Home :: Books :: Computers & Internet  

Arts & Photography
Audio CDs
Audiocassettes
Biographies & Memoirs
Business & Investing
Children's Books
Christianity
Comics & Graphic Novels
Computers & Internet

Cooking, Food & Wine
Entertainment
Gay & Lesbian
Health, Mind & Body
History
Home & Garden
Horror
Literature & Fiction
Mystery & Thrillers
Nonfiction
Outdoors & Nature
Parenting & Families
Professional & Technical
Reference
Religion & Spirituality
Romance
Science
Science Fiction & Fantasy
Sports
Teens
Travel
Women's Fiction
Learning UNIX Operating System, Fifth Edition

Learning UNIX Operating System, Fifth Edition

List Price: $19.95
Your Price: $13.57
Product Info Reviews

<< 1 2 3 4 >>

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Handy Start Book
Review: As a PC (DOS/Windows) person my whole life, I was looking for a "newbie" explanation of UNIX for a web class I was about to take. This did the job perfectly, and is small enough to carry in my briefcase for fast reference. It could have gone a bit deeper with only a few more pages, but for what I wanted, it was (and is) great.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A Nice book for the very High Level Basics
Review: As a user who is very new to Unix and one who will be required to rarely use Unix, I found this book a nice "little" (112 pages) companion.

The book covers many topics that will help the novice get around, like directory structures and some simple commands.

The book keeps everything on the high level, which is good for the user who doesn't have to know and doesn't really care to know the details and intricacies of the Operating System.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Every UNIX Admin Group Should Have One¿ To loan to users
Review: Every UNIX Admin Group Should Have One... To loan to users

You are perceived to be a UNIX guru. People regularly come to you with great deference to ask you for advice and help. Someone apologizes for his/her lack of knowledge for the third or fourth time and asks about a basic command. You grab a thin book from the shelf. "Take a look at this book", you say, "You probably know most of what's in here, but maybe some of it will help you. Just give it back when you're done." With relief he/she clutches the book and thanks you several times. He/she almost bumps into your neighbor's cubicle wall as he/she walks away reading this book...

Buy this thin book and this may happen to you. Well, the first part you'll have to manage yourself, but no self-styled UNIX novice has been ungrateful to borrow this book. Anyone seen as a guru will find that this book will pay for itself as a time-saving loaner.

I must say, that perception plays a great deal in this case. The book is amazingly thin and sports an O'Reilly animal on the cover. Anyone in corporate IT will associate this book with the O'Reilly books the in-house experts have on their shelves. I have another book that I feel may be a bit better for UNIX beginners, but given a choice, people will grab this one.

One can't help but notice sections that are probably unnecessary for computer-savvy UNIX beginners, such as "working with a mouse" and the description of a directory structure. But these sections are brief and clear and the authors move on quickly to UNIX-specific items such as "Redirecting I/O".

I definitely prefer "UNIX: Visual QuickStart Guide" from Peachpit Press, so I'm compelled to give this book less than a perfect score. I must admit that people who borrow this book seem much more enthusiastic when they borrow it than when they return it. But they also seem ready to move on to heavier books, and that's well worth the price.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: It's called LEARNING UNIX for a reason!!
Review: For all the people who whined and pined about how this book didn't talk about anything: 1) Pick the book up. 2) Look at it's width. 3) Note that a 3/4cm book will not answer all your questinos about a 30-yearold, complex, multiuser, multitasking operating system! Honestly, what did you expect in 100 pages!? For everyone else who is new/practically new to the Unix OS, get this book. $10 will not break you. It then refers other books to you. I also recomend Unix in a Nutshell (and all the other books by O'Reilly, they're amazing) for some more indepth information on the Unix OS. Then it will talk about smaller parts of the OS and then you can get another O'Reilly book about that! I'm actually excited. So in short, one book will not tell you everything you need to know about anything!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Pretty Good for Beginners
Review: Given the size of the book, it is quite a good book for people who are using the Unix system for the first time. Don't expect a lot in it though. You would read it in the train/bus to work where you are going to log in to a Unix system for the first time.

Recommended

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The PERFECT book for the beginner!
Review: I am an MCSE who is looking to expand my skills as an Administrator. I recognize that being Agnostic in which OS best suites a given situation is a must. So, I decided to take on the task of learning Unix - something that takes a looong time....unless you know where to start!

No matter what flavor of Unix (any System V or any *BSD version) this book will get you started in a jiffy. I sat down on an SGI running Irix 6.2 and started reading this book and perofrming the exercises. One of the most important things about this book over any other is that when you actually do these exercises you will learn more than you expected! Best of all it makes a good, quick reference to flip open when you forget something silly and need the answer quick. I GURANTEE this book will help anyone who is a Microsoft junkie that wants to start learning *ANY* version of Unix.

Although it's only 92 pages, you will understand mail, file and directory permissions, passwd, file management, printing files, pipes and filters, and multi-tasking. That's a lot of sh*t for such a small book.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great way to start!!
Review: I came into this with DOS, OS/2 and Windows experience (but no UNIX/Linux). This book and it's simple exercises will get you familiar with the most common essential commands in UNIX. It's best to read cover to cover and do the exercises while you go.

This is not a book for UNIX experts. This book is for people that have little or no experience on LINUX/UNIX. It is concise and doesn't waste your time while still teaching you the basics. People looking for more advanced reading should move on to Essential System Administration and UNIX Power tools (also Orielly books.)

Learning UNIX will definately get the new UNIX user off on the right foot and get you working with the interface.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: intro to operating system
Review: I need the definition of Operating system and file system. I need to review the different operating system. Genarally the introduction to operating system.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Virtually Perfect -- at least for me....
Review: I needed a book that would tell me very quickly what I needed to know to make use of a UNIX shell, and more importantly, to have some idea what I was looking at when I saw UNIX-related commands on a screen. I have worked with many operating systems over the years, but somehow had missed UNIX.

This book did 100%++ of what I wanted it to do. The great thing about it is that I believe it would do the same thing for someone without a lot of systems background. A technical book of any kind that can talk clearly to both kinds of readers is a very rare thing!

Highly recommended!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Now all that text means something...
Review: I remember my first look at a UNIX terminal. A little '%' with a flashing cursor. I don't remember how long I stared at the little prompt not knowing what to do. Then I pressed some keys and things became much worse.

Now I'm surfing around dizzying hierarchies of file structures, able to get to the root and back again and make and edit text files. I bite my thumb at weird commands that used to seem as comprehensible as medieval scholasticism.

I wouldn't have been able to accomplish any of that without this little book that's as intimidating as a ladybug.

The most difficult part of the book, in fact, is actually finding a UNIX environment to log into. If you're not at a University or a fairly good-sized corporation (and if you don't know UNIX they won't let you near a command line anyway) you may wonder where to go. Linux, in most cases, is a good substitute; or check the web for free UNIX (or Linux) shell accounts. Combine your new-found account with this book and UNIX will no longer be a gut-wrenching incomprehensible monolith.

Don't consider yourself an expert, however, and don't stop there. UNIX may not be as difficult as some like to think it is, but it's also not easily mastered. Take this book, digest it, then move on to bigger tomes (there is no shortage of tomes in the land of UNIX, as you will find).

Lastly, the owl on the cover rules.


<< 1 2 3 4 >>

© 2004, ReviewFocus or its affiliates