A Practical Guide to Solaris
A Practical Guide to Solaris by Mark G. Sobell
- Binding:
- Paperback
- Number of Pages:
- 1112
- ISBN:
- 020189548X
- Product Group:
- book
- Publisher:
- Addison Wesley
- Publication Date:
- July 27, 1999
- BooksForGeeks.com ID:
- 2087
It quickly becomes apparent that Mark G. Sobell, author of A Practical Guide to Solaris, knows that of which he speaks. The "that" in this case, is Solaris, Sun Microsystems' venerable and well-respected operating system, which now runs on both Intel and Sun hardware. As implied in the title, this book is designed to be used actively. In fact, in the opening pages, Sobell recommends that the reader be seated in front of his or her computer before going any farther.
A broad range of topics, from creating passwords and working with files to shell programs, are covered in this thick volume. However, each one is given the same highly effective treatment of illustrative screen shots and commands, which should prevent readers from getting too lost in the OS. There are also warnings and tips about specific functions and utilities, such as the which and where is that are used to help located commands and files, throughout the chapters.
For greater detail on specific utilities, the book includes a massive section devoted exclusively to the utilities within Solaris. A master list groups them by function and subsequent discreet sections outline their purpose, the commands needed to use them and notes on potential pitfalls. Though some may argue that it is impossible to make UNIX variants approachable, one has to concede that this text comes about as close as is possible. --Sarah L. Roberts-Witt
Reviews for A Practical Guide to Solaris
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Very mistitled book
Rated out of 5 stars, April 12th, 2002
If you buy this book on the basis of its title you will be completely disappointed. As a Guide to Solaris it is to all extents and purposes completely useless. However as a general Unix book it is rather good. In particular the sections on the Korn Shell, script writing and general expressions are clear, concise and to the point. If you are new to Unix and want a general book that will get you started then you would be hard-pushed to find a better one that this. If you are already familar with Unix per se and want to know about Solaris and/or Solaris System Administration then forget this book. -
A good book about using UNIX commands on Solaris
Rated out of 5 stars, November 12th, 2000
It appears that the reviews that I read about this book were in fact completely false. This is a great book if you know nothing about UNIX or Solaris already and would like a spoon fed review of how to obtain a directory listing, edit a file or 101 other inane tasks that any half competent UNIX admin would know anyway. For those that require a more in depth apprpoach to Solaris such as getting it to do useful things across a network, using and setting up DNS or NIS services for example or even setting basic network security settings on Solaris, I suggest you look elsewhere. This is a book for the most basic of beginners - if you have an ounce of sense, you can find much of this information in the manual pages. On the plus side it does look impressive and adds some nice colour to your bookshelf whilst it sits there gathering dust. Buy this book at your own risk. -
Best book on Solaris out there.
Rated out of 5 stars, March 12nd, 2000
This book is very easy to read and understand. I have actually been reading this from cover to cover since I bought it a few months back and always use it as a valuable source of reference. I would highly recommend this book to anyone, beginner to advanced. It is definitely worth adding to your personal library if you are working with Solaris in either support or administration.