Customer Reviews

UNIX (Visual QuickStart Guide)

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a good starting point to study unix. No unix background required. If you want something shorter than you need "Learning the Unix Operating System" O'Reilly ISBN: 1565923901

This is a good book to help you start with unix-based systems, especially if you do not have any knowledge about how they work. In this book, concepts of file and user management are explained. Not much detail is provided as to not confuse the reader who has had no previous experience with unix. Step-by-step instructions let the reader become more familiar and comfortable with the system. The bottom line is that this book says what it does - it is a starting guide - if you need any in-depth information about unix, you must seek elsewhere.

The book has some mistakes, but if you have at least half a brain, you will be able to figure out what is wrong. In addition, you are constantly reassured that if you are using a system with good administrators, there's little to none damage that you could possibly do. Some parts try to be humorous in its own cute and dorky manner, but the humor is not obnoxious nor imposing. Overall, the book is a gentle introduction; it teaches unix without making the reader feel dumb.

I looked at many many intro books, and this was the best one out there by far. Although a visual UNIX book sounds strange, the visual part means that the author provides examples of input at the command prompt. I am actually thankful to this author for writing this book. (BTW- the classic O'Reilly guide to sys admin would be a great book to get this one with: ISBN 0596003439)

This is a concise, readable, practical guide to all of the fundamental things one needs to do in Unix. It's excellent. I consider myself an intermediate Unix user and I still use it all the time. Any nerdy author can write a Unix book, these authors really understand how to communicate Unix in a way that's efficient for the reader. 6 stars.

There are a lot of mistakes in this book, some are typo, some are more serious especially in scripts, making it not a good reference. For people who are beyond novice/casual users, I'd not suggest this book. For beginners though, it's well organized and easy to digest.

very helpful. taking a course in unix sys admin. with no unix background and this was my starting point. easy to read. read from cover to cover in 3 days.

I am new to unix and I thought it was an excellent source of information without getting too complicated. I started with linux and soon will be doing FreeBSD. THis book worked great to help me with my linux.

The book is easy to use and understand, good choice for beginners, but might be a bit wordy for advanced users.

Its structure is very similar to a reference book, runs along the UNIX commands in 17 chapters, and provides enough information and examples to their usage. It contains three appendices summarizing the UNIX files and directories, the UNIX commands and their flags. It contains no theoretic essays at all, so if you are interested in the inner working or philosophy of UNIX, this book is not for you.

I liked that it uses a color (red) to distinguish the commands and flags from the output. I was glad to find links to the related topics inside the book, but missed a bibliography. And I missed one or more full chapters paying attention to the most popular implementations such as Solaris, AIX.

Now in an updated and expanded second edition, Unix is a Peachpit Press "Visual QuickStart Guide" that relies heavily on pictures and examples to quickly instruct users in the basics of operating in Unix, from creating and editing files to writing simple scripts, sending and receiving email, accessing the internet, and much more. The collaborative effort of Unix computer experts Deborah S. Ray and Eric J. Ray, Unix is an extremely easy-to-follow reference highly recommended for non-specialist general readers seeking to learn about and acquire a familiarity with the Unix environment.

This book contains a lot of worthless material due to the fact that my job does not require knowing, such as the topics on the internet, e-mail, and installing UNIX software, but of course, for other users this stuff might be useful. The small bit of information that was useful has certainly made a large difference in my daily workings with UNIX, which more than compensates for the sections that were not useful. Such topics include the uses of the semicolon, piping, redirecting, and scripts. The book is easy to read, sells at a good price, and contains good reference appendixes.