O'Reilly RAID Book

[Ninti Systems <office@ninti.com.au>]

I'm interested in list members opinion on the O'Reilly book 'Managing
RAID on Linux' by Derek Vadala published in December 2002.

I'm wondering how up to date the book remains, and if a new edition is
perhaps just around the corner (I hate buying a book two weeks before an
updated edition is released!).

I'm almost exclusively interested in RAID1. Would that render 80% of the
text irrelevant?

I've moved to Slackware 9.1 from RedHat 9. Slackware doesn't have any
nifty tools to set up RAID during install, so I presume I need to do
lots of command line work after install. Does the book mainly take a
basic tools approach (mkraid, mdadm) that would allow me to build RAID1
arrays out of "thin air" on the command line, or are there a lot of
vendor-specific GUI screenshots (I know O'Reilly tends to avoid that
sort of thing).

Finally, if anyone could point me to any resources (apart from the
Software RAID Howto) dealing with building RAID1 arrays on a
Slackware-type box after the system is already fully installed, that'd
be great.

If I can collect the info I need, assimilate it, and make it work, I am
more than happy to write up a Slackware RAID1 mini-Howto. I think such a
document is sorely needed for Slackers.

Thanks for any advice.
Mick