database design

I had a 1992 copy of this book and just recently found out about the updated version. Wow. This updated version contains most if not all of the information in the old one plus so much more! Once again, this book is probably the best reference book out there about UNIX.

This book devotes almost 200 pages alone to commands, along with chapters on the various shells, vi commands, emacs, various text formatting macros, and even a chapter about awk.

If you are a UNIX 'geek' or 'wannabe UNIX geek' like me, or just want to know more about UNIX, this book is for you. It's probably not for beginners however. They would be advised to buy "Learning About UNIX" or another good introductory book.

The O'Reilly Nutshell books are great! I've used them for years and haven't found a bad one yet. The books are meant for users to find 'how do I ....' and get you right down to it.

The book is very well laid out giving descriptions of commands and shells as well as chapters on text editing/processing(emacs, vi, sed, etc), text formatting (nroff) and software development (sccs, make). It's not exactly meant as a 'lead the hand' reference if you're just starting to learn Unix. I say for that first try O'Reilly's 'Learning the Unix Operating System'.

Once you begin to understand how Unix is put together, Unix In A Nutshell will definitely make more sense to you. For someone who has used Unix for years, I've used this book over and over for just about any flavor of Unix I've come across. I have yet to find a command that I needed that WASN'T in this book. I even recommended this and 'Learning the Unix Operating System' to my husband who wants to learn Unix. This book is well worth the price for the amount of information you get.

Let me just start out by saying that I have taught Solaris in the past to several international companies and highly respectable universities. I always provide each student with a copy of this book because I put that much value into it.

There is no other Solaris book out there that covers the most often-used Solaris commands with such intricate detail and organization as this book does. The only drawback to this book is that the author stopped at Solaris 7. Considering that right now Solaris is up to version 9, I so very much wish that Mr. Robbins continued this book into Solaris 8 and 9.

The beautiful part about Solaris, however, is that even Solaris 8 and 9 contain most if not all of the commands that are listed in this book, so it still becomes an absolute necessity for any Solaris administrator. The complete chapter on vi also will be a welcome sight to many as well the separate chapters on the different operating system shells.

I must warn that this is NOT a book for those who are looking to get started in Solaris. This is purely a reference manual. In effect, this book is Solaris on-line help (man pages) in a beautifully organized compendium of the essential Solaris commands.

If you are a Solaris administrator, regardless of whether you're a novice or an "expert", you need to have this book at your desk at all times. It's completely indispenable.