mkao@pnet01.CTS.COM (Mike Kao) (08/20/87)
I recently posted a request for recommendations on UNIX books for novices. Many helpful replies were received, and many suggested that I post a review on the net. Well, I chose this particular reply to forward here, for it is by far the most informative. Hope this helps! ______________________________________________________________________________ Received: by crash.CTS.COM (5.54/UUCP-Project/rel-1.0/09-14-86) id AA08492; Tue, 18 Aug 87 19:11:44 PDT From: crash!hp-sdd!hplabs!rutgers!moss!bakerst!kathy Reply-To: crash!hp-sdd!hplabs!rutgers!moss!bakerst!kathy Received: from hplabs.HP.COM (hplabs) by hp-sdd.HP.COM; Tue, 18 Aug 87 16:25:53 PDT Return-Path: <hp-sdd!hplabs!rutgers!moss!bakerst!kathy> Received: by hplabs.HP.COM ; Tue, 18 Aug 87 14:40:29 pdt Received: by RUTGERS.EDU (5.54/1.14) with UUCP id AA14530; Tue, 18 Aug 87 17:39:19 EDT Received: by clyde.ATT.COM (smail2.5) id AA06108; 18 Aug 87 17:35:02 EDT (Tue) Received: by wrcola.UUCP (smail2.3) id AA22108; 18 Aug 87 16:58:34 EDT (Tue) Received: by bakerst.UUCP (smail2.3) id AA12398; 18 Aug 87 17:00:09 EDT (Tue) Ppath: pnet01!mkao To: hplabs!hp-sdd!crash!pnet01!mkao Subject: Re: Unix book recommendations for a novice? Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions In-Reply-To: <1555@crash.CTS.COM> Organization: My Time Is My Own, Winston-Salem, NC Date: 18 Aug 87 17:00:09 EDT (Tue) Message-Id: <8708181700.AA12398@bakerst.UUCP> In article <1555@crash.CTS.COM> you write: >Until recently, I knew NOTHING about Unix. For about the past month or so, I >have been reading _Unix Primer Plus_ (The Waite Group) and experimenting with >their examples on my local Unix system. I have learned much but crave more, >more, MORE knowledge! Can anyone give me recommendations on books that will >pick up where mine left off in terms of complexity and depth? > >To insure my reception of any replies, please respond via e-mail. Thanks! > > -- Mike Kao > >UUCP: {cbosgd, hplabs!hp-sdd, sdcsvax, nosc}!crash!pnet01!mkao >ARPA: crash!pnet01!mkao@nosc.mil >INET: mkao@pnet01.CTS.COM I should trim more, I guess, but I'm sending you most of the file in which I've been accumulating suggestions for books about UNIX reading material. Some of the titles are repeated, but you'll get reactions from different people about those titles. Kathy Vincent kathy@bakerst.UUCP :<*>:<*>:<*>:<*>:<*>:<*>:<*>:<*>:<*>:<*>:<*>:<*>:<*>:<*>:<*>: Home: {ihnp4|mtune|codas|ptsfa}!bakerst!kathy AT&T: {ihnp4|mtune|burl}!wrcola!kathy ----------------------------------------------------------------- Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards Reply-To: jackb@ptsfa.UUCP (Jack Bailey) Organization: Pacific * Bell, San Ramon, CA The very best book I've ever read: The Design of the UNIX Operating System by Maurice J. Bach. It goes for about $32.00 and is worth every cent. The book covers everything from basic UNIX concepts to disk buffer caching schemes and kernel data structures. Food for wizards. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions,comp.unix.wizards >From: bzs@bu-cs.BU.EDU (Barry Shein) Subject: Book Recommendation Organization: Boston U. Comp. Sci. People often ask for book recommendations on UNIX. A most remarkable book just landed in my mailbox: Douglas Comer, Operating System Design, Volume II, Internetworking with XINU, Prentice-Hall ISBN 0-13-637414-X 025 This is the followup book to his Xinu Operating System book and extends his operating system to Arpa InterNetworking functionality. It steps through hardware and layer by layer software implementation of the protocols including namespace issues, routing, ARP, RARP, ICMP, a stateless file server, telnet, mail...need I go on? The whole thing in one textbook. Wanna be a networking guru? Pick one up, I am impressed as hell. -Barry Shein, Boston University ----------------------------------------------------------------- Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards >From: cdunlop@wright.EDU (Chuck Dunlop) Summary: Another helpful Unix book "Exploring the Unix System", by Stephen G. Kochan and Patrick H. Wood is very usable; it also has an introduction to vi. ----------------------------------------------------------------- The UNIX Programming Environment by Brian Kernighan and Rob Pike Prentice-Hall Software Series Introducing the UNIX System by Henry McGilton and Rachael Morgan (McGraw-Hill Software Series for Computer Professionals -- A Byte Book) (c) 1983 by Stoneman Systems $18.95 in paperback UNIX Shell Programming by Stephen G. Kochan and Patrick H. Wood Hayden Book Company $24.95 ----------------------------------------------------------------- > "A Commentary on the UNIX Operating System", John Lions, Univ NSW. > "The Design of the UNIX Operating System", Maurice Bach, AT&T-IS. > The former is an internal-only (numbered) booklet which is an > explanation (well, it is if you already understand it) of the v6 > kernel source. The latter is a book, recently published, the author > prepared and taught the AT&T internal UNIX System V Fundamentals course > (not the good one). I didn't actually read Bach yet but it has been > recommended to me. ----------------------------------------------------------------- >From: rs2@houxu.UUCP (Robert Switzer KA2CZU) "The Design of the UNIX Operating System" by Maurice J. Bach, Prentice-Hall, Inc. 1986 ISBN 0-13-201799-7 "This book fives a detailed description of the operating system. It concentrates on a description of UNIX System V produced by AT&T but considers interesting features provided by other versions too. It examines major data structures and algorithms used in the operating system that ultimately provide the users with the standard user interface". from Ch. 1 pg.1 of TDOTUOS. Robert Switzer KA2CZU - AT&T Information Systems Rm 2J208, Holmdel, NJ (201)949-7281 ----------------------------------------------------------------- dbakerst!kitty!sunybcs!rocksanne!rochester!seismo!mcvax!diku!olamb!kimcm >From: kimcm@olamb.UUCP (Kim Chr. Madsen) Organization: AmbraSoft A/S (Denmark) The Design of the UNIX Operating System Maurice J. Bach Prentice-Hall Software Series ISBN 0-13-201799-7 025 The book is fairly new (1986), and describes the the internal algorithms and structures for the kernel and the relations to the programmer interface. ----------------------------------------------------------------- >From: crayinc@mhuxi.UUCP (Rick) Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ Since the level of book was not stated I am listing 3 levels. Beginner: A Practical Guide to UNIX System V Mark G Sobell Benjamin Cummins Pub. Intermediate: The UNIX Programming Environment Brian Kernighan/Rob Pike Prentice Hall Expert: The Design of the UNIX Operating System Maurice Bach Prentice Hall -- Rick Tillbrook ihnp4!mhuxi!crayinc ----------------------------------------------------------------- >From stephen Thu Feb 5 19:01:58 1987 I finally bought _A_Practical_Guide_to_UNIX_System_V_. What a great book. If you ever want to recommend a book to someone as a start in UNIX I think they would appreciate this recommendation. I can't remember if you've seen it or even have it. I know Gary does. I wish it had been the first book I bought. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Newsgroups: comp.text Reply-To: kjp@well.UUCP (Karen Paulsell) Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link, Sausalito, CA Scott Simpson wrote in the discussion of troff/TEX: > Troff is documented but not nearly as well. True, but there are (at least) 3 recent books on troff that can help. I'll mention the one I co-authored first... 1. troff Typesetting for UNIX(tm) Systems, Sandra L. Emerson and Karen Paulsell, Prentice-Hall 2. UNIX(tm) NROFF/TROFF A User's Guide, Kevin P. Roddy, Holt Rinehart and Wilson 3. The author is Narain Gehani, and I think the book is called Document Formatting on UNIX Systems. I can't really describe the 2 other books; one person who has seen all three told me that we spend a lot more time describing all the troff primitives and their interactions, Gehani focusses more on -mm, and Roddy on -ms and -me modifications. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions Subject: Re: Looking for "Nutshell" handbooks Date: 28 Feb 87 19:57:12 GMT Reply-To: mitch@well.UUCP (Mitchell Waite) Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link, Sausalito, CA The publisher of Nutshell is O'Reilly & Associates, 171 Jackson Street, Newton, Mass 02159617 527 4210. There are five volumes and they are $7.50 each. You might also look for UNIX Communications by The Waite Group and published by Howard W. Sams in May. This book has everything in all the Nutshells in one book, but the total isn't $37.50. There is also much more information about using USENET in the Waite Group title. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions Subject: Re: Looking for "Nutshell" handbooks Date: 28 Feb 87 16:36:42 GMT Reply-To: phaedrus@eneevax.UUCP (Praveen Kumar) Organization: EE Dept, Maryversity of Uniland Nutshell Handbooks O'Reilly & Associates Inc. 171 Jackson Street Newton MA 02159 I have their "Reading & Writing TERMCAP Entries", and "Programming With Curses". They are very good. I recommend them highly. ----------------------------------------------------------------- From: bzs@bu-cs.BU.EDU (Barry Shein) Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions Subject: Looking for "Nutshell" handbooks Date: 1 Mar 87 02:21:02 GMT Organization: Boston U. Comp. Sci. >I am trying to locate the publisher of the "Unix-in-a-Nutshell" handbooks. >Does anyone know their address or telephone number? > >(These little books provide a quick introduction to Unix, vi, and uucp, >and are filled with lots of "copy this or adapt it for your needs" >examples). O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. 171 Jackson Street Newton, MA 02159 I am posting this because I think they are actually worth looking into for the larger community. They're little books (5 1/2" x 8" stock, less than 100pp) which go over quickly a lot of things about basic UNIX etc. I would think naive user's would find them a nice, non-threatening introductions (we can get to the threats later :-) -Barry Shein, Boston University ----------------------------------------------------------------- Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions Subject: Re: Looking for "Nutshell" handbooks Date: 2 Mar 87 18:17:42 GMT Reply-To: rbl@nitrex.UUCP ( Dr. Robin Lake ) Organization: The Standard Oil Co., Cleveland In article <5750@dartvax.UUCP> andyb%burlcoat@dartvax.UUCP (Andy Behrens) writes: >I am trying to locate the publisher of the "Unix-in-a-Nutshell" handbooks. >Does anyone know their address or telephone number? > O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. 981 Chestnut St. Newton, MA 02164 The UUCP/USENET volumes are worth their weight in gold! I've been trying to administer a node outside my regular duties and just have not had the time to find all the good material the Nutshell Handbooks have --- nonetheless the time to organize it well! These do the job!! Rob Lake ----------------------------------------------------------------- Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions Subject: Re: Looking for "Nutshell" handbooks Date: 3 Mar 87 16:03:30 GMT Reply-To: bruce@chas2.UUCP (Bruce McLaughlin) Organization: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Ca. The Nutshell handbooks are published by: O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. 981 Chestnut Street Newton, Mass. 02164 There are seven of them that I know of, and they are extremely useful. ... cit-vax!elroy!smeagol!jplgodo!chas2!bruce --Bruce McLaughlin Jet Propulsion Laboratory 4800 Oak Grove Drive, M/S 301/250D Pasadena, California, 91109 (818) 354-0280 ----------------------------------------------------------------- From: bobm@agsm.unsw.oz (Robert Marks) Newsgroups: comp.text Subject: DWB: Latest version of eqn -- including "include"? Date: 15 Mar 87 08:37:44 GMT Organization: Australian Graduate School of Management In his book "Document Formatting and Typesetting on the UNIX System," (Summit, NJ: Silicon Press, 1986), Narain Gehani lists (pp.248-) "Recent Enhancements to eqn." His list of eight changes includes some -- multi- character font names are now accepted -- which have been implemented on our version (in System 5.2.2 Unix on a Vax 11/780), and some which have not been implemented. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Newsgroups: comp.text,comp.unix.questions,comp.unix.wizards Subject: Re: TROFF or NROFF drivers Date: 28 Mar 87 05:08:47 GMT Reply-To: patwood@unirot.UUCP (Patrick Wood) Organization: Pipeline Associates, Inc. There is a book on UNIX Text Processing coming out in about two months that will have appendices on writing ditroff font width tables. It will be published by Hayden/Sams; the authors are Tim O'Reilly and Dale Dougherty of O'Reilly and Associates. I'll post a short thing on them here over the weekend. Pat Wood bellcore!phw5!phw (ignore the unirot address -- I only read my mail here every few days) ----------------------------------------------------------------- From: donna@casey.UUCP Newsgroups: comp.text Subject: _nroff/troff:_A_User's_Guide_ Date: 19 May 87 16:58:03 GMT Organization: Kwantlen College, Surrey B.C. Am I getting a little peeved? I think so. I've been reading reviews for _UNIX_nroff/troff:_A_User's_Guide_ by Kevin P. Roddy (Holt, Rinehart & Winston, New York, 1987) and I decided this was a book I could use. But it doesn't seem to be available! Our bookstore first told me that it was out of print. Then I sent them a photocopy of the review and I got a note back saying that HR&W claimed it wasn't their publication (well, maybe not in Canada....) And my favourite (and usually very complete) computer bookstore also claims it's out of print. Has anybody actually purchased a copy? Any suggestions for a Canadian supplier? (or will I have to make a weekend trip to Seattle?) Donna Hrynkiw Systems & Computing - Kwantlen College PO Box 9030, Surrey BC Canada V3T 5H8 ...!ubc-vision!casey!donna donna@casey.kwantlen.bcc.cdn ----------------------------------------------------------------- Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions Subject: Re: Fork and Join, Pipe in C Date: 15 Jun 87 17:22:12 GMT Reply-To: mj@elmgate.UUCP (Mark A. Johnson) Organization: Eastman Kodak Company, Rochester, NY > Are there any books on these topics. Yet another good book on UNIX (although probably too advanced for the fork/join/pipe questions) is THE DESIGN OF THE UNIX OPERATING SYSTEM by Maurice Bach, c. 1986, Bell Telephone Laboratories (Prentice-Hall software series). In this book, Bach describes the internal data structures and algorithms of the kernel, and details how these support the user interface. As a Unix programmer who understands most of the system calls fairly well and would like to begin digging at the kernel, I have found this books to be complete and informative. The Advanced UNIX Programming book mentioned earlier is also very good. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mark A Johnson - Eastman Kodak Co. - Dept 646 - KEEPS - Rochester, NY 14650 ----------------------------------------------------------------- Newsgroups: comp.text Subject: Review: Emerson & Paulsell/troff Summary: review of book on typesetting with troff Date: 18 Jun 87 16:47:49 GMT Reply-To: russ@anduk.UUCP (russ) Organization: Unixsys (UK) Ltd. At the last Unix Users' Show, I bought a new book on troff. ``Troff typesetting for Unix[tm] systems'' is probably the best overall in-depth introduction to using troff or ditroff that I have found, and will also be useful to more experienced users. %Author Sandra L. Emerson %Author Karen Paulsell %Title Troff typesetting for \*{UNIX} systems %Inst Prentice Hall %Date 1987 %Pages 359 %Other Includes Index %ISBN 0-13-930959 (paperback) %LConCN 86-12299 %Dewey 686.2'2544 Referred to below as "E & P" after the authors' initials. Overview: Unlike many of the other works on the subject (such as Gehani's book), E & P spends little time on the established "macro packages" such as the AT&T "-mm" package, but deals instead with the basics. This approach may sound ``botton-up'', but it seems to work quite well. The text is readable and clear, and there are relatively few errors. All of the main issues are at least mentioned, and there are many examples. After studying the book, a reasonably intelligent reader should be able to write their own macros to describe formats for multiple columns, footnotes, indexes, tables of contents, tables and the like. There's mention of proprietary systems (SoftQuad, Eroff, Wizard, Xroff), although the info is rather out of date, at any rate for SoftQuad. Differences between nroff, troff and ditroff are mentioned in most places where they're relevant, and nroff users will appreciate the note on writing an nroff driving table. Overall, I reccommend E & P as both an introduction to troff and as a reference for more experienced users. There are only a few caveats: @ There's not enough mention of typographical issues for my taste. @ There are a few errors, particularly in the treatment of tabs ("\t" and "\a" are expanded only in copy mode, so a couple of their examples don't work; you have to use the ASCII TAB and SOH (^I, ^A) respectively), which are frustrating to beginners and which add to the number of support calls we get! @ There's no treatment of pic, grap or refer. As the book is explicitly about troff, this isn't really a criticism, just a "beware". @ Some of the examples use a proportionally spaced font, so it's hard to work out where to type spaces. This is very minor. @ The table of requests reproduced from Osanna's manual doesn't include the ``notes'' column that says which requests cause a Break, etc., which slightly reduce the book's use as a reference manual And a few specific good points: @ The 11-page index is helpful and reasonably comprehensive without irritating jokes about Bo Derek (page 10) or recursion (see recursion). @ The prose is informal and doesn't read like a lawyer's underlease, without seeming affected by trying to be friendly. @ There are a lot of examples, and most of them are quite well-chosen and do work (but watch out for the tabs, which don't!). @ Notes on modifying macro packages, such as -ms, are rare in books such as these, and will no doubt be welcomed. @ From my point of view, it's useful that the writers were aare of a number of different versions of troff, as their "code" is portable. All of the examples which work will run with SoftQuad troff, which means that we can recommend the book without saying "but watch for...". Other vendors who haven't introduced incompatibilities could do the same. Reference manuals are all very well, but this is written for _humans_! @ The book is reasonably priced -- it isn't cheap at around UK#26, but you seem to get good value by Prentice Hall standards. Russell -- Russell Quin, Unixsys UK Ltd, The Genesis Centre, Birchwood, Warrington WA3 7BH {utai,ukc!mucs}!anduk!russ [please don't try to use mucs!anduk!utai!...] +44 925 827834, or 0925 828181 from UK; Telex 946240 CWEASY G Ref. 19021810 ----------------------------------------------------------------- >From: tim@ora.UUCP (Tim O'Reilly) Summary: Nutshell Handbooks on UUCP available from O'Reilly & Associates Message-ID: <638@ora.UUCP> Organization: O'Reilly & Associates, Inc., Newton, MA > > I need detailed and thorough instructions to set up UUCP. A book on UUCP > will be very helpful. Anybody got something ??? Please mail me > title/author/publisher (anything to track it down by). Something that covered > UUCP internals as well would be really great. > Thanks. > My company publishes two books on UUCP: Using UUCP and Usenet (172 pages) and Managing UUCP and Usenet (216 pages). The Managing book sounds like what you need. It has recently been updated and expanded to cover BNU (HoneyDanBer UUCP) as well as the old Version 2 UUCP, and we've added a lot of material on debugging connections, and so on. You can order the books by sending $9 for Using UUCP, and $12 for Managing UUCP, plus $2.50 shipping and handling to: Nutshell Handbooks O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. 981 Chestnut Street, Newton, MA 02164 or by calling 1-800-338-NUTS (617-527-4210 in MA). MC & VISA ok. Nutshell Handbook is a trademark of O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. Tim O'Reilly (617) 527-4210 O'Reilly & Associates, Inc., Publishers of Nutshell Handbooks 981 Chestnut Street, Newton, MA 02164 UUCP: seismo!uunet!ora!tim ARPA: tim@ora.uu.net ----------------------------------------------------------------- From: tim@ora.UUCP Newsgroups: comp.text Subject: [book] troff indexes Date: 10 Aug 87 14:48:13 GMT Organization: O'Reilly & Associates, Inc., Newton, MA In article <MV5siey00Vs6c7E0Nt@andrew.cmu.edu>, ao06+@andrew.cmu.edu (Ayami Ogura) writes: > > Has anybody out there ever created an index with troff? Or had success using > the ptx program? In our book, UNIX Text Processing, (Hayden Books/Howard Sams, April 1987), Dale Dougherty and I discuss this topic in detail. You can write a macro that prints out an index entry plus a page number; this data can either be collected into a diversion, or preferably written to stderr with the .tm request (in otroff or ditroff) or directly into a file with .sy echo (ditroff only). This file can be postprocessed with sort, awk and sed to combine multiple entries, and to format the index properly. Ptx is not all that useful, but if you need to make one, you need it. The process is too long to go into here (since I'm reading news early one morning over a long-distance phone link while ostensibly on vacation), but if you send me mail, I'll send you out details when I get back to the office in a couple of weeks. If there is sufficient interest, I'll post the discussion to the net. (Note: ptx is not covered in our book. Sorry.) -- Tim O'Reilly (617) 527-4210 O'Reilly & Associates, Inc., Publishers of Nutshell Handbooks 981 Chestnut Street, Newton, MA 02164 UUCP: seismo!uunet!ora!tim ARPA: tim@ora.uu.net _______________________________________________________________________________ That's it folks! To insure my reception of any replies, please respond via e-mail. Thanks! -- Mike Kao UUCP: {cbosgd, hplabs!hp-sdd, sdcsvax, nosc}!crash!pnet01!mkao ARPA: crash!pnet01!mkao@nosc.mil INET: mkao@pnet01.CTS.COM To insure my reception of any replies, please respond via e-mail. Thanks! -- Mike Kao UUCP: {cbosgd, hplabs!hp-sdd, sdcsvax, nosc}!crash!pnet01!mkao ARPA: crash!pnet01!mkao@nosc.mil INET: mkao@pnet01.CTS.COM