Customer Reviews

Sams Teach Yourself Unix in 24 Hours

5 star:		(39)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

When I first learned UNIX 8 years ago, there were't any books available - it was "learn by trial and error." When I found myself with a new programming job using UNIX, I was delighted to find this book.

What's great about this book:

- Covers all the basics & essentials of UNIX.
- Goes over different UNIX platform differences.
- Includes information on different text editors.
- Very few, if any, distracting typos.
- Humorous approach.
- Written as author talking directly to reader.
- Perfect for a refresher course!

I'm finding more and more that SAMS books are the best, in any category - and this UNIX book is no exception.

I have been doing computer programming from six years. I have been most of the time a windows and GUI guy. But lately I have been using Unix extensively.I bought this book 8 months back and I cant thank the authors and SAMs enough for this great book.

The title might sound silly, but the essence is 'Unix in 24, one hour sessions'. Unix can be very intimidating for a beginner. You dont even know what to learn. In my case, this book helped a lot.

Highlight of this book is its chapter on vi editor. It is the best example and tutorial on vi I have ever seen. As you go through vi features along with the author, you will get a sense of purpose and orientation for each and every command in vi. The first chapter tells us the history of unix and different flavours of unix. From there the every important feature is explained in simple, concise manner. Telnet, ftp, c shell, basic shell programming, file ownership and permissions etc are explained very well.

The only draw back is a missing command reference. The book has a quick one page command reference at the beginning of the book, which you can tear out. But for a regular programmer, this is not enough. For reference, I have supplemented this book with 'Unix Complete'.

Anyway, at [price] this book is all worth it. This book is going to be with be forever.

To all those users wanting to learn Unix, but unsure where to start, this is "The Book." This book takes the user step-by-step on how to use Unix commands. The most important part of Unix is the commands. If you know them, then you're a Unix operator. This book has you take a command, understand it, and then apply it by using the command. It is a full circle solution on how to use Unix at the command line. After this learn a Linux flavor and become an expert. I run an ISP and Linux Support Group; I started with this very book. Nate@zUzO.net

I have taught UNIX at the college and professional level using several different books, but none of them were right for an introductory class. This one is. If you have a UNIX reference book you don't understand, get this one. Work through it cover to cover, and you'll have a good enough command of UNIX to use any other book out there.

Dave Taylor's writing style is fun and easy to read, but he doesn't "talk down" to you either. His enthusiasm for UNIX as an operating system shines through. He supplies lots of simple exercises to build confidence and experience, even in the notorious editor vi.

The only caveat I would warn someone about is, Dave heavily favors bash, the "Bourne Again Shell." You might want to make sure you have this shell available before purchasing the book.

Why would this book teach you about Solaris? It's a UNIX book, first you read and learn UNIX then you buy a book and learn Solaris. I can't understand people who say books like this are confusing, how can a SAMS book be confusing? Especially UNIX, type the command that it says. As far as no pictures? Why would a UNIX book need Pictures? UNIX is not graphical it looks just like the words in the book. You can write UNIX commands on a piece of paper and that's UNIX. The book is Great! One of the Best Sams books out there. Perfect for new UNIX users. I bought it and read it and a few months later people were asking me UNIX commands.

Target Audience
People who have a need to learn how to work with Unix at the command level.

Contents
This book is a hands-on tutorial on the Unix operating system divided up into 24 lessons.

The book contains the following chapters: What Is This Unix Stuff?; Getting Onto The System And Using The Command Line; Moving About The File System; Listing Files And Managing Disk Usage; Ownership And Permissions; Creating, Moving, Renaming, And Deleting Files And Directories; Looking Into Files; Filters And Piping; Wildcards And Regular Expressions; An Introduction To The vi Editor; Advanced vi Tricks, Tools, And Techniques; An Overview Of The emacs Editor; Introduction To Command Shells; Advanced Shell Interaction; Shell Programming Overview; Slicing And Dicing Command Pipe Data; Job Control; Printing In The Unix Environment; Searching For Information And Files; Archives And Backups; Communicating With E-mail; Using telnet, ssh, And ftp; C Programming In Unix; Perl Programming In Unix; Working With The Apache Server

Review
I'm seriously considering starting to explore the use of Linux as an alternative to using Windows. And fortunately for me, the Linux desktop has evolved to the place where you can use it much like a Windows environment. But like earlier versions of Windows, there is a lot of power if you delve under the graphic layer of the operating system. In Windows, that was DOS. With the Linux, it's the command line interface. If you don't know where to start when you get there, Teach Yourself Unix In 24 Hours will get you off on the right foot.

Dave Taylor takes you through a hands-on approach to the basics of maneuvering and manipulating a Unix-style operating system. By working through the examples and exercises, you'll start to grasp the commands that are needed to do the basics. From there, you learn how to string commands together to create scripts that will automate many of your tasks. And that's where the real power starts to come into play. You'll also learn about permissions and ownership of files and directories, which you'll run into with many other systems you may work with during the course of your job.

I found this book useful on a number of levels. First of all, it helped me to understand some of the Unix concepts I need to know when I'm working with other departments that use Unix as their base platform. It's also giving me the fundamental knowledge I'll need when I start with my Linux work. Even though I'll be doing a lot of work at the graphical layer, I want to be able to feel confident to go beyond that when I need to. Until I get beyond the basics, this book will stay close at hand in order to figure out what I just did or what I just broke. :-)

Conclusion
This is an ideal text for someone who has to work with Unix and doesn't have much, if any, prior experience. The hands-on nature of each lesson will appeal to those who want to learn by doing.

No book can cover everything. However, what the authors attempt to cover in this book is done very well. They are not interested in showing you how smart they are as SOOO many technical manuals are. The authors give you a quick explaination of a topic then SHOW you the topic is action (very effective). Again, not everything is covered. You won't find a lot on shell scripts. However, what is there will allow you to understand some of the other books that are dedicated to this topic. They cover what they say they will and do it well. Definitely a five-star book!

Unix has many levels to master and there is no one book that could possibly cover all of them.
I have quite formidable experience with different books on UNIX and related subjects and this one would be in the list of my favorites. It is very well written, very articulate; it goes into many subjects with great attention to details and so on.
As for now there are three major methods had been available: real course, book and knowledgeable friends. I have discovered another one and it is "UNIX Essentials" DVD that sells here on Amazon and it is well worth mentioning. The DVD isn't complete as I said there is no way to cover everything in UNIX but, but it covers 90% of what one has to know to start work with UNIX independently. It is very nice compilation for someone who likes to learn UNIX but it has to be supplemented by a book like this one. Take both, work trough them for two weeks and there are few people around who could possibly recognize that you are novice. It provides VERY nice training altogether.

Bought the digital version - big mistake. As far as I can tell (and I haven't really bothered to look for a workaround), the pdf will only work/open on the computer which you downloaded your new e-book from; you can't copy/burn it to put it on another computer or to share your new pdf-book with your friends like you could if you actually bought the hard copy. Buy hard copies only! (Another blow for the bloated pdf format...)

I bought this book in hopes of brushing up on my UNIX skills and it worked out great. The book has clear explanations and easy examples. Check it out if you're trying to learn UNIX or brush up.