jfh@netcom.UUCP (Jack Hamilton) (02/13/90)
"RTFM" is sometimes appropriate, but what if you can't find the manual? I, for example, have an account on a timesharing system which runs Xenix. I believe that a Xenix reference manual exists. I've looked at several bay area bookstores for it - Kepler's, Stacy's, Stanford University Bookstore (main branch and technical branch), Printers Inc, Clean Well Lighted Place for Books, even Crown - and there are lots of Unix books out there, but no Xenix manual. I can't read the manual if I can't find it. I also have no real grounds for choosing between any of the other 500 Unix manuals I've seen.
tneff@bfmny0.UU.NET (Tom Neff) (02/14/90)
In article <7147@netcom.UUCP> jfh@netcom.UUCP (Jack Hamilton) writes: >"RTFM" is sometimes appropriate, but what if you can't find the manual? > >I, for example, have an account on a timesharing system which runs Xenix. >I believe that a Xenix reference manual exists. I've looked at several >bay area bookstores for it - Kepler's, Stacy's, Stanford University >Bookstore (main branch and technical branch), Printers Inc, Clean Well >Lighted Place for Books, even Crown - and there are lots of Unix books >out there, but no Xenix manual. Your timesharing system presumably has an administrator or two. You start by asking THEM which manual comes with the machine, and where they got their copies. They may have a copy for you to borrow, or at least can give you the ISBN and ordering info so you can go back to your bookstore and order the proper manuals yourself. Your Xenix probably also identifies itself by vendor at some point; do a 'strings' on compilers, read system include files etc. then call up that company. If you're on a budget, call 800-555-1212 and ask for the company's toll free number. Many of them have one; the worst that can happen is that you'll find out yours doesn't, so why not try? You also have fellow users on the timesharing system. You can ask THEM for leads on the manual. There may be newsgroups limited in distribution to your machine; these make good places for query posting. This is an example of using offline HUMAN resources before resorting to the net. >I can't read the manual if I can't find it. I also have no real grounds for >choosing between any of the other 500 Unix manuals I've seen. Many common questions are answerable regardless of which UNIX or Xenix variant you're running. Anyway there are definitely Xenix books out there! B Daltons and other major chains have them.
chip@chinacat.Lonestar.ORG (Chip Rosenthal) (02/14/90)
In article <7147@netcom.UUCP> jfh@netcom.UUCP (Jack Hamilton) writes: >"RTFM" is sometimes appropriate, but what if you can't find the manual? >I, for example, have an account on a timesharing system which runs Xenix. You might want to get a copy of O'Reilly & Associate's |Unix in a Nutshell|. There are BSD and System V versions. The System V version is pretty durn near close to what you see on XENIX. At my old job, the XENIX machine was on the network, this is the book I'd have them use. To give you some of the depth available in this handy little book, here is the table of contents: 1) UNIX Commands 2) Shell Syntax (Bourne Shell, C Shell, Bourne Shell vs. C Shell) 3) Pattern Matching (Metacharacters, Pattern Matching Examples) 4) Editor Command Summary (vi, ex, sed, awk) 5) Nroff and Troff (Requests, Escape Seqs, Number Regs, Spec Chars) 6) Macro Packages (mm, ms, me) 7) Preprocessors (tbl, eqn, pic) 8) Program Debugging (adb, sdb) 9) SCCS and Make (SCCS, Make) 10) Error Messages Obviously this little book isn't going to have the depth of TFM, but will help you answer questions like, "What was that switch which printed in multi-column output and played Yankee Doodle at the same time." There are obviously some of the issues translating between SysV and XENIX. There is some help, for example in the roff section it mentions which requests are only available on ditroff (and therefore wouldn't be found in the XENIX text processing system). At under $20, it's a pretty good deal. With this aside, it is still a poor idea to ask questions on the net just because you don't have a manual handy. You try to drive a car without all four tires on, you get what you deserve. You try to use a unix system without documentation, same deal. >I've looked at several bay area bookstores for it - Kepler's, Stacy's, >Stanford University Bookstore (main branch and technical branch), Printers >Inc, Clean Well Lighted Place for Books, even Crown - and there are lots >of Unix books out there, but no Xenix manual. Err...have you contacted your XENIX salescritter? -- Chip Rosenthal | Yes, you're a happy man and you're chip@chinacat.Lonestar.ORG | a lucky man, but are you a smart Unicom Systems Development, 512-482-8260 | man? -David Bromberg
bumby@math.rutgers.edu (Richard Bumby) (02/16/90)
In article <15167@bfmny0.UU.NET> tneff@bfmny0.UU.NET (Tom Neff) writes: . . . <much stuff omitted> . . . > You also have fellow users on the timesharing system. You can ask THEM > for leads on the manual. There may be newsgroups limited in distribution > to your machine; these make good places for query posting. > The qa newsgroups at my site work extremely well -- all of the people with responsibility for the system read them regularly. The users also get an opportunity to share hard-earned knowledge with their less fortunate colleagues. Any site not supporting such groups should remedy that defect immediately. On the other hand, this group is a good place for general queries. It doesn't get such heavy use that one can't skip discussions that seem uninteresting. Though neither a newuser nor someone who feels responsibility for educating newusers, I find some of the discussions here useful. -- --R. T. Bumby ** Math ** Rutgers ** New Brunswick ** NJ08903 ** USA -- above postal address abbreviated by internet to bumby@math.rutgers.edu voice communication unreliable -- telephone ignored -- please use Email
jamesd@techbook.UUCP (James Deibele) (03/02/90)
In article <15167@bfmny0.UU.NET> tneff@bfmny0.UU.NET (Tom Neff) writes: >In article <7147@netcom.UUCP> jfh@netcom.UUCP (Jack Hamilton) writes: >>I, for example, have an account on a timesharing system which runs Xenix. >>I believe that a Xenix reference manual exists. I've looked at several >>bay area bookstores for it - Kepler's, Stacy's, Stanford University >>Bookstore (main branch and technical branch), Printers Inc, Clean Well >>Lighted Place for Books, even Crown - and there are lots of Unix books >>out there, but no Xenix manual. [...] >Many common questions are answerable regardless of which UNIX or Xenix >variant you're running. Anyway there are definitely Xenix books out >there! B Daltons and other major chains have them. I'll bet they (the chains) don't, not unless you're looking at a very large store (all the stores are automatically stocked by computers which operate on data set up by buyers in New York (used to be Minneapolis, before Barnes & Noble bought B. Dalton)). However many people use XENIX (lots do and don't know it, since they just see the application, not the OS), it doesn't compare to DOS. For most bookstores, UNIX/XENIX sales probably rank up there with the C64 or Apple II. Seriously. In fact, they probably sell more books on the C64 than UNIX. However, Books In Print lists 17 books with the keyword "XENIX" in the title and several of them have a magic "I" beside them. The magic "I" means that the Ingram Book Company carries them, and I'll bet every store listed above does business with Ingram (a distributor who buys from publishers and sells to the bookstores). Try picking one of the bookstores and asking them to order one of them for you. _Inside XENIX_ by the Waite Group and _XENIX at Work_ (from Microsoft Press, who does good books) would be good choices. There are some differences that you might encounter as a programmer, but as a user, probably the only major difference would be the visual shell. You might try asking the people behind the counter for help next time. Yeah, I know that there are a lot of morons working in bookstores, but I've heard good things about Stanford and Stacy's and you might even find somebody who knew what you were talking about ... -- jamesd@techbook.UUCP ...!tektronix!nosun!techbook!jamesd TECHbooks: The Computer Book Specialists - Voice: +1 503 646-8257 12600 SW 1st - Beaverton, OR - 97005 - MCI Mail: TECHBOOKS We pay freight on electronic orders