 "What a Wonderful Book!" | 2007-10-02 |
| - Reviewed By shew |
| I've worked in IT for 20+ years, and this is one of the best books I've found. What an index! And even the text of the book has reference "pointers" (for lack of a better term) sprinkled throughout it. Even if you don't initially find what you are looking for, you can usually read a couple of paragraphs and find a link to what you need. This book is a "keeper!" |
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| "The UNIX bible!" | 2007-05-13 |
| - Reviewed By miles2468 |
| Back in 1995 I started working at a client and all the UNIX guys had this book on their desk. I was a newbie at that time and the book helped me out a lot. It was clear and to the point. There is so much useful information. Recently I got my own copy because I had to jump back into the UNIX world and having this book around make me feel like I can handle any task that may be required. This is a must have if you want to dabble or become a pro in UNIX. |
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| "True to the Unix philosophy" | 2007-05-12 |
| - Reviewed By jeff0113 |
Here is a quote taken from _Unix_Power_Tools_ which demonstrates the
attitude, shared by the authors, that unix allows you to make things
easier. "''Ugh!', you say, 'that's just what I hate about UNIX. All
these long filenames and options I can't remember. Who wants to type
all that stuff!' Precisely. That's why UNIX makes it so easy to
create custom commands, in the form of aliases and shell scripts."
Unix Power Tools is true to the spirit and philosophy of unix in
focusing on the command line environment with its rich abundance of
command interpreters, shell languages, system utilities, commands, and
the like. This is the realm of real power.
The book is aimed squarely at the user who wants to learn what's under
the hood of the unix (and Linux) system. It's not about how to change
your wallpaper or install the latest media player, or configure your
desktop, although this new edition may touch on these topics, too.
It's really about using unix to greatest advantage, about tapping its
real power, the power of its simplicity, of its flexibility, of
tapping into I/O streams, and using the tool-box approach to solving
real problems. It's about using 'pipes', 'redirection', and
'filters', to automate the big jobs.
My copy of this book is tattered from all the use it's had over the
last ten years. I'm always hunting it down, as my associates at work
are constantly borrowing it to help them solve a problem. That's
okay, though. I am ordering another copy, just for me. I'm curious
to see this new edition, which I understand has broader coverage of
the various unix flavors, including Linux, which I run
at home.
I would recommend this book to those who find unix intimidating, as
well as to the unix enthusiast. For anyone who ever wondered what the
fuss over unix was about, this book will certainly bring on an
epiphany. For between these covers is the greatest accumulation of
unix wisdom and know-how to be found in any book. The shear volume is
enough to elicit awe. But that's only part of its value, because such
an enormous accumulation of material might normally overwhelm the
reader, leaving him frustrated and unenlightened. Happily, this book
is so well organized, and the material so pleasingly presented, that
anyone will find it a pleasure to browse through and to mine
repeatedly for those precious tips, tricks, and methods that make
using unix so rewarding.
This is admittedly a pound heavy volume, and might be expected to
contain a lot of chaff with the grain. I have not found it so. The
authors have chosen the material well, and know their subject so
intimately and thoroughly, that I am left with a feeling of profound
respect. This is, in short, a book that is worthy of its subject; a
truly great book for a great OS.
I read another reviewer who avers this is the one book he would take
with him to a deserted island. I concur. It has taught me more than
any other unix book, and has made my work more efficient, and most
importantly, more interesting. I paid full retail for my copy of
Power Tools, and at the time, I thought it was a lot, but it has
repaid me many times over. It's the most indispensable unix book on
my shelf; a real gem. |
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| "Very Good Reference Book." | 2007-02-18 |
| - Reviewed By nitin_nadkarni |
| I found this book very much useful as I am not a regular unix programmer. This book is good for knowing all unix commands and shell scripting. |
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| "pricey but worth it" | 2006-06-23 |
| - Reviewed By User: A307L9HILYC0MV |
| I know this seems abit pricey but its worth it. I dont have the attention span needed to read most books cover-to-cover. Even though this book is huge I have browsed it all and read most of it. Multiple times! Each time I find some new tidbit to use. |
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| "The one unix book that I'd like to have if stranded all alone on an island with a linux system!!" | 2006-05-01 |
| - Reviewed By el_conquistador |
I'm an analog IC designer moonlighting as a linux hacker (I'm actually addicted). I try to build software, write shell scripts and customize my desktop to death. I picked up this book a year or two back and I think I've probably used it almost every single day to look up something or the other. I probably own about 20 linux related books (more than my engineering books) but this is the one that I would run out with when the firealarm sounds. Here is my short summary of my feelings about this book.
- this book (primarily) caters to intermediate to advanced users
- I would still recommend this for linux beginners as a reference to check up when every other beginner book fails. There are introductory chapters on shell scripting which could put some of the dedicated shell scripting books to shame
- One of the fundamental holy grail that linux books try to achieve (and in which they often fail) is to find a good balance between breadth and depth - both qualities which the subject of Unix do not shy away from. So a Linux beginner picks up an introductory book which addresses just one linux issue and before he knows it-he has gathered enough knowledge and the book just picks up dust. Or he could pick up a book that claims to be a reference and skims over all the items with little depth and boom when he really needs information about a particular topic he finds that the book is too shallow. The "Unix Power Tools" book, I'm happy to say achieves this good balance between depth and breadth in very good measure. Ex. When I was confused about the intricacies of bash quoting or I/O redirecition, this book came to my rescue. The Unix command "find" which was buried under a 4-year old alias for me owing to it's complexities, suddenly developed a fascination for me after I discovered it's myriad use and value from the multiple pages that this book devoted to it's demystifcation.
- I bought the O'Reilly books - "Linux in a Nutshell" and "Essential system Administration" with the purpose of using them as references - The first one was just too shallow for my requirements and taste and I use it basically as a replacement for online man pages. The second one has it's very niche, but only in specific circumstances. So they have been put to use probably just 1/10th of what the "Power Tools" book has been put to
- I'm not a guy who is driven to write reviews i.e unless I am totally ecstatic or totally disgusted with a product and you probably have guessed where I stand with this one. I waited 1 or two years and I somehow felt that I owe this review to this book. |
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| "Buy this one!!" | 2005-10-02 |
| - Reviewed By User: A1H6YKU8R42AUA |
| This book is the godfather of *nix system reference books. Absolutely stellar! Best in breed. |
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| "it is a book for someone who climbs!" | 2005-07-31 |
| - Reviewed By me202318 |
I actually made two attempts to follow it and the first time it was too much for me. This book is going quite deep with many conceptions and I was lacking of the background. Then I came across "UNIX Essentials" DVD and this thing took me to the point I can read and follow and APPRECIATE this book.
The book is take you from being "beginner" to be a someone whose opinion counts. It makes you reading better article, follow modern conception and understand scripts much clearly. If one is seeking to go up, improve his/her knowledge it is definitely worthy and valuable reading. |
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| "Great reference for system administrators" | 2005-06-29 |
| - Reviewed By infosecguru |
This book is a great reference for Unix/Linux system administrators or powerusers (as well as Mac OS X which has a BSD base.) This isn't meant to be read straight through, but referenced when there is a problem that you can't just seem to find or recall the answer to. In Unix, there are multiple ways to do things and this book will also show you some of the other ways to accomplish tasks in Unix that you might not already know, potentially saving some significant time. This is one book you will probably be referring to often if you manage or use Unix based systems and also helps to build upon knowledge gap areas.
The only drawback to the book is that it contains so much information, that finding the tidbit you need in a hurry can be tedious, espcially if you are in a time crunch. This isn't a sifnificant problem because the authors thoughtfully arrange it in a consistent and reasonably coherent manner, but some new users may have difficulty determining how to describe their problem in a way that matches the indexing. |
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| "A Very Good Reference CAUTION MIGHT BE ADDICTIVE" | 2005-06-02 |
| - Reviewed By niloufertamboly |
This is one of those books which I refer to often. Whether it is that thing about shell variables or just for finding some obscure command. It is a book which will go well with an expert as well a beginner trying to find her way around. The website has an awesome collection of tools which can be added easily to one's toolkit. What I like the most about this book is that it has covered all the popular flavors of UNIX so it will make a permanent place on the desk for itself. The chapters on security and internet access, groups a lot of commands and information making it very easy to use and find. Even though I was using UNIX for years and thought of myself as an advanced user, a power user if you may. I found this book humbling and learned at least three different ways of doing the same task.
Niloufer Tamboly, CISSP |
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