Unix in a Nutshell, Fourth Edition Reviews

• New and Improved Version of a Classic

  
  By A2ZB3LUN5X8H1G on 2006-02-06
  I took a UNIX class twelve years ago and the instructor referred to the various UNIX versions around at that time as the "31 flavors of UNIX." Since then, we've seen LINUX (and its various versions), Mac OS and Sun Solaris among others also appear. So along with "good old" System V and BSD and HP-UNIX and several other "older" versions, we have even more "UNIX flavors" now. And this new edition covers them all. The newly revised Unix command and Unix Shell chapters cover all the changes and also include information about the bash and tcsh shells. in fact, bash and tcsh have their own chapters.
  
  There's also a chapter devoted to the Emacs editor, one of the first text editors I ever used. Also one for vi, another editor I use often. I have to admit a bit of sadness that the text formatting chapter on Nroff and Troff is gone (save for commands for writing man pages), but with LaTeK the program of choice nowadays, this was inevitable.
  
  I really liked the previous versions of this book which let me look up commands on the fly whenever I needed to, but I'm glad to see this updated edition.
  
  

• Incomplete and confusing

  
  By A5JLAU2ARJ0BO on 2007-03-22
  Unix in a Nutshell is not for the faint-hearted. It tries to be a concise reference on Unix but ends up being incomplete (esp. with regard to Linux). A lot of commands are explained cursorily without complete options or examples. The presentation is often confusing; witness the chapters on shell programming. If you know nothing about Unix, don't even consider this book; it'll get you nowhere and more frustrate than ever. If you already know Unix you can find better and more accurate Unix references elsewhere.
  
  

• Solid time-tested reference

  
  By A2O6SWJTU8TDN8 on 2006-02-02
  I still use the first edition of this book as a compact, easy to use reference for UNIX. It works well in a variety of UNIX flavors. It provides useful examples.
  
  It is a very good resource for the computer professional who needs to use unix from time to time.
  
  

• A 'must have' reference!

  
  By A2FNM5JVHZP0IW on 2006-03-17
  Arnold Robbins' UNIX IN A NUTSHELL, 4TH EDITION defines what UNIX means in a changing world where there is no standard-bearer, covering common parts of the leading Unix-like operating systems, how to understand and locate commands which work across versions, and how to use tools which have become a 'part' of Unix even though they don't ship with the operating system, from CVs and GNU Make to GDB, curl and wget. UNIX operating system users simply must have this reference.
  
  

• Best Unix book I have

  
  By A2XDNUOZKIQQNQ on 2007-02-22
  This book is really useful for a Unix dummy like me.
  
  
• Useful book to learn most important unix things, good chapters on awk & sed, but also has some redundant material
  By AGMKFWUQEEZUQ on 2007-05-16
  This is a review of the 3th edition of Unix in a nutshell. The book has almost 600 pages, roughly divided as follows:
  - 200 p. on unix commands: good stuff, to the point, summaries of all commands, with examples.
  - 100 p. on shells, (bash, kch, csh: good stuff, summary of commands, examples.
  - 5 p. on pattern matching: way too short! Here I miss a good and thorough section on regular expressions !
  - 40 p. on various editors (emacs, vi, ex): useful if you use them, I prefer a GUI editor these days.
  - 30 p. on awk & sed: good stuff, but this should be expanded. I learned at lot here, but I still want to know more.
  - 100 p. on stuff I never use (troff, mm ms me macros (?) ... )
  - 50 p. on the make utility and related stuff only programmers use.
  
  Bottom line: the sections on unix commands, csh, awk and sed are really good. The rest is only who those who really need it. And if you have never heard of it, you probably are not in this group. So the 'good half' of this book is nice to have as reference on your desk.
  
  Advice: buy this book used for a few euro's and you cannot go wrong.
  
  
• DE FACTO UNIX
  By A14SRPGP0XBL0G on 2006-03-05
  Are you a Unix user, programmer or system administrator? If you are, then this book is for you! Author Arnold Robbins, has written an outstanding 4th edition of a book that presents the broader state of Unix in today's world.
  
  Robbins, begins by covering Solaris 10, the latest version of the SVR4 operating system from Sun Microsystems, "GNU/Linux, and Mac OS X. Then, he revises and reorganizes the Unix Commands in order to cover the three systems. The author continues by covering Bash, ksh93, and tcsh. In addition, he covers the popular Bash shell, along with the 1988 and 1993 versions of ksh. The author also examines the widely-used tcsh shell instead of the original Berkeley. Then, the author looks at the package management programs, which are used for the program installation on popular GNU/Linux systems.
  Next, he discusses GNU Emacs Version 21. Then, the author covers the vi and ex text editors. The author continues by covering GNU sed. In addition, he covers the awk programming language. The author also provides an introduction to source code management systems. Then, he looks at CVS. Next, the author discusses the Subversion version control system. Then, he focuses on GNU Make. The author continues by covering GDB debugger. Finally, he describes how to write a manual page.
  
  In particular, it's important to cover in this most excellent book, both commercial variants, and those where source code for the system and the utilities are freely available. Furthermore, the commands covered by the current POSIX standard form the core of author's presentation here.
  
  
  
• Best Unix reference Ever!!!
  By A2CTD8WZROZVCL on 2006-11-12
  
  I've bought every edition of this book, and I'm happy to keep
  buying updates. The new edition has a lot of current stuff like
  subversion and Linux. Don't compute without it.
  
  
• From a learner/user perspective
  By AX3MGLDMCNWXE on 2008-04-21
  Unix in a Nutshell, Fourth Edition
  
  Not a useful book for someone who wants to learn unix. It can be used for reference for someone who already knows UNIX. I bought it hoping that it will be a good introduction and summary. Disappointed.
  
  
• The only game in town, but...
  By A3747YPXOBXRAT on 2008-05-15
  I've got two versions of this book: the blue cover version and the one that came in my CD bookshelf. I'm usually quite positive about nutshell books. Usually.
  
  While this is pretty much the only one-stop Unix reference in town when you don't have the man pages to hand, there are some perplexing omissions from the "unix command" section. Nothing to do with networking, for example. No netstat, ifconfig, nslookup. Odd, in a world when a non-networked computer is surely a rarity. Yes, the stuff is probably in the networking O'Reilly books (mine are on order as I type) but you'd think in this day and age...
  
  Yesterday I was flipping through and noticed there was no entry for "mount" or "umount" either.
  
  You should probably own one of these if you have a job in the Unix computing biz, but before long you might find yourself asking "what will I need today that won't be in a nutshell?"
  
  Seriously, O'Reilly should be looking into rewriting this little gem to make it properly comprehensive again.
  
  
• The perfect reference
  By A1I7H6SZHHWV7F on 2008-09-05
  This is in my opinion the best UNIX reference book on the market today. If you need to program or work in the OS you should own this book.
  
  
• Ok reference. Not for a beginner though...
  By A32QOZWIKQDNZX on 2006-03-08
  The book has almost 600 pages. Lots of the stuff you need to know, but can never totally remember is here. I still use the earlier edition of this book as a easy to use reference for UNIX/Linux. It works well in a variety of UNIX flavors.
  It can be used as a handy reference by someone who already knows some UNIX. It tries to be a reference for all but on many subjects it is lacking. I give it 5 stars because as a concise reference book for day to day routine it works. It is not a book for a beginner. If you are just starting, "dummy's" book will be better choice or try Linux and UNIX for a beginner complete training suite, 4DVDs + 2CDs ed.2008
  
  If you have some experience with Linux/Unix and need concise reference this book can help.
  
  
• Unix partner to have around
  By A3954MFYISTVDY on 2007-03-11
  Great product and evyone needing to know Unix commands should have one around
  
  
• Another great O'Reilly book
  By A3INN916E4VION on 2007-07-09
  For those of you with the "animal" bookshelf, this is one of the better books to own. Lots of the stuff you need to know, but can never totally remember is here.
  
  
  
• New to Unix
  By A2MXNL92LU31CN on 2008-04-07
  Why did i buy this, for the simple reason as a new user a good comprehensive reference is extremely usefull and handy, and this is it, this is something i will all use or keep close at hand.
  
  

• Classic Shell Scripting
• Learning the UNIX Operating System, Fifth Edition
• VI Editor Pocket Reference
• Learning Perl, 5th Edition
• Learning the vi Editor (6th Edition)