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UNIX PowerTools

19.9

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UNIX PowerTools

3.4

Highest ranking 101

11 comments

$19.9

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John WilliamsonReviewed in the United States on October 26, 2012

Cleaning out my old SysAdmin bookshelf, deciding what to trash, what to give away and what to keep, and there was my old copy of UNIX Power Tools, 2nd Edition, by Jerry Peek, Tim O'Reilly and Mike Loukides. It gave me a few moments to sit down and thumb through its +1100 pages, reflecting on how I bought my first copy of this title with its classic cover here on Amazon in early February, 1999. Remember getting it, thumbing through it for an hour or so, then ordering a second copy to keep at work... it was that good. Command: oldlinks "oldlinks is a shell script that prints the names of 'stale' symbolic links" This title may be old now, but it's symbolic in another context for this reader, as this constantly used book went with me from a SysAdmin position with a Fortune 500 company to a Sr. SysAdmin contractor job with another. It stayed with me as an IT Project Mangler (as was misprinted on my business cards), and was frequently loaned out to those who needed to check some command or reference. If it's any recommendation, this title was the only one stolen from my extensive work bookshelf over a long weekend. Luckily they didn't take my copy of another favorite, by Æleen Frisch, as it was also an essential favorite. It's good to see that is available here, and in a as well. Had that ebook been available years ago, I might have not felt the need for two copies. Please note that this review was not written with the as using a Mac or PC is today far easier for such tasks. Can only say that this title, in any of its editions, is highly recommended by one who used it extensively. 10/25/2012

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sergio mujicaReviewed in the United States on August 9, 2015

no comment

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paul tealReviewed in the United States on January 8, 2014

easy to use and reference - everything is easily understood and referenced - with great practical examples - practical knowledge of Unix required to be effectively used

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Bruce OrdwayReviewed in the United States on February 28, 2001

Every time I buy an O'Reilly book I swear it will be the last. Same thing here. All kinds of hype and no delivery. I hate this book. I don't know why it gets so many good reviews. You might be able to use it as a reference book occasionally. Not well written at all.

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Noel McKinneyReviewed in the United States on September 8, 2001

People may tell you that THE reference on UNIX is the UNIX System Administration Handbook (known as the Purple book, formerly the red book) and they are right to a point. The Purple book relates to administering a UNIX system. What if you are not a UNIX system administrator, but a user who wants to move to the next level? Then this is the book, especially if you've already gotten bored with O'Reilly books on the Bash shell (there are other shells?) and Programming with GNU Software, and want to move to the next level. You know, you want to learn tricks, become more broad in your techniques, but you aren't an SysAdmin. This is probably the a book you want to include in an order for Learning Gnu Emacs (emacs vs. vi... please, emacs rules).

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Charles E. HamiltonReviewed in the United States on September 18, 2002

This is a useful book and contains a huge number of insightful nuggets of information presented in the format of short articles. I found references to things I had never even dreamed of existing in Unix. However, I find that the "nugget" approach is not as useful as a coordinated text would have been, because some things are covered several times, while other things are only mentioned in passing. This book would probably be most useful to a system administrator or user as an adjunct to another reference text. The typesetting could also have been improved, as there are some references in a very pale grey font which I find unnecessarily hard to read, expecially in dim light.

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Jim in ChattanoogaReviewed in the United States on August 10, 2013

comprehensive, well formatted, great reference book. I used it as a Unix rookie and it made me more productive. I could have just called folks to do stuff this book showed me how to do but was able to do myself.

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David MReviewed in the United States on July 19, 2000

I work in two places and couldn't live without it. Unix Power Tools is everything I want in a reference book. Concise explanations (most topics are a page or two at most), lots of clear, commented examples (which are replicated on the CD), a very broad coverage of topics and excellent organization, indexing and cross referencing. Almost every time I've needed to figure out how to do something in Unix this book has come through with flying colors.

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Nikiforos V FokasReviewed in the United Kingdom on October 21, 2017

20 years on, and my copy is almost as fresh as a book published yesterday. The cd is miraculously included, featuring a plethora of very old software, some of it historically fascinating, and a virtual tonne of shell scripts. The unix of today isn't that of 2002, clearly --- there are plenty of System IV references and the like. Linux was the new kid on the block; here it takes a backseat to Solaris, hpux and co in the 1000 pages of sheer utility and wisdom still relevant today for FreeBSD, MacOS/darwin and co. The book also features a brilliantly amazing cross-referenced format that others could study and learn from. A weak point is networking. Yep, you read that correctly. 1 page exists; the authors claim that the book would have been too gigantic had networking been included, but perhaps cutting back a little on shell tools, which forms 99% of this book wouldn't have gone amiss. This is Unix for heaven's sake --- the very home of networking. Still, a remarkable achievement.

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MjReviewed in Japan on May 13, 2006

国外での評価が非常に高いので、買ってみた。 なんと翻訳書では、節見出しどころか、章見出しもないのだ。(書籍編集の専門用語で言う「柱」がないのだ。) 全部で51章、1300ページ以上ある本なのに、ページを開いても、ページと節の「数字」しか表示されていない。これでは簡単に「拾い読み」が出来ない。 1節1節は独立していて量も少ないので、原書(もちろん、こちらは節見出しもある)か、同様のUNIX辞書的書籍として、技術評論社の「新 The UNIX Super Text 上・下」をお奨めします。 後日、少々使ってみて判明したが、翻訳書は索引もひどい手抜きだ。 オライリーともあろう会社が、どうしてこんな編集で許したのか理解に苦しむ。

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Father-of-girlsReviewed in the United Kingdom on May 20, 2016

Here we go, good old Unix. This is an old, but invaluable book. I bought it for my FreeBSD and Minix computers. It's also great for Linux at the command-line level. The book covers basics as well as the shell, scripting, editing (ed and vi), job control, sed, awk, cron, tar, bc etc. All marvellous stuff.