Customer Reviews

A Guide to Operating Systems: Troubleshooting and Problem Solving

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Save yourself $... and read the operations manual that came with your PC. I had to purchase this book for a college course on Operating Systems. It is written like a technical manual and will put you to sleep. The book is informative but there are several inconsistencies, especially with the review questions at the end of each chapter. The review questions are often vague and cross-reference other chapters. You will be expected to answer questions that are not clearly stated in the book. The book covers current operating systems but mostly Microsoft products. For instance, in chapter 2 you'll get thirty-eight pages about Windows, and two pages covering UNIX and Mac. I suggest that with the next revision the author pays more attention to the review questions and quizzes, and makes sure the answers are clearly stated in the chapters they relate to.

I had to purchase this book for a college course on Operating Systems. Save yourself the $ if you looking at purchasing a guide to Operating Sytems - there are better books on the market. But if you HAVE to purchase this book for college or university course, then use it like a reference. It is like reading a dictionary and will put you to sleep. The subject material is not well written, and is too vague, however if you have no prior experience with operating systems you might find it some what helpful as a guide on how to install Microsoft products, like Windows. It also covers Unix and Red Hat Linux Version 7.2, although very few pages are covered.
The authors have written this book like a a manual or technical guide to certain aspects of Operating Sytems. Do not attempt to read this book cover to cover, but only pull out the information that is relevant to you.

I had to purchase this book for a college course. This book is just like a dictionary on every possible bit of information you can think of about operating systems. Great book for Reference only. You won't want to read it cover to cover, but only read certain pages that is appealing and is relevant to what you are working on now. If you have absolutely no prior experience with Operating Systems, this book could be somewhat helpful. If you have some knowledge or advanced knowledge - use it for reference only.

I HAD to buy this book for a college course. If you want to know the basics about each and every flavor since Windows 95, you'll like this book. But his Linux knowledge is severely limited, and his knowledge of other Unix variants is even worse. Palmer & Waters have not used a unix machine in their lives and as a Unix admin I was quite disgusted with the ludicrous tripe they present, and I can assure you that much of it was wrong. While we get page after endless page on Microsoft domains, NIS, NIS+, and LDAP are entirely missing. The structure of each chapter is: 15 pages on W9x, WNT, WMe, W2K, WXP, W03, 3 paragraphs on Linux, 3 paragraphs on "Unix" which the category he uses to cover all non-linux variants, and 3 paragraphs on Macintosh.

To the authors: before you write a book on operating systems, get familiar with them. I could do better than you.

I would have given this book zero stars if it was possible.

This book would be more aptly named "A History of Microsoft Operating Systems: The Basics". As with another reviewer, I had to have this book for a course I took. There is little discussion of universal operating system fundamentals outside of file systems. The vast majority of the book focuses on MS operating systems. They spend more time talking about Windows 3.1 than Mac or UNIX. You want a book to help in troubleshooting or solving problems with operating systems? Unless you're a computer system neophyte this book won't help you. On the other hand, if you know little about operating systems and would like to learn the basics of how they work and the evolution of PC OSs, this would be a useful book.

This book is 'ok' for reference, but that's it.

A lot of computer books only talk computer including this one. I think it is the so so book, but readers may understand computer hardware and how to assemble a computer after they read it.