A Practical Guide to the Unix System

I agree with many of the reviewers (esp rpclark), in saying that this is a wonderful introductory book. I can further add that I have owned this book for 5+ years and it is still the reference I refer to most often. I believe, a particular strength of Sobell's book is that it was useful to a newbie and is still useful at the sys admin level.

A user of FreeBSD now for a year, the lights came on with thisbook. Certainly, all unix books have something different to offer...this one excels above most. I agree with one of the other posts here that states "...it assumes that you are an intelligent reader", and "doesn't humor you with cute language and humor". However, I don't agree with another post that states that this book "is difficult". I am reading the 1989 copyright of this book, ISBN 0-8053-0243-3. The book does get down to the grit of things, but feeds it to you in a sequential manner. I don't like having to sift through paragraphs of what the author thinks is funny. In contrast to the "Unix Shell Programming" - Kochan & Wood, I found this book to be *to the point* on this topic. "Unix Shell Programming" is one of my favorites, but it takes a while to get to actual script writing. In chapter eight in this book, THE BOURNE SHELL, Sobell gets right to the point--after just 3 minutes of reading this chapter I starting writing "working" scripts---honestly. I keep this one at arms length from the keyboard. If you don't like being talked to like a "Dummy", pick this one up!Just Have Fun!!!

Sobell's Practical Guide to the Unix System is by far the best introduction to Unix available. While the book assumes no specific prior knowledge, it does assume that you are an intelligent reader and do not appreciate being patronized by "cute" language or attempts at humor. Rather, Sobell gets on with business, using good examples, clear prose, and accurate reference information. This is really two books in one: The first half is an introduction to important Unix concepts and applications (such as ex, vi, and troff); the second part is a handy thumb-indexed reference manual. My compliments--this is a model of good technical writing.

The book is well written in unemotional and descriptive style so there's no confusion. A good thing about this book is that it is very patient;the author assumes that you have absolutely NO experience in computers. He is pretty elaborate even covering on how to enter a command in UNIX. He says it like this: Press the characters on the keyboard in a sequence that matches the name of the command you want to use and press ENTER button. NO ambiguity there. But the only thing I don't really like about it is the chapter on system administration. It doesn't quite cover advanced topics such as setting up NFS, WWW servers, etc.. BUT the purpose of the book wasn't to tell you EVERYTHING. Rather, it is designed to get you comfortable with UNIX so you can advance if you want. But this book already has plenty of information to start doing some productive work in UNIX. Overall, I recommend it if you have absolutely NO experience with UNIX and you just want an easy, no -frills guide.

Mark Sobell manages to introduce a whole host of those great Unix utilities with non-descriptive names AND keep it readable. He will put you on the right track to being able to find your own way around Unix. I've read it, in fact, I took it on holiday with me, and strongly recommend it to those starting out in the Unix world, or those that have become a little rusty. It's perhaps a bit too technical for absolute beginners, but avid DOS users should not experience too much trouble getting to grips with the everyday Unix commands. The book has a clear layout too: Try it!!!