Reviews for Solaris 7 Reference (Sun Microsystems Press)

1. Every command you wish to see is absent. Do not buy.

   Rated 1 out of 5 stars, January 12th, 2001

   Potentially an interesting book, but has been nothing more than an expensive paperweight. Every command that I have searched for is left out: route, netstat, defaultrouter. Get a picture here, Sun says that the network is the computer, not according to this book. I have looked for other items but finally got annoyed enough to write a review this time. Go write your own book as I have not come across one (and have bought many that describe normal sys admin tasks.

2. Sometimes there's no substitute for hardcopy

   Rated 4 out of 5 stars, January 12th, 2000

   ...The back cover of the book states that Solaris 7 Reference is a "reference guide to all of the Section (1) man pages from acctcom to zcat". I HATE it when people don't read a product label and then whine when they find out that the product is just what it claims to be. Their poor ratings are really a reflection of their own lack of attention to important details.

   In an age when documentation is now online, Solaris 7 Reference is a nice way of having a complete man page set in one hardcopy volume. If you are interested in knowing -- in advance of purchasing or implementing Solaris 7 -- how the Solaris 7 commands work, then this book is for you. And if you ever wished that you could have a man page set in hardcopy in a meeting, then this is indispensable.

   I would have rated Solaris 7 Reference five stars had the author also placed the "new" (new for Solaris 7) icons also in the Contents (the alpha list of commands) and the Introduction (list of commands by type). That would have given me an instant reference to everything new in Solaris 7. But to her credit, the author DID place the "new" icons next to EVERY NEW OPTION in Solaris 7 -- this is a nice touch.

   The author also has embellished many of the commands with better examples than the actual online man pages.

3. Don't waste your money. Trust me!!!

   Rated 1 out of 5 stars, September 12th, 1999

   As usual this author disappoints. All that's in this book is an alphabetized command list with poor reference to the commands. In some cases it's an identical copy of the man page. The man pages serve as a much better reference. All I can say is that it's unbelievable that this book is being sold as a reference! I gave it one star just because it's the lowest rating I can give.