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Summary: Everything even beginning Unix programmers need
Review: Now in a completely updated and expanded third edition, Unix Power Tools by Shelley Powers, Jerry Peek, Tim O'Reilly and Mike Loukides is an exhaustive, 1116-page instructional guide to scripts, techniques, and useful applications for programming in Unix, including xterm, X Windows, tips for optimizing disk space, creating custom commands in vi, using GNU Emacs, shell interpretation for scripting, pattern matching, redirecting input and output, and much, much more. An extensive and comprehensive resource, Unix Power Tools is filled from cover to cover with clear instructions, sample codes, and just about everything even the most novice beginning Unix programmer needs to get started -- or that the advanced Unix programmer may need to look up.
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Summary: Jeffrey McPheeters MyMac.com Book review
Review: Unix Power Tools, an apt title not meant to be redundant (Unix is THE power-user's operating system, after all) has been the ShopSmith manual or the Unix Almanac since it first appeared in the early 1990s. The second edition appeared in 1999, and with the amazing, if not predicted, growth of Unix and expansion into many flavors; it's fitting that a 3rd edition should appear now. Over half of the articles have been revised since that last edition to include information pertaining to many of the smaller but ground-gaining Unix's such as Linux, freeBSD, and Mac OS X's Darwin. This is a huge book; thus the need for four authors! For a network administrator who understands Unix, and who is contemplating the merging of Mac OS X Server and Client systems into their network, this book should pay for itself in dividends. I was impressed with how thoroughly this book covers the multitude of topics contained within. Everything from mastering the various editors to learning to write shell scripts to detailed instructions for maintaining and backing up a network is included. I found the book organized logically according to various services. The O'Reilly web site has a complete list of the contents, the index, and user reviews. O'Reilly also has an online fee-based service called MySafari (cool name) which allows subscribers the ability to build virtual bookshelves of O'Reilly books to have at their beck and call whenever they are online. It's free to explore and there's a 14-day demo period as well. You may see a lot for detail of this book by visiting their site. With more than 50 chapters detailing nearly every nook and cranny of the most common Unix distributions, there's something here for every Unix power user. The updated and expanded sections on security and Windows access are welcome indeed. Every topic is explained with examples and illustrated richly with screen captures. Common problems, mistakes, and real-world examples are distributed liberally throughout the book. If any one book could help a Unix administrator, developer, or power user come to Ôgrep' with the full capabilities of Unix, it would be this book. Just a few high lights for me included the extensive section on the vi editor, detailing many functions I had no idea existed, such as running scripts within vi as shortcuts for oft-repeated commands. The section on eMacs got me excited about exploring that powerful editor to the extent that I downloaded one of the more extensive distributions for Mac OS X so I could try it out. For a Unix text editor, it is really a good one; however, coming from the Mac background I appreciate BBEdit more and more. Still, every Unix power user will find that some basic knowledge of vi or eMacs will come in very handy when they find themselves with console access and no local text editor other than these. The closing chapters covering many security issues have captured my attention at this time, as I contemplate moving a few of my domains from a remote dedicated server to one directly under my control running Mac OS X. I think I understand a little better what my host providers have been doing for me all these years! Make space near your workstation now for this book. If you are a mobile laptop user, like myself, consider becoming a user of MySafari services at O'Reilly, which would allow you to have a book like this available online when it is not convenient to carry the extra weight with you. Bottom line: no serious Unix user and no serious newcomer intending to become proficient in Unix should be without this book!
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Summary: IMPRESSIVE UNIX POWER TOOLS
Review: This versatile well-detailed book is friendly to beginners without compromising its advanced outlook. There is a new chapter on access to Unix from Windows. At over 1200 pages, it provided every vital information that any user would need: including expanded coverage on installation and other basic information on Tcl, Perl and Python. Security and Internet access were, as well, cordially handled. This Third Edition extended the sections of most of the new shells, including zsh and bash. It provided guidance on virtually all modern utilities and applications. It is a valuable reference for any Unix faithful.
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Summary: Great Set of Scripts
Review: This book has a lot of good system administration script examples. A must for any SA's bookshelf.
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Summary: PRINT QUESTION
Review: My mid-level rating applies to the 2nd edition only, because the examples were printed in such light grey type that they are almost impossible for me to read. Since our local bookstores are not carrying the 3rd edition yet, I am wondering if it has the same problem.
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Summary: Power Tools or useful nuggets?
Review: This is a useful book and contains a huge number of insightful nuggets of information presented in the format of short articles. I found references to things I had never even dreamed of existing in Unix. However, I find that the "nugget" approach is not as useful as a coordinated text would have been, because some things are covered several times, while other things are only mentioned in passing. This book would probably be most useful to a system administrator or user as an adjunct to another reference text. The typesetting could also have been improved, as there are some references in a very pale grey font which I find unnecessarily hard to read, expecially in dim light.
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Summary: buy me
Review: i dont want to use too many trite descriptions of this book (keeper, must have, great book), since i usually think they're written by plants, but honestly, it has served me well for the past 4 years. when i bought it it was expensive--a college textbook price (i got it at a discount ;), but i've found it worth the $. the book is organized in a really cool way--it is a large # of clearly written articles. i'm not sure where they were gathered. the articles would be hard to deal with on their own, but the INDEX is great--you look up what you are trying to do in the index, and often what you are looking for is there! the one downside about this book is that it is a little outdated, like kelly felkins said, many tasks are straightforwardly done in perl, while this book is strictly unix utilities. also the internet (google) is a good search tool for any kind of problem you might have [if you can sort through the noise], so the book loses a bit of its value. probably the biggest indicator of this being a useful book is that if you put it on your shelf, people will come to borrow it and frequently won't bring it back!
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Summary: a great intro to text and file processing in unix...
Review: I continue to learn from this book. It has a really useful review of text and file processing, including a detailed description of 'find'. I like the way it is organized with lots of short sections with plenty references to other sections - sort of paper-based hyperlinking.
In my opinion, many of the tools described have been replaced in everyday use by perl commands, so a new version describing the equivalent perl commands would be useful.
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Summary: A powerful tool to have
Review: This is a rare kind of book. It is not well suited for front to cover reading. But you will be reading it all the time. Unix system contains hundreds of tools, commands that can perform an amazing amount of tasks. Each one of them can be tailored by using parameters to perform his concrete function in a different way each time, the one that best fits your needs. Of course, nobody master them all, or all their parameters. Unix users read man pages when they need to search a forgotten parameter, or an unknown tool. After months and years of work, each Unix user has a personal way of using the tools provided. Not always the best. That is the place of this book. Several knowledgeable writers offer their years of experience condensed in a few "tricks" for a specific task you may want to do. For example, finding a file. You have a brief description of some of the most useful parameters you can use (not all, man pages are for that). Then the book displays some examples on using them: finding files older than X days, finding big files... This is an excellent book for experts and beginners alike. The first time Unix user will have a help for finding "how to do that" in Unix. The expert will find new and innivative ways to use the commands he thought he mastered. As many reviewers have said already, this book will not teach you how to set a machine or configure a server, but it will help to improve your performance and your overall knowledge of the tools you use, and the tools you should be using.
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Summary: A true treasure chest
Review: This book is a true treasure chest, full of tips and tricks for Unix admins, users, enthusiasts. The CD ROM comes very handy too. Definetely worth the money.
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