Preface This update of HP-UX 11i System Administration Handbook andToolkit includes a lot of new HP-UX 11i information. There are manynew functions in 11i that have been introduced since the previous revisionof this book was introduced such as: Virtual Partitions (vPars), hardpartitions (nPartitions), the GNOME interface running on HP-UX, theWeb-based kcweb kernel tuning tool, and many other advancements that arecovered in this revision. At the same time, however, there are even morenew 11i functions and architecture updates being introduced in the nearfuture. Before this book is even on the shelf in bookstores I am preparingthe next revision. HP-UX 11i and the hardware are advancing very quicklyso there are a lot of important improvements for me to document that allHP-UX system administrators want to know about. The HP-UX 11iSystem Administration Handbook and Toolkit is composed of following threesections: Section 1 - HP-UX System Administration Section 2 - HP-UX Partitions Section 3 - Introduction to UNIX and HP-UX The first section covers almost every aspect of HP-UX systemadministration for your day-to-day work. The Partitions section coverssome of the latest and most important topics related to HP-UX partitions.Since partitions, either virtual, hard, or both, are available on everynew HP-UX system I treat these important topics in a separate section. Ihave included Section 3 due to the many requests I have received toprovide UNIX background for those readers with limited exposure to UNIX.There are new HP-UX system administrators and users every day who can usethis introduction. You'll be seeing additional updates to this book on a regular basis. Thereare many enhancements taking place such as HP systems based on the IntelItanium architecture. I've just started to include such information inthis book. Chapter 1, for instance, introduces the Extensible FirmwareInterface (EFI). EFI is used on Itanium-based systems. It sits between thefirmware for the IPF system and the operating system loader. There will bemany more enhancements to come, so I'll be busy updating. I hope you enjoy reading the book and learning the material as much as Idid writing it. Marty Poniatowski marty.poniatowski@hp.com