UNIX and LINUX Answers!: Certified Tech Support [Paperback]

Charlie Russel (Author), Sharon Crawford (Author)

Book Description

Series: Answers Series | Publication Date: January 21, 1998

This guide to UNIX and Linux aims to enhance the reader's practical knowledge of these operating systems. It includes useful scripts and workarounds, and a command-reference appendix and glossary. Numerous "how-to" lists and screen shots illustrate the book's answers. It also covers both expert and novice UNIX/Linux topics. UNIX is a widely-used operating system in the fields of Internet/Intranet and high-end computing, and is the founding OS of the World Wide Web. Its presence is strongest in hospitals, financial institutions and large Fortune-500 corporations. There are many flavours of UNIX from different vendors (for example, Sun/Solaris, HP/UX). Two categories of UNIX exist: UNIX System V and Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). UNIX System V is the version developed by the creators of UNIX, AT&T Bell Laboratories. With UNIX System 4, AT&T and Sun Microsystems (a prominent force in the UNIX marketplace) merged their two versions of UNIX. UNIX System V is considered the semi-official UNIX standard. Linux is a UNIX clone, free of any commercially-copyrighted software, developed for Intel-based PCs. The operating system was designed to bring UNIX power and flexibility to PCs and mainframes. Linux has grown to become a popular OS choice for PC workstations. Charlie Russel is the author of "ABCs of Windows NT Workstation 4" and co-author (with Linda Gause) of "SCO Open Server: The Windows Network Solution". Sharon Crawford is the co-author (Andy Rathbone) of "Windows NT4 for Dummies". Together Charlie Russel and Sharon Crawford are co-authors of "Running Microsoft Windows NT Server 4", "Windows NT and UNIX Intranet Secrets", Voodoo UNIX" and "OS/2 for Windows Users".

Product Details

• Paperback: 308 pages
• Publisher: Osborne Publishing (January 21, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 007882446X
• ISBN-13: 978-0078824463
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,009,583 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A good beginner user's guide to Unix; needs 200 more pages., August 16, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: UNIX and LINUX Answers!: Certified Tech Support (Paperback)

I would actually rate this book at 3.5 out of 5.

This very readable book introduces a newbie Unix user to several basic tools' use with some tips and tricks. Home directory file management and backup, printing and printer management, terminal customization, vi, XWindows and the fvwm window manager, running programs and a little job management, LAN messaging, file sharing, awk and sed are covered.

I think this book is one of a kind, but probably everyone who reads it will wish there were more. Instead of 300 pages, it should be 400-500 pages. Almost everything that is covered could be covered more. Even if the book must aim only at users, it would be approriate to add introductions to or sections on: the general Unix filesystem hierarchy, CDE and KDE window managers (replacing the section on the antiquated fvwm), StarOffice and/or WordPerfect, gzip and bzip2, and Netscape.

But, given the number of people that are installing free or somewhat free versions of Linux, Solaris, BSD and SCO Unixes on their home systems, and given that such things as the relative merits of SMB and NFS are already discussed in the book, it is beyond doubt that the audience is not primarily users but users/newbie sysadmins. So sections on common TCP/IP setup files, SAMBA and NFS setup should be added to the next revision, as well as on kernel (re)configuration, the make and rpm commands and JDK/JRE 2 setup, XFree86 setup (mention video setup and wheel-mice), library control, and various Unices' administration tools (SAM, admintool, linuxconf, SMIT, etc). This could easily be covered and bring the book to no more than 500-600 pages. It's only 300 now.

In short, I think the book is a really great start and is worth buying and worth completing.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Helps in gaining speed with UNIX, May 7, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: UNIX and LINUX Answers!: Certified Tech Support (Paperback)

If you are a newbie to UNIX this book is very useful.The presentation is by question & answer,making it useful while "hands-on" with UNIX.It helps you to gain speed with the esssential commands.

Coverage on the vi editor is good.Shell programming & Regular expressions could be covered in more detail.