Unix Systems Books

I really like this book. The internals of the CIFS protocol is not a subject for the faint hearted, but Chris has really tackled it well. This is just the right book for people like me who want to understand what is going on on their network at the bits and bytes level.

In the Samba Team we have been working on implementing the protocols that Chris describes in this book for the last 12 years or so, but we've always been doing this from sniffer traces and incomplete specifications. It was quite an interesting experience to see all this information distilled into such a readable format.

This isn't the sort of book that one buys grandma for Christmas, but if you run a Windows network and have been curious about what is happening inside all those network packets, how your computers find each other and what that weird error message really means then do yourself a favor and have a read.

Andrew Tridgell
Samba Team

The information is helpful and appears to be complete. The empirical knowledge implied by frequent contrasts between the specifications and what happens "on the wire" is impressive.

One criticism is that the prose is conversational with many self-conscious references to the author and reader. This makes reading somewhat inefficient and irritating at times.

If want to know CIFS/SAMBA/NetBIOS internals, this is the book to read. It goes into detail of CIFS implementation. You will find discussion on structures, functions, and architecture of CIFS. This is a very good book for programmers who are working in this area. Although the book is useful for general users of CIFS but the real audience are the programmers and people who want to go into in-depth knowledge of CIFS implementation. You should know C programming to really benefit from this book.

This book is wonderful for the intermediate Unix user. It does not assume you are a "DUMMY" but also does not assume that you could write your own version of Unix. I found it thoroughly enjoyable.

I think the book cover a wide range of topics fairly well but I had a probelm figuring out the level of user the book was intended for, the audience of the book was not clear. I got a lot of good information but I also found quite a few mistakes and I even went back the the book store to see if a Third edition of the book was out

It is very VALUABLE book for a intermediate level user. If you need some training to start try Linux and UNIX for a beginner training suite, 4DVDs + 2CDs includes 4 Unix Academy Certifications ed.2008
This book and the DVD make a million dollars couple!
Take this book, it is a way to improve your skills.

This book is a great "How To" for lex/yacc beginners. It consists primarily of simple, readable examples of the Right Way to Do It. It's not going to make you into an expert compiler writer. But if you have been trying to employ lex and yacc and have been frustrated climbing up that first step or two on the learning curve, then this is a great book to begin with. Consume this book, then get a copy of O'Reilly's _Lex & Yacc_ and you'll be the office whiz at ginning up quick parsers.

This book uses LEX and YACC to write a "realistic" language. It's approach is very practical, not much theory. If you want theory, then go read the "Dragon" book (Aho, et al.). It covers the error handling in YACC in detail and shows how to read the error output that is generated. It explains shift/reduce and reduce/reduce errors and how to recover from them. Like I said, it is very practical and far better than the Nutshell YACC/LEX book.

This book supplies a practictioner with useful information to get moving quickly. It also manages to do so with a minimum of disorganization and chattiness that so plagues the O'Reilly book. I own both and rarely look outside this book's useful examples and clear typography.

It is very smooth introduction book and it walks trough some essential subjects in UNIX. As any introduction book it is way far from the real life and if you would feel that you need more try Linux and UNIX for a beginner training suite, 4DVDs + 2CDs includes 4 Unix Academy Certifications ed.2008. If you an absolute novice with UNIX this book will work well because it is well written and easy to read.
I would definitely recommend this one to have one's feet wet with UNIX.

"Introduction To UNIX" is extremely well laid out and makes learning UNIX much easier than other approaches. Definitely a must-have for anyone into programming!

This book covers many topics of the classic introductory topics in Unix, in some depth. It's geared towards users in a corporate or academic network, rather than home users of a Unix varient, but it provides a good deal of information in an easy to read format. If you're starting out, this is a good book to pick up.

Oh, and his lectures are interesting. He's an oddball.

I ordered this book because I was taking a course on Unix... and once I got it, I realized that I wasted my money. I was expecting the 'with X' part to cover programming with X windows, or motif. It is just on how to run xterm pretty much. One of the key things that you will notice is that man pages are more informative than this book. For instance, the section on sed, awk, and grep. It is very vauge in covering regular expressions and use of any of the languages. Besides man pages, much of the information can be found on the internet as well. If you have no idea what a man page is, or how to even use telnet... then you should consider getting this book. For someone who needs to know how to login through telnet, or how to use chmod, then this book is fine. But for what I would consider an 'advanced' view of Unix, I would look toward the internet. So if you have used any *nix before, its pretty useless. Unless you have an anal professor who absolutely requires you buy this book, don't.

If you're a beginner, an intermediate, or an expert, you'll
use this book. It won't gather dust on the shelf. Just look
at the table of contents and you'll want it. It also has the
most complete appendices of any book I've seen on the subject.

This book is used in 'UNIX & C' course in CSE dept. of Inha Univ. that I went to. I also read this book and I'm always read this book whenever necessary. There are several books about UNIX for beginning users in bookstores, I found that this book is by far the most informative, readable, helpful and well organized in both breadth and depth. All the other books looked just so so. APUE by R. Stevens has been very popular since that book is really great book, 'An introduction to Unix with X and the Internet' also should be very popular if many people know this book are available. Whenever I don't understand about some topic in Unix clearly, I read this book about that topic, get almost clear understandings, and finally I'm deeply impressed that this book is really great book. Both for beginners and for professionals, I think this book is really a must-have if one is concerned with Unix. I am also pleased that this great book is written by Asian person, knowing the fact that GRUs live everywhere in the world. ;-) About 550 pages of great information on Unix, this book should be retitled to 'Unix fundamentals bible'. Buy this book, and you won't regret. This book deserves its worth even if you are just having it, not reading steadily.

I expected more of a reference to supplement "Hacking Knoppix," but still worth the price.

If you've had your eyes opened to the power of Knoppix as a Swiss Army knife of administration tools, Rankin's latest book will be the quick reminder guide of how best to use it... Knoppix Pocket Reference.

Contents: Introduction; Cheat Codes; Special Knoppix Tools; Install Knoppix to the Hard Drive; Image or Erase a Drive; Linux Security Response; Linux System Repair; Windows System Repair; Remaster Knoppix; Experimental Features; Final Words; Acknowledgements; Index

Pocket references are small (this one is less than 100 pages), so they are not good introductory guides to the subject at hand. This one is no different. If you're simply playing with Knoppix in order to see what desktop Linux is all about, you can easily pass on this book. You'll get a bit more out of it if you're looking to run Knoppix a bit more regularly (by installing it on your hard drive or saving configurations between reboots). Still, Knoppix Hacks would probably be a better title to better understand those techniques. Where this book shines is when you decide to use Knoppix as a bootable OS to allow you to administer and repair systems that are no longer working correctly (both Linux *and* Windows). Since you don't have to have a bootable sector on your hard drive to use it, you can get Knoppix up and running from a CD and then use it to repair the underlying hard drive. If you have a virus or rootkit installed, a Knoppix boot will allow you to get a clean system up and running which can then check out the hard drive for repair. Knoppix Pocket Reference will help remind you of the steps you need to take to accomplish some of these tasks. You're only getting the core commands with very little fluff, so you can quickly hone in on the trouble spot.

This is the book I'd recommend as a follow-up purchase to Knoppix Hacks. If you decide to use Knoppix in the ways that the Hacks book reveals, Knoppix Pocket Guide will be the volume that you refer to until the commands are burned into your memory.

A short reference that does away with all the hand-holding detail the Knoppix Pocket Reference is a great guide to how to do almost everything you want to do with Knoppix as well as resolve minor trouble issues. The items covered in this reference include the various startup codes that can be used when booting Knoppix, how to boot the different kernels, booting into different graphic modes, booting without hardware detection, disabling power management, disabling various hardware subsystems, implementing various kernel options, using options to make it run from memory or the hard drive instead of the CD, configuring persistent configuration information between sessions, imaging the hard drive, repairing the filesystem, repairing Windows systems, virus scanning and repair, and remastering Knoppix. When you just need to know how to do something and don't want to drag out the six hundred page book to try to find it you will find the Knoppix Pocket Reference a great investment.

biff is the dogs name that barked at the mailman; biff is the routine that alerts the operator to incoming email. it goes on and on. the various celebrities of the creation had their reasons and this book puts them out there. it helps me to know how and why and who and when.

An excellent counterpoint to _The Unix Hater's Handbook_, Libes in a straightforward, evenhanded way explores Unix history and its philosophy. As Unix continues to dominates serious computing, it's essential that one know more than ``nuts and bolts''. Libes fleshes out Unix in a most extraordinary way. It's among the ``must have'' books for the current or soon-to-be Unix guru.

This book covers not only UNIX history, but also the "UNIX way of computing". It's probably not a good starting book on Unix, but it's a must for anyone who has ever used (and liked) UNIX systems.

All UNIX flavors are mentioned. It could talk about linux, but the book was written before linux came to life.

It's centainly a classic!

Every Linux Operating System involves a lot of things. This beautifully reinforced text did all that is needed to be done in providing extensive and reliable information on the OS. It dissected every aspect of the software. Whether you are an ardent Linux pal or just an adventurer, this book will alleviate your tuition problems. From software installation down to security and networking options, there is hardly anything that you would not find in this well-detailed text. Its depth and accuracy is unique. For switchers in particular, this "Linux Complete" provides the easiest and the most comprehensive way of adapting to the new Linux environment.

I have read the previous version of this book, and from what I've read I really enjoyed it. The book touches over linux and can get even the greenest greenhorn started working with the operating system.

When I first saw this book I was sceptical of how good it would be. The paper is not especially good quality and the price is cheap .... But don't let looks deceive you - 'Linux Complete' is excellent!

The sheer weight of material covered in this book is impressive on its own merit. But for such an inexpensive price it is amazing. For twenty bucks you get walk-throughs on installing Red Hat Linux, setting up Apache, setting up Samba, working with Gnome, handling multimedia, and all the basics you'll need to do a whole host of other tasks. Plus the topic index is very comprehensive.

Linux Complete is better than other computer reference books that are twice the price. It is easy to read, and is useful to beginners and intermediate users. It offers clear and accurate information and good step-by-step instructions. It doesn't cover the various problems that can occur when installing or running Linux software especially well, but considering the wide content covered that's understandable.

This book has saved me many hours of frustration and I have no reservations in recommending it to other users!

To be honest, I didn't go throught the whole contents yet. However, I found the chapter on (GNU) make utility is the best I ever read. It is clear, thorough, and practical. For example, I really like the section on how to organize a project with multiple make files and subdirectories. In addition, the author also did good job explaining compilers. In all, I think it is a great book for those who already know some programming basics and want to start serious developments on Linux.

Back before the advent of Mac OS X, my favourite (and for many years, only) development environment was one variety of Unix or another. The nicest thing about Unix was that the development environment stayed pretty much the same regardless of the variety; this stayed the same with the introduction of Linux.

The Linux Development Platform might be better titled "The GNU Development Platform" since almost all of the tools discussed come from the FSF, and those that don't are nevertheless open source; as a result they will run on almost any Unix variety. You know that the 'Linux' in the title is almost just a marketing ploy, but we will forgive Prentice Hall and the authors. Certainly more people will buy this book to learn about using these tools under Linux than under any other *nix variety.

The book starts with a short chapter on software development per se before getting down to the nuts and bolts. It starts in the obvious spot, with editors, and quickly covers choosing an editor before taking a brief look at Emacs, Jed and VIM. The rest of the book is devoted to much less contentious issues.

As a whole, the text provides a good grounding in using gcc, make, CVS and GDB, with enough extra information on smaller tools and larger issues (such as cross-platform and embedded systems) that you will not need more than this book and, perhaps, the man pages to understand and use these tools. Of course others, have written entire volumes on each of these topics, but for most of us this book will provide the information we need.

The Linux Development Platform comes with a CD containing the source for a fair number of the tools discussed, so you can build any tools which happen to be missing on your platform, though some of the included apps are, of course, already a version or two behind.

The writing is mixed in quality: while never bad, it has a slightly heavy, technical feel to it, often a bit wordy or cumbersome. This rarely gets in the way of understanding, but it does slow you down. The topic coverage is good, moving from a beginner level right through to a good understanding of each tool discussed. More importantly, all the tools you will need are covered.

I imagine this would make an excellent companion text for any programming course: note that it doesn't provide details on any programming language, but covers everything else you need to know regarding the development tools. It is thinnest in the discussion of editors, really only giving a brief overview of each. I cannot really see this as a fault since detailed coverage really would take a separate book, and this quick look is better than pretending to cover the topic well and failing. The other possible weakness is that there is almost no coverage of general Linux usage, so calling the book The Linux Development Platform is a bit of a misnomer -- it is really devoted to the tools available for development, not the underlying operating system at all. Once again, I feel that this lack is not serious; most buyers should know enough about the operating system and any attempt to cover it adequately would have swelled the size and cost of the book.

Prentice Hall PTR have a site for the book with a Table of Contents or you can see the whole book in HTML format at FAQs.org.

I would recommend this book to anyone who would like a good, general introduction to developing software on a Unix platform. Though it's not a cheap book, it is a good one. It was certainly a relief for me to find a good book in Prentice Hall's 'Bruce Peren Open Source Series' after a couple of flawed ones. I've marked it three stars rather than four (and it really deserves a three and a half) for the slightly clunky writing.

To work with open source platform is not that hard thing to do
Although to get up to the speed & work on a production server
You need this reference to feel comfort
This book saved me much time, googling & waiting on answers from the mailing lists to solve my problems
I recommend to any sysadmin, Developer, learner,....

This book was grea, though it talks about an old kernel version. I neede to know about journaling filesystems, and this boom\k not only told me what I needed, but told me what to avoid.

Great book, but shows it's age - things are changing fast in Linux world (it's based on 2.4.9 kernel and so
most of those filesystems weren't integrated).
Benchmarking info is very interesting but was collected
on very low-end hardware (1-2 Celeron500 with 1 IDE drive).
I wish that updated 2nd edition (2.6 kernel and benchmarks
on modern hardware - like 2CPU and at least 8-10 hd) will be published soon.

I'd been looking for a book on journaling and networked file systems for Linux for a while, and was happy to find this one. There is one other book on Linux file systems, but this one is the one to get. It discusses the EXT3, JFS, XFS and Reiser journaling file systems, and also the NFS and OpenAFS networked file systems. It provides plenty of background information about basic concepts, but also provides real explanations of how to build kernels that support these file systems and how to configure, administer, and use them. I was really impressed. The book also talks about interoperating with Macintosh, Windows and Novell systems - it was handy to find all of that in one book. It is well written and the author has a sense of humor that I enjoyed. The section on the Distributed Computing Environment's distributed file system was especially funny (and from what I hear, true).