Customer Reviews

UNIX: Visual QuickStart Guide

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Last semester, I found myself in a class that assumed the students were familiar with working in UNIX. However, I was not and was having a very difficult time. Out of desperation, I picked up this book. In no time, I was having a much better time figuring out what to do. UNIX Visual Quickstart Guide was easy to follow. The descriptions were to the point without a bunch of unnecessary words and detail.

Now in an updated and expanded second edition, Unix is a Peachpit Press "Visual QuickStart Guide" that relies heavily on pictures and examples to quickly instruct users in the basics of operating in Unix, from creating and editing files to writing simple scripts, sending and receiving email, accessing the internet, and much more. The collaborative effort of Unix computer experts Deborah S. Ray and Eric J. Ray, Unix is an extremely easy-to-follow reference highly recommended for non-specialist general readers seeking to learn about and acquire a familiarity with the Unix environment.

This book contains a lot of worthless material due to the fact that my job does not require knowing, such as the topics on the internet, e-mail, and installing UNIX software, but of course, for other users this stuff might be useful. The small bit of information that was useful has certainly made a large difference in my daily workings with UNIX, which more than compensates for the sections that were not useful. Such topics include the uses of the semicolon, piping, redirecting, and scripts. The book is easy to read, sells at a good price, and contains good reference appendixes.

I looked at many many intro books, and this was the best one out there by far. Although a visual UNIX book sounds strange, the visual part means that the author provides examples of input at the command prompt. I am actually thankful to this author for writing this book. (BTW- the classic O'Reilly guide to sys admin would be a great book to get this one with: ISBN 0596003439)

This is a concise, readable, practical guide to all of the fundamental things one needs to do in Unix. It's excellent. I consider myself an intermediate Unix user and I still use it all the time. Any nerdy author can write a Unix book, these authors really understand how to communicate Unix in a way that's efficient for the reader. 6 stars.

This is a good book to help you start with unix-based systems, especially if you do not have any knowledge about how they work. In this book, concepts of file and user management are explained. Not much detail is provided as to not confuse the reader who has had no previous experience with unix. Step-by-step instructions let the reader become more familiar and comfortable with the system. The bottom line is that this book says what it does - it is a starting guide - if you need any in-depth information about unix, you must seek elsewhere.

The book has some mistakes, but if you have at least half a brain, you will be able to figure out what is wrong. In addition, you are constantly reassured that if you are using a system with good administrators, there's little to none damage that you could possibly do. Some parts try to be humorous in its own cute and dorky manner, but the humor is not obnoxious nor imposing. Overall, the book is a gentle introduction; it teaches unix without making the reader feel dumb.

There are a lot of mistakes in this book, some are typo, some are more serious especially in scripts, making it not a good reference. For people who are beyond novice/casual users, I'd not suggest this book. For beginners though, it's well organized and easy to digest.

I think this book is a very good guide to unix because it teaches you the basic things you need to know to use unix and if you need to know more about a certain feature of unix it is easy to find it in the book.

This is one of the best UNIX books I've seen. For those that have some background in Unix but would like to learn more advance techniques, this is the ideal book. It can serve as a good reference as well. It will worth your money!

This is a good starting point to study unix. No unix background required. If you want something shorter than you need "Learning the Unix Operating System" O'Reilly ISBN: 1565923901