Reviews for UNIX in a Nutshell: System V Edition: System V, Release 4 (Nutshell Handbooks)

1. Excellent reference, poor tutorial

   Rated 4 out of 5 stars, February 12th, 2008

   UNIX is really intimidating to beginners which is something experts tend to forget, it's not really very discoverable either! In fact it usually takes a month or two before you're comfortable in a UNIX environment. Once you get to this point you start to understand why people love it, but it's a considerable hurdle. The other major fault is that the man(ual) pages are extraordinarily unhelpful, you can't even type 'help'! Which is where this book comes in.
   
   This is a really useful book if you're already familiar with UNIX but have forgotten the details of some command(s). If you need more hand holding the dummies guide is really good, don't be put off by the title.

2. Brilliant Reference Book!!

   Rated 5 out of 5 stars, December 12st, 1999

   No Unix user no matter how advanced should be without it!! If you know ruffly what you want but can't remember the syntax for it, then this book is for you!! A master piece!!

3. I no longer have to take a deap breath & type man .....

   Rated 5 out of 5 stars, June 12th, 1999

   Cheers I no longer live in fear of man. My scripts are smaller. I now use emacs & RCS (and am in danger of delving deeper into gnu). I always keep copy next to terminal and associates know better than to borrow it.

4. A lot of useful info in a small space

   Rated 5 out of 5 stars, May 12st, 1999

   A good book is nice, but a good, concise book is a treasure. That's what "UNIX in a Nutshell" is. It's the first place I go for the "five cent tour" of UNIX commands or utilities. The examples are excellent. Highly recommended for intermediate and advanced users.

5. A great reference, but not a tutorial

   Rated 4 out of 5 stars, April 12th, 1999

   This is a great reference book: as it says in the intro, it's clearly aimed at people who already know what it says, and only need reminding of the details. If you don't already know how to use a tool or which tool to use, then learning from this book is long and difficult, but for simple queries its invaluable.

   The basic summary of commands doesn't really tell you anything you can't find out from the man pages, but it's much quicker to find things out from a book rather than on screen. Complex tools (the shells, awk, troff etc) have their own sections so things that may be presented tersely in the on-line documentation are much clearer. My only complaint is that options may be documented that aren't present on your Unix, and these aren't clearly indicated as not being universal, so check the man pages if in doubt.