (bookstores seem to love to group their books based on a popular, high-profile name. System administration, as a concept and philosophy, does not lend itself to this kind of packaging).
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