Unix Unleashed

Rating:
Summary: A lot about UNIX
Review: Comprehensive text book about UNIX. The book introduces into nearly all aspects of UNIX one needs to know to deal with UNIX in general. Several topics need extra books if one wants to go deeper into the subject. But this cannot be otherwise, because UNIX is such a vast field; too big for one book. For instance shell or Perl programming need aditional books. For system administration of a particular UNIX one also needs more information. If the only UNIX one wants to master would be LINUX, then one could buy the LINUX version of it. And if one uses a particular distribution of LINUX, like RedHat or Debian, then there are versions of "...unleashed" even for those. The book is not thought for teaching how to programm on UNIX, although it explains the basics for compiling software. If one knows little about UNIX the book may positively surprise by the many topics covered.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent and thorough!
Review: I bought this book as a complete UNIX newbie. I had just purchased Mac OSX, and I needed a book that described the Open BSD underpinnings of this new operating system. Unix Unleashed by Robin Burk has proven to be an indispensable guide to many of the different flavors of UNIX (I also use Linux, which is discussed here in great detail).

My only complaint is that it doesn't refer directly to Mac OSX in any way... but this doesn't come as a surprise, since the OS is so new that there are no comprehensive books available for it. Despite this shortcoming, the book is well laid out, with references to networking, system administration, maintenance tasks, and just about everything else you could imagine (whew!). It also comes with a CD containing many useful programs and utilities for use on your *NIX system.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent and thorough!
Review: I bought this book as a complete UNIX newbie. I had just purchased Mac OSX, and I needed a book that described the Open BSD underpinnings of this new operating system. Unix Unleashed by Robin Burk has proven to be an indispensable guide to many of the different flavors of UNIX (I also use Linux, which is discussed here in great detail).

My only complaint is that it doesn't refer directly to Mac OSX in any way... but this doesn't come as a surprise, since the OS is so new that there are no comprehensive books available for it. Despite this shortcoming, the book is well laid out, with references to networking, system administration, maintenance tasks, and just about everything else you could imagine (whew!). It also comes with a CD containing many useful programs and utilities for use on your *NIX system.

Rating:
Summary: The best book on UNIX so far...
Review: If you don't want to get lost in the complex but powerful UNIX operating system, buy this book immediately. Covering topics such as how many partitions you should have to file and directory structure to Perl programming, "Unix Unleashed" explains in a technical yet clear manner the intricacies of this OS. You're a Linux user and you are wondering wether you should buy "Unix Unleashed" or not? Stop wondering and get out your cash. The mythical "UNIX guru" status will be within your reach after reading this masterpiece.

Rating:
Summary: A well written and complete text
Review: Simply put, this book is both an excellent read and a very good reference text. This is a quality textbook.

The author has done a fine job of covering an exceptional amount of material in a complete and detailed fashion. The flow of the book is good and the page layout is very well done. (I have some books that are borderline unreadable in this regard, so now I pay attention to that aspect much more closely...)

Once you have gone through this book once, you will appreciate the detailed index it has for using this book as a reference. ( The index is just shy of 100 pages...)

If you are looking for one text, which covers a lot of ground and covers it well, this is really worth looking at. I am in the process of choosing a text for some internal training, and this is hands-down the one. Good job.

Rating:
Summary: One of the BEST and DETAILED books on UNIX!
Review: This book is, for me, one of the best books I have read on UNIX. This book gives you a very nice & easy start with this old, but powerfull operating system. However, once you finished this book, you will master UNIX in most (if not all) aspects. Because this book covers UNIX in all aspects, including system admisnistrating, all in such a great detail.

Buy this one, if you have to live with UNIX or want to understand UNIX. You have no better choice than this one!

Rating:
Summary: Good Book
Review: This is a good book for people who might have to administer a UNIX installation. Very Comprehensive, but some material could have been left out.