Rating: 
Summary: A good general reference.
Review: This book is a good reference if you are in a heterogenous environment, or are relatively new to UNIX administration. It covers quite a few topics, explaining the differences between different OS version. However, it does not go into very much detail. A must-have for new administrators, but unneccessary for experienced admins.
Rating: 
Summary: Simple, common-sense treatment of many things. Not terrific
Review: I have read or at least skimmed through many books on systemadministration, none very good. This one, however is one of my leastfavorites. It goes through the many attributes of good UNIX system administration, yet it fails to show any originality or creativeness. Rote, passing treatment of every subject is fairly well organized, and covers most popular UNIX implementations, but I recommend the _Unix_System_Administration_Handbook_ with the red cover (several authors).
Rating: 
Summary: A necessary tool for any Unix sysadmin
Review: An extremely well-organized and up-to-date guide to the
administration of many flavors of Unix. I encourage all
of my clients to keep a copy next to the console, for
help in those frantic moments.
Rating:
Summary: Very good reference to many UNIX systems
Review: This book is a very good tool for someone who has access or is an administrator to different UNIX flavors. It covers detailed
system administration functions, and then translates them to multiple
UNIX systems. So, if your on the road, with a time crunch,
looking for adduser (sys V), mkuser (AIX), SAM (HP), or looking for rc boot files on a mostly BSD, mostly SYS V, some OSF mix,
or looking to add disks on SCO, Linux, SunOS/Solaris, IRIX,
Digital Unix, (which are all completely different) you will want this book.
When buying a system admin book, you need to cover all the administration angles,
which this does, but it separates itself from the crowd by providing
the different UNIX flavors.
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic
Review: One of the Best Books written for people who "have" to
run Unix machines!!!!! Well worth it's price!
Rating:
Summary: THE UNIX System Admin. Book
Review: From the book--" This book is the foundation volume for O'Reilly & Associates' system administration series...provides you with the fundamental information needed by everyone who takes care of UNIX systems...consciously avoids trying to be all things to all people; the other books in the series treat individual topics in 'complete' detail." This book gives he reader a good understanding of what goes on under the hood of a UNIX system, without getting you bogged down in the details, and also points out the diff. and sim. b/w many variants of the OS(BSD,SCO,AIX,...). You need to know a little about scripts and a few tools to get the most of the book, it's not for complete beginners, but it is very clearly written. I had been using Linux for about 9 months before buying this book, and had worked with SCO and SunOS on the job for about 5 or so years(off and on). Almost every page had an answer to a question I have asked myself over that time. "UNIX Power Tools"(1-56592-260-3)works really well as a companion book to this one. tells the ins and outs of the commands and such.
Rating:
Summary: Most useful sysadmin reference
Review: I use this book more than probably all my other reference materials put together. This book provides information across most UNIX platforms ie Linux,AIX, Solaris, HPUX etc. This is a must have for Sys Admins of all levels.
Rating: 
Summary: Shouldn't Be Your First Book...
Review: Your first book should be "UNIX System Administration Handbook" by Nemeth, Snyder, Seebass, & Hein. I always turn to that book first. I am not sure I would buy Frisch's "Essential System Administration" again. Definitly try to get it used if you do buy it. Looking in this book is often a last resort, and often if I haven't found the answer in my other two books, then it normally isn't in this one either.It is a big book, much of which I feel is fluff, but if this was your only book on the topic, you would still be ok. The wording just isn't as clear as I'd prefer.
Rating:
Summary: The New Edition is Great
Review: Well, it was a long wait, but the new third edition is great. Covers a couple of Linux distro's, FreeBSD, and your standard Unix platforms. More complete coverage of networking and security. More readable than the previous edition. Good for anyone with minimal Unix experience or those who have worked with it for years.
Rating:
Summary: Great, but needs FreeBSD support and more admin commands
Review: The main reason I picked up this book was because of the small price tag. Everything is explained fairly well, and it is perfect for beginners in the genre. My only gripe is that some sections seem to be unfairly balanced in content (and yes I do know it is a "nutshell"). Anyway, if you are a beginner at UNIX and have (the money) to spare, this is the book for you!
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