Customer Reviews

Unix: The Complete Reference

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

 

 

The book is indeed comprehensive in scope, but it leaves a lot to be desired with providing the level of detail that a beginner would need to succeed. I picked it up hoping that it would be a good all around reference so I could learn more about the various flavors of Unix. What I found was confusion.

The index isn't even close to complete. The first 4 items I tried to lookup were missing from the index, and very difficult to find in the book. When I did locate them, I didn't find the details I needed. Just a vague description of what I needed to do... no examples... no details. Pretty tough to live with in the Unix world. You need detailed examples to make sure everything works properly. I didn't find that here.

This book is getting returned.

This book breaks it down grunt style. Very easy to read and covers everything you can think off. Out of my small library of techincal manuals this was my best investment. You really get your money's worth with this one.

We have a small group of UNIX users with different backgrounds. Usually it's hard to answer everybody's questions. This book is arranged so that it covers a wide range, from simple beginner to experienced UNIX users. It's a thick book, but I guess it needs to be to address all of the variants in any depth. I especially like the book and web references for each chapter; if I can't find some answers in the text, at least I have some places to go to find them.

This is a great book because it covers multiple Unix platforms: Solaris, HP, Linux, etc. If you only looking for one book to learn Unix - this is the way to go.

I think this book is great. I used to use a few other non-reference books when I needed some quick info, and it was always such a pain to find what I needed. Finally I bought this book and it has been so nice finding quick answers to almost any problem I encountered. I would estimate that this book has helped me about 90% of the time I needed it. About 10% of the time I had to find the answer elsewhere (if there even was an answer). Also, I think the book is well-written, clear, and concise. The caveat is that I had been using unix for about 4 years before I bought this book. Some newcomers to unix have left reviews saying that it wasn't too good for them. Although this may be true, I think this book could still be of value. Even if you are an absolute beginner, I would recommend getting this book AND a small/cheap beginner book. After a few weeks/months of getting the very basics down, I think this book will come in handy and really start giving the info that will be of long-term use in the workplace.

I used this book as a secondary guide for a class I am taking on UNIX. It has much information that I found useful.

Unix, The Complete Reference claims to be a good reference and it is, but only for the experts. If you're trying to learn Unix or know a little about it and want to learn more, don't buy this book. The examples provided are not very good and can be hard to follow.

I was looking for a how-to reference, as the book cover claimed to be. I expected detailed examples and I found a few as I browsed through the book in the store. However, I discovered later that many of the references, specifically to programming, cron tabs and awk, were simply not specific enough. The examples were often broken across several pages requiring me to put three examples together to get one task done. In addition, not every section had an example.

In general, the book is well written as a teaching reference. In specific, it quite misses the mark.

First, Linux is not an operating system. It is a kernel plus the GNU userland, that is, the programs with which the user interacts in user space, as opposed to what the OS does behind the scenes. That is why it is incarnated as many "distributions."

Second, Linux is moving to things like HAL, UDEV and other mechanisms that have little connection to historic UNIX and much to do as Windows mimics. Devfs is/will be basically gone. Is Linux rather an "anti-windows" than real Unix?

Third, the authors are reviving old Unix Wars biases and grudges. Can anyone say BSD, as in, where much development is happening on the open source level? Greg Lehey opined that SVR4 is itself an artifact of the past. One could make the case that SVR4 systems only live on in derivative forms.

At least the BSD's (FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Dragonfly, etc.) will be clear of whatever shakes out in the ongoing SCO issues.

We just want fair and equal coverage. The authors fully missed half of the Unix family tree, including Mac OS X and Darwin.

Hey, if you want the price, cover the ground.

While this book is great overall, if one has had some experience with UNIX in general before, the first chapters will feel like a drag. If one has some simple knowledge of command lines and what they do, or already know perl some of the chapters will be lost on you.

But even so, as a professional having used UNIX variants for a while now have found some interesting tips and tricks to both secure my system, and help me write shell scripts faster and more efficient. Definitely worth the time it takes to read.

This book works as a reference for those who have some experience with UNIX. If you need the initial training, see Linux and UNIX for a beginner training suite, 4DVDs + 2CDs includes 4 Unix Academy Certifications ed.2008. This book while very informative but presumes some degree of familiarity with UNIX that DVD course delivers.