Sams Teach Yourself Unix in 10 Minutes

Can you really learn unix in 10 minutes? Well, Shimonski gives it a hearty try. Actually, I'm sure the title is tongue in cheek. Absorbing this book will take most readers longer. But only a few hours at the most. He has managed to strip unix down to a core of simple and often used commands. Mastery of which takes you through many common unix situations. If you come from a Microsoft or Mac background, what may strike you about this book is the almost total absence of screen captures. Where'd the GUI go? Culture clash, you might say. The reality is that historically, unix arose before bitmapped consoles. But, even today, as you should hopefully understand from the book, you can be more productive at the command line. Speaking of GUIs, though, Shimonski does briefly explains X Windows, which is the native windowing system of every unix implementation. The deliberate brevity of the book means that he can only touch about each topic. But there's enough to get you usefully started.