Unix Systems Books

This volume is meaty, thorough and useful. The overview material on the X Window System architecture is revealing in ways that the X documentation never was.

The chapters on debugging and error handling alone were worth ten times the price of this book, and have significantly added to the robustness of our applications. We used this book in 1995 to support a Linux hosted Motif implementation - our first under X - and found this by far the most useful volume.

The detailed descriptions of the Motif widgets take a little navigating to start with, but are compact and useful descriptions of complex objects.

This book does not cover the new features of X11R6.3 (printing and other extensions) which were released after the book was published, but I look forward to a new edition that includes them.

While Kimball's book is not always an easy read, this is dictated by the complex subject matter, which he tackles with competence and completeness. Highly recommended.

This is a wonderful book. I get this now; this is something I never thought I'd be able to say. It's clearly written (except for a couple thousand typos, but you can get past them pretty easily), nicely organized, and really an easy read. Read this in front of a computer screen, try some of the examples, and you can't miss.

The book was for my son and is using it in college...great shipment and fast delivery ..thank you

Three years ago, this second edition was released in hardcover. A worthy and needed updating of the first edition. Now this paperback edition is made available. The cheaper cost will benefit some readers. Its reputation as one of the standard unix texts means that many unix and linux programmers need it in their workplace. But possibly the cost of the hardcover version was a deterrent.

Meanwhile, I reproduce my review of the second edition, hardcover, from 2005, below. My remarks in it still stand.

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Many of you who learnt unix in the 90s would have cut your teeth on the first edition of this book. This second edition should be well received. It encapsulates the changes in the unix world since 92. Most importantly, it shows the rise of linux. A rise that is still unabated.

Broadly, the structure of this edition matches the first edition. Rago was brought in as co-author after Stevens died in 99, and he has deliberately kept this consistency. I was glad to see that Rago kept the exercises at the end of each chapter. Many computer books seem to dispense with this, which can be a pity for anyone who needs hands on tasks to learn from.

The threading chapters are a significant change from the first edition. Not simple reading, but they do reflect powerful ways to possibly optimise your code. The biggest cost for you may be the effort you need to invest in understanding the coding issues in these chapters. Rago's code examples are deliberately short, and necessarily somewhat artificial. But they do demonstrate well the various threading issues.

Of course, other chapters have had minimal alterations. How much have terminal I/O or pseudoterminals changed in 10 years? Those chapters may be old friends to you.

If you are a newbie this book will save you a ton of money and hours. Spoonfeeding at its best. High repetition ensures high retention rate. Reads like Decameron. Very easy. Most importantly, the author doesn't try enforce his authority in the field by savouring Confusion which is a second name of Unix. Enjoyable from the first page to the very last thanks to contageous easy going atmosphere. John would make a good movie director or an orchestra conductor.

If you've ever slogged through the various IBM AIX guides, or attended a third-party Advanced AIX SysAdmin class, this is the book for you! In just a few hundred pages, AIX Performance Tuning cuts through the myth and legend surrounding AIX performance and not only points SysAdmins in the right direction, but gives you the correct solution along with appropriate cautions and caveats. The $55- spent on this book should repay iteself over and over again.

I was trying to decide how to parcel my money out amongst the five Gems until I found this. I might still buy IV and V, but not until I've read the first three.

The Acrobat PDF files are VERY easy to use. The diagrams are all legible, and some of the books include full color photos.

The Gems are the real gems here. They have complete, point-and-click indices, and nothing in the hard-cover versions cannot be found on the CD. The software is here, but you can find that on the web.

The other books are far less valuable.

* The VR book is worthless.

* Radiosity is fairly mathematical and interesting, and its material is not completely out of date. Its photos, in vivid high resolution, are the most elucidating part.

* The Quick Reference is much less useful than I'd hoped because its definitions are all just a little too short to provide practical information, but almost anything you can think of is listed. It lacks an index. It would have been more useful if words in the Gems were cross-referenced into it, but it's still worth having along with the Gems.

The Acrobat reader is included, but I already had the latest version, free to download from Adobe, which works just fine.

As a unix instructor, I highly recommend this book as a great introduction to all flavors of Unix. The principles and tools included will work whether you are using Linux, HPUX, AIX, SCO, ...or almost any unix variant.

The book takes a step by step approach that is very easy for students to understand. It begins with basic skills and ends with some fairly advanced topics.

If you're new to Unix or if you are experienced and are looking for a primer on Unix scripting, I highly recommend this book.

Great book, if you need a good reference on C & Unix, this is it.

I bought this book because I had bought the boxed version of Caledera Open Linux 2.4 and was a complete newbie to Linux and wanted guidance...This book delievered just that and more. It helped me get Linux installed and working on my system and even connected to the net to check e-mail and update my system....I would recommend this to anyone who wants to learn linux and tinker with it while reading and learning. Even though it's not the latest and greatest version it's still a good one to start with

This is the best book I've read for beginning Linux users. I've read Sams Teach Yourself Linux in 24 Hours, Special Edition Using Caldera 2nd edition, and Linux for Dummies 2nd edition among others. Although this book is written for the Caldera OpenLinux 2.3 distribution, it's helpful for any Windows user migrating to any distribution of Linux. Chapter 3, Discovering What's in Your System, is particularly helpful in getting ready for installing any Linux distribution. It tells you what you need to know about your system and where to find it in any flavor of Windows. Caldera OpenLinux is directed towards those migrating from the Windows environment. Because OpenLinux boots directly into the KDE Desktop that's the first subject covered after installing the program. Many of the other books don't do this. Next, the authors tell you about the command line and how to reach it. They tell you how to reach the command line! (I'm repeating this point on purpose.) This is the key to Linux. If you can't get to the command line, you can't take advantage of all the power of Linux. This is the only book I've read that tells you explicitly and in the right place how to reach the command line. This is very important for beginners who don't have anyone to help them. The book provides everything you need to start using Linux, including a CD with the free version of OpenLinux 2.3. (OpenLinux 2.4 has been released but it comes in different distributions.) Major sections include Introducing OpenLinux, Installing OpenLinux, Using OpenLinux, Maintaining Your System, Going Online and the Part of Tens. Like all Dummies books, this is an introduction not an all-inclusive reference. This book is worth owning, not just borrowing. Please remember that this is a book for Linux beginners. If you have lots of experience with other Linux distributions, this isn't the book for you. I recommend Special Edition Using Caldera 2nd edition for intermediate and expert users.