mberns@ut-ngp.UTEXAS (Mark Bernstein) (10/16/85)
[] For a general introduction, tutorial and reference guide to *using* a UNIX system, my students and I (in a field unrelated to computers) have found Introducing the UNIX System, H. McGiltin & R. Morgan (McGraw-Hill, 1983) to be the most readable and helpful. The main problem we've found using it is that it does not cover the "mm" text formatting macro package, which is the main nroff formatting program on our system (it does cover the "ms" package, though). For file and directory management, the various editors and other utilities, though, the book seems quite good for complete novices.
reintom@rocky2.UUCP (Tom Reingold) (10/19/85)
> I also enjoyed the original article. I have been a UNIX user/maintainer for > many years, but I also become annoyed with the lack of good documentation. > After experiencing the "other" VAX operating system, students are willing to > invest the time in learning UNIX and seem to get a big payoff in terms of > improving their productivity. But, for casual computer users, UNIX has > been less than successful here. Can anyone recommend good UNIX books > with readable command summaries that are targeted to less experienced > computer users? Thanks. Since it's a good programming environment -- possibly the best, it should be possible for a programmer to write programs and user environments that a casual user can work comfortably with. Why this has not been done a lot yet is a mystery to me but it IS possible. Maybe we programmers love UNIX so much that we hope the casual users ought to explore it and learn to love it in the way we do. This would be a bad attitude in most cases, and should be avoided whenever possible. Tom Reingold