For more experienced users, there are plenty of cool tools and shortcuts to make the book worthwhile (sdiff, head, and procmail, for example). The authors provide a generous section on scripting--a good introduction for advanced users who may be spending too much time on repetitive tasks. The authors also touch on how to intelligently include regular expressions in searching, a pleasant addition to an already outstanding section.

Some of the authors' decisions on what to include merit warning, although not enough that users should turn away from this book: the authors only cover the bash, ksh, and csh shells; they focus on only the pico and vi editors--not emacs; and their excellent section on e-mail covers only pine (briefly mentioning that elm really isn't worth its salt for a new user). While the book isn't all-inclusive, it isn't meant to be. The authors make their preferences clear, and for the user, this amounts to a good deal of clarity and time saved.
--Jennifer Buckendorff

UNIX, the life blood of the Internet, is really a pretty simple operating system compared with Windows 95/98/NT. UNIX is actually a superset of the old DOS operating system, and the complexity of UNIX comes from its command line interface (i.e., no graphical user interface). To use the full power of UNIX, the user must know what to type, not simply answer questions. The Rays' book is an excellent beginner's guide and covers everything from viewing and manipulating files and directories to editing files with either VI or Pico to configuring environmental variables, running shell scripts, reading E-mail, encoding and decoding data, and installing software. While not for everyone, this should be popular in both public and academic libraries.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

What was once regarded as the purview of programmers and administrators is now making its way to users' desktops-most notably via Mac OS X-and users have begun to take note. When you're ready to get to the heart of it all-to the operating system at the core of the Internet, the intranet, and quite possibly your own desktop-there's no better way to start than by consulting with this handy Visual QuickStart Guide. The authors who made Unix comprehensible to the masses are back with Unix, 2nd Edition: Visual QuickStart Guide-completely updated to reflect all that's new in Unix. The book discusses how to run a home network server and use CUPS, Samba, http, and more. Through simple step-by-step instructions, numerous tips, and plenty of visual references, you'll learn everything you need to know to make sense of the flavors, commands, and technical jargon surrounding the Unix operating system. Printing in the Unix environment, managing your system, and more are all covered in the straightforward, approachable style that has become the hallmark of the Visual QuickStart series.