Learning the UNIX Operating System: A Concise Guide for the New User

by Grace Todino, John Strang, Grace Todino-Gonguet, et al.

Book Overview

If you are new to Unix, this concise book will tell you just what you need to get started and no more. Unix was one of the first operating systems written in C, a high-level programming language, and its natural portability and low price made it a popular choice among universities. Initially, two main dialects of Unix existed: one produced by AT&T known as System V, and one developed at UC Berkeley and known as BSD. In recent years, many other dialects...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0596002610
• ISBN13: 9780596002619
• Release Date: November 2001
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media
• Length: 174 Pages
• Weight: 1.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.3" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Now all that text means something...

I remember my first look at a UNIX terminal. A little '%' with a flashing cursor. I don't remember how long I stared at the little prompt not knowing what to do. Then I pressed some keys and things became much worse.Now I'm surfing around dizzying hierarchies of file structures, able to get to the root and back again and make and edit text files. I bite my thumb at weird commands that used to seem as comprehensible as medieval scholasticism.I wouldn't have been able to accomplish any of that without this little book that's as intimidating as a ladybug.The most difficult part of the book, in fact, is actually finding a UNIX environment to log into. If you're not at a University or a fairly good-sized corporation (and if you don't know UNIX they won't let you near a command line anyway) you may wonder where to go. Linux, in most cases, is a good substitute; or check the web for free UNIX (or Linux) shell accounts. Combine your new-found account with this book and UNIX will no longer be a gut-wrenching incomprehensible monolith.Don't consider yourself an expert, however, and don't stop there. UNIX may not be as difficult as some like to think it is, but it's also not easily mastered. Take this book, digest it, then move on to bigger tomes (there is no shortage of tomes in the land of UNIX, as you will find).Lastly, the owl on the cover rules.

Great way to start!!

I came into this with DOS, OS/2 and Windows experience (but no UNIX/Linux). This book and it's simple exercises will get you familiar with the most common essential commands in UNIX. It's best to read cover to cover and do the exercises while you go.This is not a book for UNIX experts. This book is for people that have little or no experience on LINUX/UNIX. It is concise and doesn't waste your time while still teaching you the basics. People looking for more advanced reading should move on to Essential System Administration and UNIX Power tools (also Orielly books.)Learning UNIX will definately get the new UNIX user off on the right foot and get you working with the interface.

Virtually Perfect -- at least for me....

I needed a book that would tell me very quickly what I needed to know to make use of a UNIX shell, and more importantly, to have some idea what I was looking at when I saw UNIX-related commands on a screen. I have worked with many operating systems over the years, but somehow had missed UNIX.This book did 100%++ of what I wanted it to do. The great thing about it is that I believe it would do the same thing for someone without a lot of systems background. A technical book of any kind that can talk clearly to both kinds of readers is a very rare thing!Highly recommended!

The PERFECT book for the beginner!

I am an MCSE who is looking to expand my skills as an Administrator. I recognize that being Agnostic in which OS best suites a given situation is a must. So, I decided to take on the task of learning Unix - something that takes a looong time....unless you know where to start!No matter what flavor of Unix (any System V or any *BSD version) this book will get you started in a jiffy. I sat down on an SGI running Irix 6.2 and started reading this book and perofrming the exercises. One of the most important things about this book over any other is that when you actually do these exercises you will learn more than you expected! Best of all it makes a good, quick reference to flip open when you forget something silly and need the answer quick. I GURANTEE this book will help anyone who is a Microsoft junkie that wants to start learning *ANY* version of Unix. Although it's only 92 pages, you will understand mail, file and directory permissions, passwd, file management, printing files, pipes and filters, and multi-tasking. That's a lot of sh*t for such a small book.

It's called LEARNING UNIX for a reason!!

For all the people who whined and pined about how this book didn't talk about anything: 1) Pick the book up. 2) Look at it's width. 3) Note that a 3/4cm book will not answer all your questinos about a 30-yearold, complex, multiuser, multitasking operating system! Honestly, what did you expect in 100 pages!? For everyone else who is new/practically new to the Unix OS, get this book. $10 will not break you. It then refers other books to you. I also recomend Unix in a Nutshell (and all the other books by O'Reilly, they're amazing) for some more indepth information on the Unix OS. Then it will talk about smaller parts of the OS and then you can get another O'Reilly book about that! I'm actually excited. So in short, one book will not tell you everything you need to know about anything!