Unix in a Nutshell, Fourth Edition

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 906 pages
• Published by: O'Reilly Media, Inc.
• Edition: 4th Edition October 26, 2005
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0596100299
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0596100292
• Book Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 1.7 inches
• Weighs: 2.4 pounds

Product Description
As an open operating system, Unix can be improved on by anyone and everyone: individuals, companies, universities, and more. As a result, the very nature of Unix has been altered over the years by numerous extensions formulated in an assortment of versions. Today, Unix encompasses everything from Sun's Solaris to Apple's Mac OS X and more varieties of Linux than you can easily name.

The latest edition of this bestselling reference brings Unix into the 21st century. It's been reworked to keep current with the broader state of Unix in today's world and highlight the strengths of this operating system in all its various flavors.

Detailing all Unix commands and options, the informative guide provides generous descriptions and examples that put those commands in context. Here are some of the new features you'll find in "Unix in a Nutshell, Fourth Edition":

Solaris 10, the latest version of the SVR4-based operating system, GNU/Linux, and Mac OS X

Bash shell (along with the 1988 and 1993 versions of ksh)

tsch shell (instead of the original Berkeley csh)

Package management programs, used for program installation on popular GNU/Linux systems, Solaris and Mac OS X

GNU Emacs Version 21

Introduction to source code management systems

Concurrent versions system

Subversion version control system

GDB debugger

As Unix has progressed, certain commands that were once critical have fallen into disuse. To that end, the book has also dropped material that is no longer relevant, keeping it taut and current.

If you're a Unix user or programmer, you'll recognize the value of this complete, up-to-date Unix reference. With chapter overviews, specificexamples, and detailed command.

About The Author
Arnold Robbins, an Atlanta native, is a professional programmer and technical author. He has worked with Unix systems since 1980, when he was introduced to a PDP-11 running a version of Sixth Edition Unix. He has been a heavy AWK user since 1987, when he became involved with gawk, the GNU project's version of AWK. As a member of the POSIX 1003.2 balloting group, he helped shape the POSIX standard for AWK. He is currently the maintainer of gawk and its documentation. He is also coauthor of the sixth edition of "Learning the vi Editor" from O'Reilly.

Reader Reviews
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. Comment | | (Report this)