Rating: 
Summary: Perfect for programmers new to Unix
Review: Face it, if you're a programmer, you don't need a book to be telling you the basics of computers all over again. You want to figure out how to use the shell, the text editors, the many programming tools available, and a load of other things that you figure Unix will let you do, but don't quite know what those tools are yet.This book showed me a lot of stuff I didn't suspect existed in Unix, is broad yet appropriately detailed, and doesn't bore you with computer newbie stuff you already knew from other OS's. Get it.
Rating:
Summary: Quick reference for the experienced
Review: I have used this book as a reference time and time again, and own both the first and second editions. This is not an "idiot's guide to UNIX," nor is it a reprint of man pages. It falls somewhere in between, and seems to be aimed at technical professionals who find themselves in a variety of operating systems at a moments notice such as Digital Unix (formerly OSF/1), Linux, Solaris, and AIX. You name it, I've been there. This book won't hold your hand and teach you what a file or directory is. It is not a tutorial. It is assumed that you know the basics. I have referred to this book on numerous occasions when I had to write CGI scripts, or assigned to quick and dirty projects involving some flavor of UNIX, or porting applications to UNIX from Windows/Win-32. So, if you are like me, and don't want to spend a few hours plowing through a UNIX man pages just to remember the syntax of gzip, tar, or locating a command you used before and don't really remember what it was, this book is for you.
Rating:
Summary: Quick reference for the experienced
Review: I have used this book as a reference time and time again, and own both the first and second editions. This is not an "idiot's guide to UNIX," nor is it a reprint of man pages. It falls somewhere in between, and seems to be aimed at technical professionals who find themselves in a variety of operating systems at a moments notice such as Digital Unix (formerly OSF/1), Linux, Solaris, and AIX. You name it, I've been there. This book won't hold your hand and teach you what a file or directory is. It is not a tutorial. It is assumed that you know the basics. I have referred to this book on numerous occasions when I had to write CGI scripts, or assigned to quick and dirty projects involving some flavor of UNIX, or porting applications to UNIX from Windows/Win-32. So, if you are like me, and don't want to spend a few hours plowing through a UNIX man pages just to remember the syntax of gzip, tar, or locating a command you used before and don't really remember what it was, this book is for you.
Rating:
Summary: Quick reference for the experienced
Review: I have used this book as a reference time and time again, and own both the first and second editions. This is not an "idiot's guide to UNIX," nor is it a reprint of man pages. It falls somewhere in between, and seems to be aimed at technical professionals who find themselves in a variety of operating systems at a moments notice such as Digital Unix (formerly OSF/1), Linux, Solaris, and AIX. You name it, I've been there. This book won't hold your hand and teach you what a file or directory is. It is not a tutorial. It is assumed that you know the basics. I have referred to this book on numerous occasions when I had to write CGI scripts, or assigned to quick and dirty projects involving some flavor of UNIX, or porting applications to UNIX from Windows/Win-32. So, if you are like me, and don't want to spend a few hours plowing through a UNIX man pages just to remember the syntax of gzip, tar, or locating a command you used before and don't really remember what it was, this book is for you.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best UNIX books I've seen
Review: If you just need to get something done--using Emacs to write some C++, or zipping up some files on a Unix box and ftp'ing them somewhere else--then this is the book you need. The authors assume that you know what a file, or a directory, or a compiler is. The target audience is someone for whom Unix is the third or fourth (or more) operating system they've had to work with. The book is indexed by function, not just by command. For example, suppose you want to compress a bunch of files. Looking up compress takes you to p.140; reading the possibilities you soon discover that gzip and tar are probably the programs you want to use. You can check out tar and discover the alternatives, cpio and pax, and find out which might be most portable in your situation. I use this book for several projects at a client site where I had to write Perl and Tcl/Tk apps. I found it invaluable for everything from help with Emacs to locating utilities. I should also add that the book is written very much in the style of a reference manual, *NOT* of a tutorial or guide. You should be comfortable with digging in reference books before you buy this, or you might find it a frustrating book to work with. I think most programmers pick up this skill very quickly, so I think this will exclude mostly beginners.
Rating: 
Summary: Ideal quick reference for an experienced IT professional
Review: If you just need to get something done--using Emacs to write some C++, or zipping up some files on a Unix box and ftp'ing them somewhere else--then this is the book you need. The authors assume that you know what a file, or a directory, or a compiler is. The target audience is someone for whom Unix is the third or fourth (or more) operating system they've had to work with. The book is indexed by function, not just by command. For example, suppose you want to compress a bunch of files. Looking up compress takes you to p.140; reading the possibilities you soon discover that gzip and tar are probably the programs you want to use. You can check out tar and discover the alternatives, cpio and pax, and find out which might be most portable in your situation. I use this book for several projects at a client site where I had to write Perl and Tcl/Tk apps. I found it invaluable for everything from help with Emacs to locating utilities. I should also add that the book is written very much in the style of a reference manual, *NOT* of a tutorial or guide. You should be comfortable with digging in reference books before you buy this, or you might find it a frustrating book to work with. I think most programmers pick up this skill very quickly, so I think this will exclude mostly beginners.
Rating:
Summary: Great resource for UNIX neophytes
Review: My main experience is in Microsoft technologies and one day I cautiously embarked on a UNIX learning adventure, so to speak.
I purchased this book for a Beginning UNIX course, since it was a required course material. I was surprised by how well this book is structured and how easily it can be used as reference. It's impossible to fit all that is UNIX into 900 pages of text, although the author provided more than enough information for this UNIX novice. "UNIX for the Impatient" patiently takes you through the most rudimentary topics like shells, kernel, and file permissions to the utilities, editors, and scripting. The section on mailers and newsreaders was most interesting to me, since I work with the Microsoft-based messaging applications. The best thing - after reading this book, I was able to use various funky terms like "grep", "Emacs", "chmod" and "kill" which are usually not understood by the rest of the uninitiated MCSEs.
Rating:
Summary: The one I didn't sell back!
Review: Of all the UNIX books I've purchased (and there have been many), this is the only one I have used as a novice, and can continue to use to this day. One way to rate a book is to ask yourself how much it helped you as a novice, and whether you can still use it once you've become a more advanced user. While my other UNIX books are being sold to co-workers and used book stores, this is the one book I can consistently use as a reference. This is the one I will never outgrow.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointed
Review: The title sounds perfect for me, but I found this book very frustrating. Much of it is paraphrased man pages, and there are very few actual examples. This is frustrating when you have to really study, say, the regular expression syntax, when a simple example would do wonders instead. I do use this book occassionally for quick reference, but otherwise look elsewhere.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best UNIX books I've seen
Review: This book is a wonderful resource for someone comfortable with computers but new to UNIX. It covers a lot of introductory topics with minimum wasted space. The authors don't go into any single subject too deeply, so it's not overwhelming to someone who just needs to get around on a UNIX system, but it's nonetheless very information-rich, and by the end of the book they cover some surprisingly complex topics. I highly recommend this book to anyone starting off in UNIX, be it user or sysadmin.
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