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 Customer Reviews
A UNIX book that's actually clearly written !!!!!, 01 Aug 2008
If you're like me then you've bought a few UNIX books and are none the wiser as you seem to be on the outside looking in at some 6th-form science club. You are, however , 'in IT' and have to get to understand shell-scripting rather than just copy other peoples code. Get this book. It's normal !! It achieves twin aims of covering the subject in depth and being easy to understand. It covers shell scripting very well ( all the curly brackets stuff as well as some very simple , but extremely useful , sed and awk code); it also covers all the usual UNIX stuff - it is entirely self contained. 'UNIX shell commands plus scripting' would be a better , if less snappy , title. I don't usually 'do' reviews - this is , however, a deserved exception. Possibly one of the best introduction to UNIX/LINUX out there., 26 Jun 2007
This book is incredibly well paced and written. The authors manage to write in a very approachable way without missing any of the essential, and without patronising the reader.
The title may mislead some into thinking that this book covers only scripting or isnt suitable for starting to learn the *NIX shells. Nothing could be further from the truth. Taking the reader through the classic tools of unix, the authors then show how to bring those tools together and how to build continually more complex programs.
Also apprecieated are examples throughout the book. These examples, unlike some similar titles, are there in just the right amount. You don't feel swamped by pages and pages of code, neither lost with nothing to demonstrate what is being said. What these examples are, however, is highly relevent, allowing you to learn important principles and start writing your own code.
Overall, even if advanced users might not benefit as much from this book, it is still highly recommended read to anybody interested in using the power of the unix shell, either totally new to command line, or seasoned with more experience. And suprinsingly, This book remains accessible to both. Excellent guide to the POSIX shell, 09 Apr 2007
This is a very good introduction to the POSIX shell, as used on various Unix and Linux operating systems. The book covers the basics of how a shell works, how it can be used to write scripts and the standard Unix tool-kit that can be used to do powerful things quickly and easily.
The book is grounded in POSIX tools so does not take advantage of features present in the very latest Bash, Korn and Z shells, but it does mention that sometimes if you are willing to trade portability you can do things easier and quicker.
The book does not require a deep understanding of the Unix philosophy, but it does help to have used the basic Unix/Linux tools in the past. As well as shell, the book covers the standard tool-kit such as cut, head, tail, grep, sed and a large chunk of awk.
The book is well written and organised, and there are plenty of code snippets and explanations to keep you going. The book does not really cover the interactive use of shell, it really is all about scripting with shell as the title suggests.
If I have one problem with the book it is that there is an almost pathological avoidance of the dynamic languages such as Perl, Python and Ruby. Some of the longer shell examples would have been much better written in a more complete language such as Perl which are better suited to the larger tasks that shell is not designed for.
Combined with a good introductory books such as "Learning the Bash Shell" or "Learning the Korn Shell" you are well on the way to driving a Unix/Linux system without a mouse! nice first UNIX book, 20 Mar 2006
I like easy to read book and I also had assumed that learning UNIX is not necessarily has to be a struggle. This book stood up to my expectations almost perfectly: it is very well written and clearly expressed work. It does not overwhelm with technical details and does not press too much. I also followed an advise in someone review and purchased "UNIX Essentials" DVD that is complete unix course recorded (I found on Amazon.com but since they do not ship outside US I ordered it directly from CustomFlix.com). These two nicely complement one another. You watch it and you read it. If you didn't catch it from the first try you watch it again and read it again. In two months I found myself confident to that extend that gave advises to our system administrator and he accepted them because there were subjects that he wasn't completely sure. What I can say, in three month I passed my first interview and got a job! Sure it is a way to start there much of more advanced reading that will take over you with a time however these two provide you with the BASIS! I can't overstate how much I have learned from them. Don't be naive, though. You will have to learn and memorize many things. The fact of owning neither book nor DVD will not make you knowledgeable, but if you will work it trough, there is a chance you will surprise many people around! Shell scripting as an introduction to Linux, 16 Sep 2005
This is a great book. I found the writing clear and precise and as a general introduction to all things Unix and Linux invaluable. The aim as stated by the authors is to be able to write clear, secure, cross platform scripts for any Unix system. I would also recommend that as a starting point for any new Linux user just getting beyond the X interface into the shell. I wish I had this when I started on Linux.
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Customer Reviews
A UNIX book that's actually clearly written !!!!!, 01 Aug 2008
If you're like me then you've bought a few UNIX books and are none the wiser as you seem to be on the outside looking in at some 6th-form science club. You are, however , 'in IT' and have to get to understand shell-scripting rather than just copy other peoples code. Get this book. It's normal !! It achieves twin aims of covering the subject in depth and being easy to understand. It covers shell scripting very well ( all the curly brackets stuff as well as some very simple , but extremely useful , sed and awk code); it also covers all the usual UNIX stuff - it is entirely self contained. 'UNIX shell commands plus scripting' would be a better , if less snappy , title. I don't usually 'do' reviews - this is , however, a deserved exception. Possibly one of the best introduction to UNIX/LINUX out there., 26 Jun 2007
This book is incredibly well paced and written. The authors manage to write in a very approachable way without missing any of the essential, and without patronising the reader.
The title may mislead some into thinking that this book covers only scripting or isnt suitable for starting to learn the *NIX shells. Nothing could be further from the truth. Taking the reader through the classic tools of unix, the authors then show how to bring those tools together and how to build continually more complex programs.
Also apprecieated are examples throughout the book. These examples, unlike some similar titles, are there in just the right amount. You don't feel swamped by pages and pages of code, neither lost with nothing to demonstrate what is being said. What these examples are, however, is highly relevent, allowing you to learn important principles and start writing your own code.
Overall, even if advanced users might not benefit as much from this book, it is still highly recommended read to anybody interested in using the power of the unix shell, either totally new to command line, or seasoned with more experience. And suprinsingly, This book remains accessible to both. Excellent guide to the POSIX shell, 09 Apr 2007
This is a very good introduction to the POSIX shell, as used on various Unix and Linux operating systems. The book covers the basics of how a shell works, how it can be used to write scripts and the standard Unix tool-kit that can be used to do powerful things quickly and easily.
The book is grounded in POSIX tools so does not take advantage of features present in the very latest Bash, Korn and Z shells, but it does mention that sometimes if you are willing to trade portability you can do things easier and quicker.
The book does not require a deep understanding of the Unix philosophy, but it does help to have used the basic Unix/Linux tools in the past. As well as shell, the book covers the standard tool-kit such as cut, head, tail, grep, sed and a large chunk of awk.
The book is well written and organised, and there are plenty of code snippets and explanations to keep you going. The book does not really cover the interactive use of shell, it really is all about scripting with shell as the title suggests.
If I have one problem with the book it is that there is an almost pathological avoidance of the dynamic languages such as Perl, Python and Ruby. Some of the longer shell examples would have been much better written in a more complete language such as Perl which are better suited to the larger tasks that shell is not designed for.
Combined with a good introductory books such as "Learning the Bash Shell" or "Learning the Korn Shell" you are well on the way to driving a Unix/Linux system without a mouse! nice first UNIX book, 20 Mar 2006
I like easy to read book and I also had assumed that learning UNIX is not necessarily has to be a struggle. This book stood up to my expectations almost perfectly: it is very well written and clearly expressed work. It does not overwhelm with technical details and does not press too much. I also followed an advise in someone review and purchased "UNIX Essentials" DVD that is complete unix course recorded (I found on Amazon.com but since they do not ship outside US I ordered it directly from CustomFlix.com). These two nicely complement one another. You watch it and you read it. If you didn't catch it from the first try you watch it again and read it again. In two months I found myself confident to that extend that gave advises to our system administrator and he accepted them because there were subjects that he wasn't completely sure. What I can say, in three month I passed my first interview and got a job! Sure it is a way to start there much of more advanced reading that will take over you with a time however these two provide you with the BASIS! I can't overstate how much I have learned from them. Don't be naive, though. You will have to learn and memorize many things. The fact of owning neither book nor DVD will not make you knowledgeable, but if you will work it trough, there is a chance you will surprise many people around! Shell scripting as an introduction to Linux, 16 Sep 2005
This is a great book. I found the writing clear and precise and as a general introduction to all things Unix and Linux invaluable. The aim as stated by the authors is to be able to write clear, secure, cross platform scripts for any Unix system. I would also recommend that as a starting point for any new Linux user just getting beyond the X interface into the shell. I wish I had this when I started on Linux.
Magnificent! I'll probably wear this book out!, 04 Jun 2008
This book starts by covering the kernel architecture, placing drivers in their context and discussing the support structures that exist for them, with that start everything else follows naturally, and logically.
This book is bang up to date and addresses every significant class of driver, and many of the idiosyncrasies of the driver models. While old hands will know much of this material already, this is the one stop reference for 90% of the details you'll need for the task in hand, and has excellent pointers for where to find the rest.
This is one of the best "working knowledges" available on paper, and is both a great starting point on the road of experience, as well as a worthy reference for those en-route.
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Customer Reviews
A UNIX book that's actually clearly written !!!!!, 01 Aug 2008
If you're like me then you've bought a few UNIX books and are none the wiser as you seem to be on the outside looking in at some 6th-form science club. You are, however , 'in IT' and have to get to understand shell-scripting rather than just copy other peoples code. Get this book. It's normal !! It achieves twin aims of covering the subject in depth and being easy to understand. It covers shell scripting very well ( all the curly brackets stuff as well as some very simple , but extremely useful , sed and awk code); it also covers all the usual UNIX stuff - it is entirely self contained. 'UNIX shell commands plus scripting' would be a better , if less snappy , title. I don't usually 'do' reviews - this is , however, a deserved exception. Possibly one of the best introduction to UNIX/LINUX out there., 26 Jun 2007
This book is incredibly well paced and written. The authors manage to write in a very approachable way without missing any of the essential, and without patronising the reader.
The title may mislead some into thinking that this book covers only scripting or isnt suitable for starting to learn the *NIX shells. Nothing could be further from the truth. Taking the reader through the classic tools of unix, the authors then show how to bring those tools together and how to build continually more complex programs.
Also apprecieated are examples throughout the book. These examples, unlike some similar titles, are there in just the right amount. You don't feel swamped by pages and pages of code, neither lost with nothing to demonstrate what is being said. What these examples are, however, is highly relevent, allowing you to learn important principles and start writing your own code.
Overall, even if advanced users might not benefit as much from this book, it is still highly recommended read to anybody interested in using the power of the unix shell, either totally new to command line, or seasoned with more experience. And suprinsingly, This book remains accessible to both. Excellent guide to the POSIX shell, 09 Apr 2007
This is a very good introduction to the POSIX shell, as used on various Unix and Linux operating systems. The book covers the basics of how a shell works, how it can be used to write scripts and the standard Unix tool-kit that can be used to do powerful things quickly and easily.
The book is grounded in POSIX tools so does not take advantage of features present in the very latest Bash, Korn and Z shells, but it does mention that sometimes if you are willing to trade portability you can do things easier and quicker.
The book does not require a deep understanding of the Unix philosophy, but it does help to have used the basic Unix/Linux tools in the past. As well as shell, the book covers the standard tool-kit such as cut, head, tail, grep, sed and a large chunk of awk.
The book is well written and organised, and there are plenty of code snippets and explanations to keep you going. The book does not really cover the interactive use of shell, it really is all about scripting with shell as the title suggests.
If I have one problem with the book it is that there is an almost pathological avoidance of the dynamic languages such as Perl, Python and Ruby. Some of the longer shell examples would have been much better written in a more complete language such as Perl which are better suited to the larger tasks that shell is not designed for.
Combined with a good introductory books such as "Learning the Bash Shell" or "Learning the Korn Shell" you are well on the way to driving a Unix/Linux system without a mouse! nice first UNIX book, 20 Mar 2006
I like easy to read book and I also had assumed that learning UNIX is not necessarily has to be a struggle. This book stood up to my expectations almost perfectly: it is very well written and clearly expressed work. It does not overwhelm with technical details and does not press too much. I also followed an advise in someone review and purchased "UNIX Essentials" DVD that is complete unix course recorded (I found on Amazon.com but since they do not ship outside US I ordered it directly from CustomFlix.com). These two nicely complement one another. You watch it and you read it. If you didn't catch it from the first try you watch it again and read it again. In two months I found myself confident to that extend that gave advises to our system administrator and he accepted them because there were subjects that he wasn't completely sure. What I can say, in three month I passed my first interview and got a job! Sure it is a way to start there much of more advanced reading that will take over you with a time however these two provide you with the BASIS! I can't overstate how much I have learned from them. Don't be naive, though. You will have to learn and memorize many things. The fact of owning neither book nor DVD will not make you knowledgeable, but if you will work it trough, there is a chance you will surprise many people around! Shell scripting as an introduction to Linux, 16 Sep 2005
This is a great book. I found the writing clear and precise and as a general introduction to all things Unix and Linux invaluable. The aim as stated by the authors is to be able to write clear, secure, cross platform scripts for any Unix system. I would also recommend that as a starting point for any new Linux user just getting beyond the X interface into the shell. I wish I had this when I started on Linux.
Magnificent! I'll probably wear this book out!, 04 Jun 2008
This book starts by covering the kernel architecture, placing drivers in their context and discussing the support structures that exist for them, with that start everything else follows naturally, and logically.
This book is bang up to date and addresses every significant class of driver, and many of the idiosyncrasies of the driver models. While old hands will know much of this material already, this is the one stop reference for 90% of the details you'll need for the task in hand, and has excellent pointers for where to find the rest.
This is one of the best "working knowledges" available on paper, and is both a great starting point on the road of experience, as well as a worthy reference for those en-route.
Where is AIX, HP/UX, among other majors?, 03 Nov 2006
This book is a fantastic starting point in life. Some how our public schools over look teaching the fundamental skills presented in this book. We learn how to play with toys on simple computers and never really learn what we are doing.
The real strength of this book is in the definitions. We get to see the purpose and flexibility of system calls and functions. Not just use them but understand them. UNIX functions as job control or signals are explained in detail. Let's take just one item "waitpid":
The waitpid function provides three features that aren't provided by the wait function.
You will have to red the book to find out what they are. However there are examples also. Now for people with real systems like AIX all you have to do is ad a "k" to the front of the call and you have the AIX kernel function call "kwaitpid"; voila you now have an understanding that can not be found clearly in a Red Book.
It does help some to have a preunderstanding of the system do you can use the book to fill in the education holes missed when necessary.
The index is worth its weight in gold as you can find functions headers and concepts all in alphabetical order. My favorite is the definitions.
As much as I am a fan of the internet it also pays to carry the information in the form of a book. And all this book has to do is save a couple of hours and it has paid for its self.
Very, very cool! One of the kind!, 02 Mar 2006
This book is a very nice overview of contemporary conceptions of what is operating system would be and it discusses many facets of the issue. It does not overwhelm with technical details and does not press too much. I also followed an advise in someone's review and purchased "UNIX Essentials" DVD that is complete UNIX course recorded. These two nicely complement one another. You watch it and you read it. If you didn't catch it from the first try you watch it again and read it again. In two months I found myself confident to that extend that gave advises to our system administrator and he accepted them because there were subjects that he wasn't completely sure. What I can say, in three month I passed my first interview and got a job! Sure it is a way to start there much of more advanced reading that will take over you with a time however these two provide you with the BASIS!
I can't overstate how much I have learned from them. Don't be naive, though. You will have to learn and memorize many things. The fact of owning neither book nor DVD will not make you knowledgeable, but if you will work it trough, trust me, you will surprise many people around!
Can't wait for this, 30 Jun 2005
The ultimate classic, UPDATED works! Can't wait to get started on this. The only thing with these books though, is that no matter how updated they are, the basics will still remain.. A lot of redundant material, but even still - always worth reiterating. Use it or lose it, people.
excellent and clear book, 04 May 2001
This book not only is excellent, it is brilliant. It is clear and well thought out. It goes into great deal with very clear documentation for all the code, why and how. It also considers important issues like how long things take, and whether there are better ways. It is one of my most referenced books, in fact I had to buy a second copy, the first become so tatty!
Brilliant introduction and reference!, 14 Feb 2001
This book might be one of the best books I ever bought. Its a brilliant mix of tutorial and reference. Anyone who is interested in systems programming on UNIX should own this book. It can be used as tutorial for beginners as well as reference for experts.
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Customer Reviews
A UNIX book that's actually clearly written !!!!!, 01 Aug 2008
If you're like me then you've bought a few UNIX books and are none the wiser as you seem to be on the outside looking in at some 6th-form science club. You are, however , 'in IT' and have to get to understand shell-scripting rather than just copy other peoples code. Get this book. It's normal !! It achieves twin aims of covering the subject in depth and being easy to understand. It covers shell scripting very well ( all the curly brackets stuff as well as some very simple , but extremely useful , sed and awk code); it also covers all the usual UNIX stuff - it is entirely self contained. 'UNIX shell commands plus scripting' would be a better , if less snappy , title. I don't usually 'do' reviews - this is , however, a deserved exception. Possibly one of the best introduction to UNIX/LINUX out there., 26 Jun 2007
This book is incredibly well paced and written. The authors manage to write in a very approachable way without missing any of the essential, and without patronising the reader.
The title may mislead some into thinking that this book covers only scripting or isnt suitable for starting to learn the *NIX shells. Nothing could be further from the truth. Taking the reader through the classic tools of unix, the authors then show how to bring those tools together and how to build continually more complex programs.
Also apprecieated are examples throughout the book. These examples, unlike some similar titles, are there in just the right amount. You don't feel swamped by pages and pages of code, neither lost with nothing to demonstrate what is being said. What these examples are, however, is highly relevent, allowing you to learn important principles and start writing your own code.
Overall, even if advanced users might not benefit as much from this book, it is still highly recommended read to anybody interested in using the power of the unix shell, either totally new to command line, or seasoned with more experience. And suprinsingly, This book remains accessible to both. Excellent guide to the POSIX shell, 09 Apr 2007
This is a very good introduction to the POSIX shell, as used on various Unix and Linux operating systems. The book covers the basics of how a shell works, how it can be used to write scripts and the standard Unix tool-kit that can be used to do powerful things quickly and easily.
The book is grounded in POSIX tools so does not take advantage of features present in the very latest Bash, Korn and Z shells, but it does mention that sometimes if you are willing to trade portability you can do things easier and quicker.
The book does not require a deep understanding of the Unix philosophy, but it does help to have used the basic Unix/Linux tools in the past. As well as shell, the book covers the standard tool-kit such as cut, head, tail, grep, sed and a large chunk of awk.
The book is well written and organised, and there are plenty of code snippets and explanations to keep you going. The book does not really cover the interactive use of shell, it really is all about scripting with shell as the title suggests.
If I have one problem with the book it is that there is an almost pathological avoidance of the dynamic languages such as Perl, Python and Ruby. Some of the longer shell examples would have been much better written in a more complete language such as Perl which are better suited to the larger tasks that shell is not designed for.
Combined with a good introductory books such as "Learning the Bash Shell" or "Learning the Korn Shell" you are well on the way to driving a Unix/Linux system without a mouse! nice first UNIX book, 20 Mar 2006
I like easy to read book and I also had assumed that learning UNIX is not necessarily has to be a struggle. This book stood up to my expectations almost perfectly: it is very well written and clearly expressed work. It does not overwhelm with technical details and does not press too much. I also followed an advise in someone review and purchased "UNIX Essentials" DVD that is complete unix course recorded (I found on Amazon.com but since they do not ship outside US I ordered it directly from CustomFlix.com). These two nicely complement one another. You watch it and you read it. If you didn't catch it from the first try you watch it again and read it again. In two months I found myself confident to that extend that gave advises to our system administrator and he accepted them because there were subjects that he wasn't completely sure. What I can say, in three month I passed my first interview and got a job! Sure it is a way to start there much of more advanced reading that will take over you with a time however these two provide you with the BASIS! I can't overstate how much I have learned from them. Don't be naive, though. You will have to learn and memorize many things. The fact of owning neither book nor DVD will not make you knowledgeable, but if you will work it trough, there is a chance you will surprise many people around! Shell scripting as an introduction to Linux, 16 Sep 2005
This is a great book. I found the writing clear and precise and as a general introduction to all things Unix and Linux invaluable. The aim as stated by the authors is to be able to write clear, secure, cross platform scripts for any Unix system. I would also recommend that as a starting point for any new Linux user just getting beyond the X interface into the shell. I wish I had this when I started on Linux.
Magnificent! I'll probably wear this book out!, 04 Jun 2008
This book starts by covering the kernel architecture, placing drivers in their context and discussing the support structures that exist for them, with that start everything else follows naturally, and logically.
This book is bang up to date and addresses every significant class of driver, and many of the idiosyncrasies of the driver models. While old hands will know much of this material already, this is the one stop reference for 90% of the details you'll need for the task in hand, and has excellent pointers for where to find the rest.
This is one of the best "working knowledges" available on paper, and is both a great starting point on the road of experience, as well as a worthy reference for those en-route.
Where is AIX, HP/UX, among other majors?, 03 Nov 2006
This book is a fantastic starting point in life. Some how our public schools over look teaching the fundamental skills presented in this book. We learn how to play with toys on simple computers and never really learn what we are doing.
The real strength of this book is in the definitions. We get to see the purpose and flexibility of system calls and functions. Not just use them but understand them. UNIX functions as job control or signals are explained in detail. Let's take just one item "waitpid":
The waitpid function provides three features that aren't provided by the wait function.
You will have to red the book to find out what they are. However there are examples also. Now for people with real systems like AIX all you have to do is ad a "k" to the front of the call and you have the AIX kernel function call "kwaitpid"; voila you now have an understanding that can not be found clearly in a Red Book.
It does help some to have a preunderstanding of the system do you can use the book to fill in the education holes missed when necessary.
The index is worth its weight in gold as you can find functions headers and concepts all in alphabetical order. My favorite is the definitions.
As much as I am a fan of the internet it also pays to carry the information in the form of a book. And all this book has to do is save a couple of hours and it has paid for its self.
Very, very cool! One of the kind!, 02 Mar 2006
This book is a very nice overview of contemporary conceptions of what is operating system would be and it discusses many facets of the issue. It does not overwhelm with technical details and does not press too much. I also followed an advise in someone's review and purchased "UNIX Essentials" DVD that is complete UNIX course recorded. These two nicely complement one another. You watch it and you read it. If you didn't catch it from the first try you watch it again and read it again. In two months I found myself confident to that extend that gave advises to our system administrator and he accepted them because there were subjects that he wasn't completely sure. What I can say, in three month I passed my first interview and got a job! Sure it is a way to start there much of more advanced reading that will take over you with a time however these two provide you with the BASIS!
I can't overstate how much I have learned from them. Don't be naive, though. You will have to learn and memorize many things. The fact of owning neither book nor DVD will not make you knowledgeable, but if you will work it trough, trust me, you will surprise many people around!
Can't wait for this, 30 Jun 2005
The ultimate classic, UPDATED works! Can't wait to get started on this. The only thing with these books though, is that no matter how updated they are, the basics will still remain.. A lot of redundant material, but even still - always worth reiterating. Use it or lose it, people.
excellent and clear book, 04 May 2001
This book not only is excellent, it is brilliant. It is clear and well thought out. It goes into great deal with very clear documentation for all the code, why and how. It also considers important issues like how long things take, and whether there are better ways. It is one of my most referenced books, in fact I had to buy a second copy, the first become so tatty!
Brilliant introduction and reference!, 14 Feb 2001
This book might be one of the best books I ever bought. Its a brilliant mix of tutorial and reference. Anyone who is interested in systems programming on UNIX should own this book. It can be used as tutorial for beginners as well as reference for experts.
T Taktakci, 12 Nov 2008
When you talk about programming in Linux environment, you have to think user level and kernel level seperately. This book is a quite nice one explaining the topics in user level programming. I bought this book and read it in about two weeks, in parallel to my other tasks. I must say that it really helped me understand what system programming is. Even if your task is developing kernel level software/driver/module you have to be well versed in user level. I would suggest you read a user level programming book, strongly recommend this one, then study another kernel book which would make things much better for you. When you read the book you feel the writer's overall knowledge and experience on linux environment.
The Linux system call and C API explored in depth., 15 Jan 2008
As a perl programmer recently thrown in to the world of C development on
Linux, I have been looking for something that would take my K&R level of
experience and bring it up to date with modern methods, hopefully
letting me write more efficient and reliable programs.
Robert Love, former "Chief Architect, Linux Desktop" at Novell, kernel
hacker of many years, and Gnome developer of well known features such as Beagle
and NetworkManager, attempts in this book to document the Linux system call
and C API to common systems programming tasks. Given that he developed
the pre-emptive kernel and inotify he has the knowledge.
Getting this book out of the box, I had wrongly been expecting a cookbook
style that I would get instant gratification from. Although structured
around common programming tasks, it doesn't lend itself to just dipping in.
The section on time lists a handful of ways that "time" is available to the
programmer; jump into the middle of the section and you might miss
the most suitable one for the job in hand. The book rewards reading it
in larger chunks.
This doesn't mean it is necessary to read it from cover to cover. Logically
organised into chapters around "things you want to do", such as file access,
memory management and process management it will lead you in with a survey of
techniques you might be familiar with, before drilling down with advanced
methods.
Knowing advanced methods for performance is great, but not at all costs. One
of the most useful and practical lessons this book gives is to encourage you
to think about error conditions that may occur during a system call. Early
on, in the section on reading files, a detailed example is given on reading
from a file. Every possible case of return code from the read call is described
together with what it means and how you should handle it - it can be surprising
that 7 possible outcomes are listed, with good descriptions of what to
do with each of them.
This good practice by example continues throughout the book. Every system call
described also lists the errors that may occur. This does show up a slight
weakness: many system calls share a common set of errors which are repeated
many times in the text. If you are not paying attention it may feel like you
are just flipping through man pages. However you are soon halted by the easy
introduction of an advanced concept to get your teeth into.
These are done in a nicely graded level for each topic. In "file access" to give
an example, you are lead from simple read/write calls, through to what
the C library can provide in buffering, to improved performance using
mmap. The techniques continue with descriptions of I/O schedulers and
how the kernel will order hardware disk access, scatter/gather, and ends up
with how it is possible to order block reads/writes yourself bypassing any
scheduler.
You are hardly aware of the progression, as the pacing is very well done.
New concepts clearly fit into what you have seen so far - current sections
signpost the practical use of what is being explained and at what cost,
allowing clear consideration of the use of advanced features against any
consequences.
For process management discussion starts with fork and exec, before moving
onto user ids and groups, covers daemonification and goes onto process
scheduling, including real time scheduling. Throughout the book each new
call is illustrated with a short code snippet showing the call being used in a
practical situation.
Not everything is present and correct. The author immediately states that
networking is not covered at all. This is a shame as this subject would
benefit from the depth of coverage given to the topics in this book - although
no doubt would increase the number of pages considerably. Perhaps scope for
a second volume. The length of some sections seems odd - Asynchronous file I/O
is whizzed through in a page with no code example, whereas I/O schedulers gets
a luxurious 12.
On the other hand there are some unexpected and useful extras, such as a
discussion in the appendix of gcc C language extensions and how they
might be used to fine tune your code.
The books stated target is for modern Linux development, a 2.6.22 kernel,
gcc 4.2 and glibc 2.5. Many calls have been standardised by POSIX, and where
this is so it are noted in the text, so a large portion of the content is
useful on other systems. There is even the occasional mention of non-Linux
system calls, the use of which is not encouraged, but shown so you know how
they function if you come across them in older code.
I recommend this book to anyone who has a need to developing Linux
applications. The book is not a primer in C on Unix, so you are expected
to be familar at least to the level of K&R. From this level though the
journey into getting the best from the kernel and C library into your
programs is easy going and enjoyable.
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|
|
 |
|
|
Customer Reviews
A UNIX book that's actually clearly written !!!!!, 01 Aug 2008
If you're like me then you've bought a few UNIX books and are none the wiser as you seem to be on the outside looking in at some 6th-form science club. You are, however , 'in IT' and have to get to understand shell-scripting rather than just copy other peoples code. Get this book. It's normal !! It achieves twin aims of covering the subject in depth and being easy to understand. It covers shell scripting very well ( all the curly brackets stuff as well as some very simple , but extremely useful , sed and awk code); it also covers all the usual UNIX stuff - it is entirely self contained. 'UNIX shell commands plus scripting' would be a better , if less snappy , title. I don't usually 'do' reviews - this is , however, a deserved exception. Possibly one of the best introduction to UNIX/LINUX out there., 26 Jun 2007
This book is incredibly well paced and written. The authors manage to write in a very approachable way without missing any of the essential, and without patronising the reader.
The title may mislead some into thinking that this book covers only scripting or isnt suitable for starting to learn the *NIX shells. Nothing could be further from the truth. Taking the reader through the classic tools of unix, the authors then show how to bring those tools together and how to build continually more complex programs.
Also apprecieated are examples throughout the book. These examples, unlike some similar titles, are there in just the right amount. You don't feel swamped by pages and pages of code, neither lost with nothing to demonstrate what is being said. What these examples are, however, is highly relevent, allowing you to learn important principles and start writing your own code.
Overall, even if advanced users might not benefit as much from this book, it is still highly recommended read to anybody interested in using the power of the unix shell, either totally new to command line, or seasoned with more experience. And suprinsingly, This book remains accessible to both. Excellent guide to the POSIX shell, 09 Apr 2007
This is a very good introduction to the POSIX shell, as used on various Unix and Linux operating systems. The book covers the basics of how a shell works, how it can be used to write scripts and the standard Unix tool-kit that can be used to do powerful things quickly and easily.
The book is grounded in POSIX tools so does not take advantage of features present in the very latest Bash, Korn and Z shells, but it does mention that sometimes if you are willing to trade portability you can do things easier and quicker.
The book does not require a deep understanding of the Unix philosophy, but it does help to have used the basic Unix/Linux tools in the past. As well as shell, the book covers the standard tool-kit such as cut, head, tail, grep, sed and a large chunk of awk.
The book is well written and organised, and there are plenty of code snippets and explanations to keep you going. The book does not really cover the interactive use of shell, it really is all about scripting with shell as the title suggests.
If I have one problem with the book it is that there is an almost pathological avoidance of the dynamic languages such as Perl, Python and Ruby. Some of the longer shell examples would have been much better written in a more complete language such as Perl which are better suited to the larger tasks that shell is not designed for.
Combined with a good introductory books such as "Learning the Bash Shell" or "Learning the Korn Shell" you are well on the way to driving a Unix/Linux system without a mouse! nice first UNIX book, 20 Mar 2006
I like easy to read book and I also had assumed that learning UNIX is not necessarily has to be a struggle. This book stood up to my expectations almost perfectly: it is very well written and clearly expressed work. It does not overwhelm with technical details and does not press too much. I also followed an advise in someone review and purchased "UNIX Essentials" DVD that is complete unix course recorded (I found on Amazon.com but since they do not ship outside US I ordered it directly from CustomFlix.com). These two nicely complement one another. You watch it and you read it. If you didn't catch it from the first try you watch it again and read it again. In two months I found myself confident to that extend that gave advises to our system administrator and he accepted them because there were subjects that he wasn't completely sure. What I can say, in three month I passed my first interview and got a job! Sure it is a way to start there much of more advanced reading that will take over you with a time however these two provide you with the BASIS! I can't overstate how much I have learned from them. Don't be naive, though. You will have to learn and memorize many things. The fact of owning neither book nor DVD will not make you knowledgeable, but if you will work it trough, there is a chance you will surprise many people around! Shell scripting as an introduction to Linux, 16 Sep 2005
This is a great book. I found the writing clear and precise and as a general introduction to all things Unix and Linux invaluable. The aim as stated by the authors is to be able to write clear, secure, cross platform scripts for any Unix system. I would also recommend that as a starting point for any new Linux user just getting beyond the X interface into the shell. I wish I had this when I started on Linux.
Magnificent! I'll probably wear this book out!, 04 Jun 2008
This book starts by covering the kernel architecture, placing drivers in their context and discussing the support structures that exist for them, with that start everything else follows naturally, and logically.
This book is bang up to date and addresses every significant class of driver, and many of the idiosyncrasies of the driver models. While old hands will know much of this material already, this is the one stop reference for 90% of the details you'll need for the task in hand, and has excellent pointers for where to find the rest.
This is one of the best "working knowledges" available on paper, and is both a great starting point on the road of experience, as well as a worthy reference for those en-route.
Where is AIX, HP/UX, among other majors?, 03 Nov 2006
This book is a fantastic starting point in life. Some how our public schools over look teaching the fundamental skills presented in this book. We learn how to play with toys on simple computers and never really learn what we are doing.
The real strength of this book is in the definitions. We get to see the purpose and flexibility of system calls and functions. Not just use them but understand them. UNIX functions as job control or signals are explained in detail. Let's take just one item "waitpid":
The waitpid function provides three features that aren't provided by the wait function.
You will have to red the book to find out what they are. However there are examples also. Now for people with real systems like AIX all you have to do is ad a "k" to the front of the call and you have the AIX kernel function call "kwaitpid"; voila you now have an understanding that can not be found clearly in a Red Book.
It does help some to have a preunderstanding of the system do you can use the book to fill in the education holes missed when necessary.
The index is worth its weight in gold as you can find functions headers and concepts all in alphabetical order. My favorite is the definitions.
As much as I am a fan of the internet it also pays to carry the information in the form of a book. And all this book has to do is save a couple of hours and it has paid for its self.
Very, very cool! One of the kind!, 02 Mar 2006
This book is a very nice overview of contemporary conceptions of what is operating system would be and it discusses many facets of the issue. It does not overwhelm with technical details and does not press too much. I also followed an advise in someone's review and purchased "UNIX Essentials" DVD that is complete UNIX course recorded. These two nicely complement one another. You watch it and you read it. If you didn't catch it from the first try you watch it again and read it again. In two months I found myself confident to that extend that gave advises to our system administrator and he accepted them because there were subjects that he wasn't completely sure. What I can say, in three month I passed my first interview and got a job! Sure it is a way to start there much of more advanced reading that will take over you with a time however these two provide you with the BASIS!
I can't overstate how much I have learned from them. Don't be naive, though. You will have to learn and memorize many things. The fact of owning neither book nor DVD will not make you knowledgeable, but if you will work it trough, trust me, you will surprise many people around!
Can't wait for this, 30 Jun 2005
The ultimate classic, UPDATED works! Can't wait to get started on this. The only thing with these books though, is that no matter how updated they are, the basics will still remain.. A lot of redundant material, but even still - always worth reiterating. Use it or lose it, people.
excellent and clear book, 04 May 2001
This book not only is excellent, it is brilliant. It is clear and well thought out. It goes into great deal with very clear documentation for all the code, why and how. It also considers important issues like how long things take, and whether there are better ways. It is one of my most referenced books, in fact I had to buy a second copy, the first become so tatty!
Brilliant introduction and reference!, 14 Feb 2001
This book might be one of the best books I ever bought. Its a brilliant mix of tutorial and reference. Anyone who is interested in systems programming on UNIX should own this book. It can be used as tutorial for beginners as well as reference for experts.
T Taktakci, 12 Nov 2008
When you talk about programming in Linux environment, you have to think user level and kernel level seperately. This book is a quite nice one explaining the topics in user level programming. I bought this book and read it in about two weeks, in parallel to my other tasks. I must say that it really helped me understand what system programming is. Even if your task is developing kernel level software/driver/module you have to be well versed in user level. I would suggest you read a user level programming book, strongly recommend this one, then study another kernel book which would make things much better for you. When you read the book you feel the writer's overall knowledge and experience on linux environment.
The Linux system call and C API explored in depth., 15 Jan 2008
As a perl programmer recently thrown in to the world of C development on
Linux, I have been looking for something that would take my K&R level of
experience and bring it up to date with modern methods, hopefully
letting me write more efficient and reliable programs.
Robert Love, former "Chief Architect, Linux Desktop" at Novell, kernel
hacker of many years, and Gnome developer of well known features such as Beagle
and NetworkManager, attempts in this book to document the Linux system call
and C API to common systems programming tasks. Given that he developed
the pre-emptive kernel and inotify he has the knowledge.
Getting this book out of the box, I had wrongly been expecting a cookbook
style that I would get instant gratification from. Although structured
around common programming tasks, it doesn't lend itself to just dipping in.
The section on time lists a handful of ways that "time" is available to the
programmer; jump into the middle of the section and you might miss
the most suitable one for the job in hand. The book rewards reading it
in larger chunks.
This doesn't mean it is necessary to read it from cover to cover. Logically
organised into chapters around "things you want to do", such as file access,
memory management and process management it will lead you in with a survey of
techniques you might be familiar with, before drilling down with advanced
methods.
Knowing advanced methods for performance is great, but not at all costs. One
of the most useful and practical lessons this book gives is to encourage you
to think about error conditions that may occur during a system call. Early
on, in the section on reading files, a detailed example is given on reading
from a file. Every possible case of return code from the read call is described
together with what it means and how you should handle it - it can be surprising
that 7 possible outcomes are listed, with good descriptions of what to
do with each of them.
This good practice by example continues throughout the book. Every system call
described also lists the errors that may occur. This does show up a slight
weakness: many system calls share a common set of errors which are repeated
many times in the text. If you are not paying attention it may feel like you
are just flipping through man pages. However you are soon halted by the easy
introduction of an advanced concept to get your teeth into.
These are done in a nicely graded level for each topic. In "file access" to give
an example, you are lead from simple read/write calls, through to what
the C library can provide in buffering, to improved performance using
mmap. The techniques continue with descriptions of I/O schedulers and
how the kernel will order hardware disk access, scatter/gather, and ends up
with how it is possible to order block reads/writes yourself bypassing any
scheduler.
You are hardly aware of the progression, as the pacing is very well done.
New concepts clearly fit into what you have seen so far - current sections
signpost the practical use of what is being explained and at what cost,
allowing clear consideration of the use of advanced features against any
consequences.
For process management discussion starts with fork and exec, before moving
onto user ids and groups, covers daemonification and goes onto process
scheduling, including real time scheduling. Throughout the book each new
call is illustrated with a short code snippet showing the call being used in a
practical situation.
Not everything is present and correct. The author immediately states that
networking is not covered at all. This is a shame as this subject would
benefit from the depth of coverage given to the topics in this book - although
no doubt would increase the number of pages considerably. Perhaps scope for
a second volume. The length of some sections seems odd - Asynchronous file I/O
is whizzed through in a page with no code example, whereas I/O schedulers gets
a luxurious 12.
On the other hand there are some unexpected and useful extras, such as a
discussion in the appendix of gcc C language extensions and how they
might be used to fine tune your code.
The books stated target is for modern Linux development, a 2.6.22 kernel,
gcc 4.2 and glibc 2.5. Many calls have been standardised by POSIX, and where
this is so it are noted in the text, so a large portion of the content is
useful on other systems. There is even the occasional mention of non-Linux
system calls, the use of which is not encouraged, but shown so you know how
they function if you come across them in older code.
I recommend this book to anyone who has a need to developing Linux
applications. The book is not a primer in C on Unix, so you are expected
to be familar at least to the level of K&R. From this level though the
journey into getting the best from the kernel and C library into your
programs is easy going and enjoyable.
My best return on investment this year!!!!, 03 Aug 2008
Well before reading this book, i was a competent self taught php web developer who had not done any gui development at all.
The opportunity arose from one of my clients to re-develop there epos / erp system to bring it into the 21 century with a networked gui application which seamlessly connected with there website via web services(they had this old legacy system coded in fortran)
Know i took this challenge not knowing how i was going to do it but was given some ley way on time as i was charging half the amount another software company had quoted.
I knew python for speed of development was the way to go but what toolkit to go with it? i looked at qt and wxpython but decided on the more advanced features in qt.
So i got my commercial license of qt and pyqt as well as a copy of Wing IDE and i was ready to go. I just need a strong tutorial for both qt and python as I've never used them before.
I must admit this book was one of the reasons why i went down this path as a friend already had it and was using it in his own projects, so it was already highly recommend to me, and as soon as i got it i was not disappointed. In my first few hours i already had my first application of a calculator up and running. In a week I'm now working on the application for my client which i have to say is going at a blistering pace. if you really want to make quality applications rapidly fast then you will not go far wrong with this book.
Its clear, concise and comprehensive. If you have done a bit of web programing in any language before then yo will easily transfer those skills to this framework and this book gives you the confidence to do it quickly.
PyQt is for pragmatic programmers who truly want to create great every day applications fast. If you do this for a living then this book really is a manual to "Get Rich Quick" as it shows you just how to achieve that by creating quality application you could sell that companies and individuals need.
The Programming book I've been looking for for years - shame about the exhaustingly long and confusing title!, 22 Feb 2008
This book is a fantastic introduction to computer programming!
OK, let me qualify that statement a little.
I am a hobby computer programmer. I now consider myself to be a relatively competent exponent of the art, but it has been a very painful journey to get to this point. I made so many errors along the way. I have chosen the wrong operating system, the wrong programming languages, spent WAY too much money to produce 3rd rate looking applications . I own heaven knows how many computer books, have installed lots of programming bloatware, but have now found my comfort zone using the tools which are the subject matter of this book. Sadly only now have I found this book!
So here's my take on this. If you want to learn to program, and want to create fantastic, native looking graphical user interfaces, the tools you need are
1. Python
2. A text editor
3. Qt4
4. Sip and PyQt4
5. A computer (be it linux, mac or windoze)
6. This book.
I'm going to assume you have a computer (you're reading this on Amazon, after all..).
So all you need to buy is this book. Everything else is available FREE (welcome to the beautiful world of open-source)
This book is beautifully thought out. It works through the basic Python syntax, then introduces the Qt tools, and explains how to overlay an interface to your code (yep... that's the way to do it... I found out to my detriment that m$ visual studio tends to encourage the opposite approach!)
Buy it.
It really is the only book you need to get started on your programming journey.
Cheers
Neil.
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Customer Reviews
A UNIX book that's actually clearly written !!!!!, 01 Aug 2008
If you're like me then you've bought a few UNIX books and are none the wiser as you seem to be on the outside looking in at some 6th-form science club. You are, however , 'in IT' and have to get to understand shell-scripting rather than just copy other peoples code. Get this book. It's normal !! It achieves twin aims of covering the subject in depth and being easy to understand. It covers shell scripting very well ( all the curly brackets stuff as well as some very simple , but extremely useful , sed and awk code); it also covers all the usual UNIX stuff - it is entirely self contained. 'UNIX shell commands plus scripting' would be a better , if less snappy , title. I don't usually 'do' reviews - this is , however, a deserved exception. Possibly one of the best introduction to UNIX/LINUX out there., 26 Jun 2007
This book is incredibly well paced and written. The authors manage to write in a very approachable way without missing any of the essential, and without patronising the reader.
The title may mislead some into thinking that this book covers only scripting or isnt suitable for starting to learn the *NIX shells. Nothing could be further from the truth. Taking the reader through the classic tools of unix, the authors then show how to bring those tools together and how to build continually more complex programs.
Also apprecieated are examples throughout the book. These examples, unlike some similar titles, are there in just the right amount. You don't feel swamped by pages and pages of code, neither lost with nothing to demonstrate what is being said. What these examples are, however, is highly relevent, allowing you to learn important principles and start writing your own code.
Overall, even if advanced users might not benefit as much from this book, it is still highly recommended read to anybody interested in using the power of the unix shell, either totally new to command line, or seasoned with more experience. And suprinsingly, This book remains accessible to both. Excellent guide to the POSIX shell, 09 Apr 2007
This is a very good introduction to the POSIX shell, as used on various Unix and Linux operating systems. The book covers the basics of how a shell works, how it can be used to write scripts and the standard Unix tool-kit that can be used to do powerful things quickly and easily.
The book is grounded in POSIX tools so does not take advantage of features present in the very latest Bash, Korn and Z shells, but it does mention that sometimes if you are willing to trade portability you can do things easier and quicker.
The book does not require a deep understanding of the Unix philosophy, but it does help to have used the basic Unix/Linux tools in the past. As well as shell, the book covers the standard tool-kit such as cut, head, tail, grep, sed and a large chunk of awk.
The book is well written and organised, and there are plenty of code snippets and explanations to keep you going. The book does not really cover the interactive use of shell, it really is all about scripting with shell as the title suggests.
If I have one problem with the book it is that there is an almost pathological avoidance of the dynamic languages such as Perl, Python and Ruby. Some of the longer shell examples would have been much better written in a more complete language such as Perl which are better suited to the larger tasks that shell is not designed for.
Combined with a good introductory books such as "Learning the Bash Shell" or "Learning the Korn Shell" you are well on the way to driving a Unix/Linux system without a mouse! nice first UNIX book, 20 Mar 2006
I like easy to read book and I also had assumed that learning UNIX is not necessarily has to be a struggle. This book stood up to my expectations almost perfectly: it is very well written and clearly expressed work. It does not overwhelm with technical details and does not press too much. I also followed an advise in someone review and purchased "UNIX Essentials" DVD that is complete unix course recorded (I found on Amazon.com but since they do not ship outside US I ordered it directly from CustomFlix.com). These two nicely complement one another. You watch it and you read it. If you didn't catch it from the first try you watch it again and read it again. In two months I found myself confident to that extend that gave advises to our system administrator and he accepted them because there were subjects that he wasn't completely sure. What I can say, in three month I passed my first interview and got a job! Sure it is a way to start there much of more advanced reading that will take over you with a time however these two provide you with the BASIS! I can't overstate how much I have learned from them. Don't be naive, though. You will have to learn and memorize many things. The fact of owning neither book nor DVD will not make you knowledgeable, but if you will work it trough, there is a chance you will surprise many people around! Shell scripting as an introduction to Linux, 16 Sep 2005
This is a great book. I found the writing clear and precise and as a general introduction to all things Unix and Linux invaluable. The aim as stated by the authors is to be able to write clear, secure, cross platform scripts for any Unix system. I would also recommend that as a starting point for any new Linux user just getting beyond the X interface into the shell. I wish I had this when I started on Linux.
Magnificent! I'll probably wear this book out!, 04 Jun 2008
This book starts by covering the kernel architecture, placing drivers in their context and discussing the support structures that exist for them, with that start everything else follows naturally, and logically.
This book is bang up to date and addresses every significant class of driver, and many of the idiosyncrasies of the driver models. While old hands will know much of this material already, this is the one stop reference for 90% of the details you'll need for the task in hand, and has excellent pointers for where to find the rest.
This is one of the best "working knowledges" available on paper, and is both a great starting point on the road of experience, as well as a worthy reference for those en-route.
Where is AIX, HP/UX, among other majors?, 03 Nov 2006
This book is a fantastic starting point in life. Some how our public schools over look teaching the fundamental skills presented in this book. We learn how to play with toys on simple computers and never really learn what we are doing.
The real strength of this book is in the definitions. We get to see the purpose and flexibility of system calls and functions. Not just use them but understand them. UNIX functions as job control or signals are explained in detail. Let's take just one item "waitpid":
The waitpid function provides three features that aren't provided by the wait function.
You will have to red the book to find out what they are. However there are examples also. Now for people with real systems like AIX all you have to do is ad a "k" to the front of the call and you have the AIX kernel function call "kwaitpid"; voila you now have an understanding that can not be found clearly in a Red Book.
It does help some to have a preunderstanding of the system do you can use the book to fill in the education holes missed when necessary.
The index is worth its weight in gold as you can find functions headers and concepts all in alphabetical order. My favorite is the definitions.
As much as I am a fan of the internet it also pays to carry the information in the form of a book. And all this book has to do is save a couple of hours and it has paid for its self.
Very, very cool! One of the kind!, 02 Mar 2006
This book is a very nice overview of contemporary conceptions of what is operating system would be and it discusses many facets of the issue. It does not overwhelm with technical details and does not press too much. I also followed an advise in someone's review and purchased "UNIX Essentials" DVD that is complete UNIX course recorded. These two nicely complement one another. You watch it and you read it. If you didn't catch it from the first try you watch it again and read it again. In two months I found myself confident to that extend that gave advises to our system administrator and he accepted them because there were subjects that he wasn't completely sure. What I can say, in three month I passed my first interview and got a job! Sure it is a way to start there much of more advanced reading that will take over you with a time however these two provide you with the BASIS!
I can't overstate how much I have learned from them. Don't be naive, though. You will have to learn and memorize many things. The fact of owning neither book nor DVD will not make you knowledgeable, but if you will work it trough, trust me, you will surprise many people around!
Can't wait for this, 30 Jun 2005
The ultimate classic, UPDATED works! Can't wait to get started on this. The only thing with these books though, is that no matter how updated they are, the basics will still remain.. A lot of redundant material, but even still - always worth reiterating. Use it or lose it, people.
excellent and clear book, 04 May 2001
This book not only is excellent, it is brilliant. It is clear and well thought out. It goes into great deal with very clear documentation for all the code, why and how. It also considers important issues like how long things take, and whether there are better ways. It is one of my most referenced books, in fact I had to buy a second copy, the first become so tatty!
Brilliant introduction and reference!, 14 Feb 2001
This book might be one of the best books I ever bought. Its a brilliant mix of tutorial and reference. Anyone who is interested in systems programming on UNIX should own this book. It can be used as tutorial for beginners as well as reference for experts.
T Taktakci, 12 Nov 2008
When you talk about programming in Linux environment, you have to think user level and kernel level seperately. This book is a quite nice one explaining the topics in user level programming. I bought this book and read it in about two weeks, in parallel to my other tasks. I must say that it really helped me understand what system programming is. Even if your task is developing kernel level software/driver/module you have to be well versed in user level. I would suggest you read a user level programming book, strongly recommend this one, then study another kernel book which would make things much better for you. When you read the book you feel the writer's overall knowledge and experience on linux environment.
The Linux system call and C API explored in depth., 15 Jan 2008
As a perl programmer recently thrown in to the world of C development on
Linux, I have been looking for something that would take my K&R level of
experience and bring it up to date with modern methods, hopefully
letting me write more efficient and reliable programs.
Robert Love, former "Chief Architect, Linux Desktop" at Novell, kernel
hacker of many years, and Gnome developer of well known features such as Beagle
and NetworkManager, attempts in this book to document the Linux system call
and C API to common systems programming tasks. Given that he developed
the pre-emptive kernel and inotify he has the knowledge.
Getting this book out of the box, I had wrongly been expecting a cookbook
style that I would get instant gratification from. Although structured
around common programming tasks, it doesn't lend itself to just dipping in.
The section on time lists a handful of ways that "time" is available to the
programmer; jump into the middle of the section and you might miss
the most suitable one for the job in hand. The book rewards reading it
in larger chunks.
This doesn't mean it is necessary to read it from cover to cover. Logically
organised into chapters around "things you want to do", such as file access,
memory management and process management it will lead you in with a survey of
techniques you might be familiar with, before drilling down with advanced
methods.
Knowing advanced methods for performance is great, but not at all costs. One
of the most useful and practical lessons this book gives is to encourage you
to think about error conditions that may occur during a system call. Early
on, in the section on reading files, a detailed example is given on reading
from a file. Every possible case of return code from the read call is described
together with what it means and how you should handle it - it can be surprising
that 7 possible outcomes are listed, with good descriptions of what to
do with each of them.
This good practice by example continues throughout the book. Every system call
described also lists the errors that may occur. This does show up a slight
weakness: many system calls share a common set of errors which are repeated
many times in the text. If you are not paying attention it may feel like you
are just flipping through man pages. However you are soon halted by the easy
introduction of an advanced concept to get your teeth into.
These are done in a nicely graded level for each topic. In "file access" to give
an example, you are lead from simple read/write calls, through to what
the C library can provide in buffering, to improved performance using
mmap. The techniques continue with descriptions of I/O schedulers and
how the kernel will order hardware disk access, scatter/gather, and ends up
with how it is possible to order block reads/writes yourself bypassing any
scheduler.
You are hardly aware of the progression, as the pacing is very well done.
New concepts clearly fit into what you have seen so far - current sections
signpost the practical use of what is being explained and at what cost,
allowing clear consideration of the use of advanced features against any
consequences.
For process management discussion starts with fork and exec, before moving
onto user ids and groups, covers daemonification and goes onto process
scheduling, including real time scheduling. Throughout the book each new
call is illustrated with a short code snippet showing the call being used in a
practical situation.
Not everything is present and correct. The author immediately states that
networking is not covered at all. This is a shame as this subject would
benefit from the depth of coverage given to the topics in this book - although
no doubt would increase the number of pages considerably. Perhaps scope for
a second volume. The length of some sections seems odd - Asynchronous file I/O
is whizzed through in a page with no code example, whereas I/O schedulers gets
a luxurious 12.
On the other hand there are some unexpected and useful extras, such as a
discussion in the appendix of gcc C language extensions and how they
might be used to fine tune your code.
The books stated target is for modern Linux development, a 2.6.22 kernel,
gcc 4.2 and glibc 2.5. Many calls have been standardised by POSIX, and where
this is so it are noted in the text, so a large portion of the content is
useful on other systems. There is even the occasional mention of non-Linux
system calls, the use of which is not encouraged, but shown so you know how
they function if you come across them in older code.
I recommend this book to anyone who has a need to developing Linux
applications. The book is not a primer in C on Unix, so you are expected
to be familar at least to the level of K&R. From this level though the
journey into getting the best from the kernel and C library into your
programs is easy going and enjoyable.
My best return on investment this year!!!!, 03 Aug 2008
Well before reading this book, i was a competent self taught php web developer who had not done any gui development at all.
The opportunity arose from one of my clients to re-develop there epos / erp system to bring it into the 21 century with a networked gui application which seamlessly connected with there website via web services(they had this old legacy system coded in fortran)
Know i took this challenge not knowing how i was going to do it but was given some ley way on time as i was charging half the amount another software company had quoted.
I knew python for speed of development was the way to go but what toolkit to go with it? i looked at qt and wxpython but decided on the more advanced features in qt.
So i got my commercial license of qt and pyqt as well as a copy of Wing IDE and i was ready to go. I just need a strong tutorial for both qt and python as I've never used them before.
I must admit this book was one of the reasons why i went down this path as a friend already had it and was using it in his own projects, so it was already highly recommend to me, and as soon as i got it i was not disappointed. In my first few hours i already had my first application of a calculator up and running. In a week I'm now working on the application for my client which i have to say is going at a blistering pace. if you really want to make quality applications rapidly fast then you will not go far wrong with this book.
Its clear, concise and comprehensive. If you have done a bit of web programing in any language before then yo will easily transfer those skills to this framework and this book gives you the confidence to do it quickly.
PyQt is for pragmatic programmers who truly want to create great every day applications fast. If you do this for a living then this book really is a manual to "Get Rich Quick" as it shows you just how to achieve that by creating quality application you could sell that companies and individuals need.
The Programming book I've been looking for for years - shame about the exhaustingly long and confusing title!, 22 Feb 2008
This book is a fantastic introduction to computer programming!
OK, let me qualify that statement a little.
I am a hobby computer programmer. I now consider myself to be a relatively competent exponent of the art, but it has been a very painful journey to get to this point. I made so many errors along the way. I have chosen the wrong operating system, the wrong programming languages, spent WAY too much money to produce 3rd rate looking applications . I own heaven knows how many computer books, have installed lots of programming bloatware, but have now found my comfort zone using the tools which are the subject matter of this book. Sadly only now have I found this book!
So here's my take on this. If you want to learn to program, and want to create fantastic, native looking graphical user interfaces, the tools you need are
1. Python
2. A text editor
3. Qt4
4. Sip and PyQt4
5. A computer (be it linux, mac or windoze)
6. This book.
I'm going to assume you have a computer (you're reading this on Amazon, after all..).
So all you need to buy is this book. Everything else is available FREE (welcome to the beautiful world of open-source)
This book is beautifully thought out. It works through the basic Python syntax, then introduces the Qt tools, and explains how to overlay an interface to your code (yep... that's the way to do it... I found out to my detriment that m$ visual studio tends to encourage the opposite approach!)
Buy it.
It really is the only book you need to get started on your programming journey.
Cheers
Neil.
Not a complete Linux reference , 06 May 2008
I bought this book so that I could understand general Linux commands and structuring, and it has shown me a good and useful range. But as I say this book can't be used as a Linux reference or admin book, as I believe it is missing certain sections that would be rather useful.
The first problem that arises is how to add a new user on a Linux machine. Well this book tells you nothing on it and just leaves you wondering. I was also interested in the ssl connection configuration specifics so that we use secure connections when talking to remote Linux machine. This too was mentioned, but nothing more.
Luckily I also bought the Osborne Linux Complete Reference 6th Edition, which told me how to do the above commands.
So yes it would seem to be an OK book but think you might need a book like the Osborne one to accompany it, for more of a technical view.
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Customer Reviews
A UNIX book that's actually clearly written !!!!!, 01 Aug 2008
If you're like me then you've bought a few UNIX books and are none the wiser as you seem to be on the outside looking in at some 6th-form science club. You are, however , 'in IT' and have to get to understand shell-scripting rather than just copy other peoples code. Get this book. It's normal !! It achieves twin aims of covering the subject in depth and being easy to understand. It covers shell scripting very well ( all the curly brackets stuff as well as some very simple , but extremely useful , sed and awk code); it also covers all the usual UNIX stuff - it is entirely self contained. 'UNIX shell commands plus scripting' would be a better , if less snappy , title. I don't usually 'do' reviews - this is , however, a deserved exception. Possibly one of the best introduction to UNIX/LINUX out there., 26 Jun 2007
This book is incredibly well paced and written. The authors manage to write in a very approachable way without missing any of the essential, and without patronising the reader.
The title may mislead some into thinking that this book covers only scripting or isnt suitable for starting to learn the *NIX shells. Nothing could be further from the truth. Taking the reader through the classic tools of unix, the authors then show how to bring those tools together and how to build continually more complex programs.
Also apprecieated are examples throughout the book. These examples, unlike some similar titles, are there in just the right amount. You don't feel swamped by pages and pages of code, neither lost with nothing to demonstrate what is being said. What these examples are, however, is highly relevent, allowing you to learn important principles and start writing your own code.
Overall, even if advanced users might not benefit as much from this book, it is still highly recommended read to anybody interested in using the power of the unix shell, either totally new to command line, or seasoned with more experience. And suprinsingly, This book remains accessible to both. Excellent guide to the POSIX shell, 09 Apr 2007
This is a very good introduction to the POSIX shell, as used on various Unix and Linux operating systems. The book covers the basics of how a shell works, how it can be used to write scripts and the standard Unix tool-kit that can be used to do powerful things quickly and easily.
The book is grounded in POSIX tools so does not take advantage of features present in the very latest Bash, Korn and Z shells, but it does mention that sometimes if you are willing to trade portability you can do things easier and quicker.
The book does not require a deep understanding of the Unix philosophy, but it does help to have used the basic Unix/Linux tools in the past. As well as shell, the book covers the standard tool-kit such as cut, head, tail, grep, sed and a large chunk of awk.
The book is well written and organised, and there are plenty of code snippets and explanations to keep you going. The book does not really cover the interactive use of shell, it really is all about scripting with shell as the title suggests.
If I have one problem with the book it is that there is an almost pathological avoidance of the dynamic languages such as Perl, Python and Ruby. Some of the longer shell examples would have been much better written in a more complete language such as Perl which are better suited to the larger tasks that shell is not designed for.
Combined with a good introductory books such as "Learning the Bash Shell" or "Learning the Korn Shell" you are well on the way to driving a Unix/Linux system without a mouse! nice first UNIX book, 20 Mar 2006
I like easy to read book and I also had assumed that learning UNIX is not necessarily has to be a struggle. This book stood up to my expectations almost perfectly: it is very well written and clearly expressed work. It does not overwhelm with technical details and does not press too much. I also followed an advise in someone review and purchased "UNIX Essentials" DVD that is complete unix course recorded (I found on Amazon.com but since they do not ship outside US I ordered it directly from CustomFlix.com). These two nicely complement one another. You watch it and you read it. If you didn't catch it from the first try you watch it again and read it again. In two months I found myself confident to that extend that gave advises to our system administrator and he accepted them because there were subjects that he wasn't completely sure. What I can say, in three month I passed my first interview and got a job! Sure it is a way to start there much of more advanced reading that will take over you with a time however these two provide you with the BASIS! I can't overstate how much I have learned from them. Don't be naive, though. You will have to learn and memorize many things. The fact of owning neither book nor DVD will not make you knowledgeable, but if you will work it trough, there is a chance you will surprise many people around! Shell scripting as an introduction to Linux, 16 Sep 2005
This is a great book. I found the writing clear and precise and as a general introduction to all things Unix and Linux invaluable. The aim as stated by the authors is to be able to write clear, secure, cross platform scripts for any Unix system. I would also recommend that as a starting point for any new Linux user just getting beyond the X interface into the shell. I wish I had this when I started on Linux.
Magnificent! I'll probably wear this book out!, 04 Jun 2008
This book starts by covering the kernel architecture, placing drivers in their context and discussing the support structures that exist for them, with that start everything else follows naturally, and logically.
This book is bang up to date and addresses every significant class of driver, and many of the idiosyncrasies of the driver models. While old hands will know much of this material already, this is the one stop reference for 90% of the details you'll need for the task in hand, and has excellent pointers for where to find the rest.
This is one of the best "working knowledges" available on paper, and is both a great starting point on the road of experience, as well as a worthy reference for those en-route.
Where is AIX, HP/UX, among other majors?, 03 Nov 2006
This book is a fantastic starting point in life. Some how our public schools over look teaching the fundamental skills presented in this book. We learn how to play with toys on simple computers and never really learn what we are doing.
The real strength of this book is in the definitions. We get to see the purpose and flexibility of system calls and functions. Not just use them but understand them. UNIX functions as job control or signals are explained in detail. Let's take just one item "waitpid":
The waitpid function provides three features that aren't provided by the wait function.
You will have to red the book to find out what they are. However there are examples also. Now for people with real systems like AIX all you have to do is ad a "k" to the front of the call and you have the AIX kernel function call "kwaitpid"; voila you now have an understanding that can not be found clearly in a Red Book.
It does help some to have a preunderstanding of the system do you can use the book to fill in the education holes missed when necessary.
The index is worth its weight in gold as you can find functions headers and concepts all in alphabetical order. My favorite is the definitions.
As much as I am a fan of the internet it also pays to carry the information in the form of a book. And all this book has to do is save a couple of hours and it has paid for its self.
Very, very cool! One of the kind!, 02 Mar 2006
This book is a very nice overview of contemporary conceptions of what is operating system would be and it discusses many facets of the issue. It does not overwhelm with technical details and does not press too much. I also followed an advise in someone's review and purchased "UNIX Essentials" DVD that is complete UNIX course recorded. These two nicely complement one another. You watch it and you read it. If you didn't catch it from the first try you watch it again and read it again. In two months I found myself confident to that extend that gave advises to our system administrator and he accepted them because there were subjects that he wasn't completely sure. What I can say, in three month I passed my first interview and got a job! Sure it is a way to start there much of more advanced reading that will take over you with a time however these two provide you with the BASIS!
I can't overstate how much I have learned from them. Don't be naive, though. You will have to learn and memorize many things. The fact of owning neither book nor DVD will not make you knowledgeable, but if you will work it trough, trust me, you will surprise many people around!
Can't wait for this, 30 Jun 2005
The ultimate classic, UPDATED works! Can't wait to get started on this. The only thing with these books though, is that no matter how updated they are, the basics will still remain.. A lot of redundant material, but even still - always worth reiterating. Use it or lose it, people.
excellent and clear book, 04 May 2001
This book not only is excellent, it is brilliant. It is clear and well thought out. It goes into great deal with very clear documentation for all the code, why and how. It also considers important issues like how long things take, and whether there are better ways. It is one of my most referenced books, in fact I had to buy a second copy, the first become so tatty!
Brilliant introduction and reference!, 14 Feb 2001
This book might be one of the best books I ever bought. Its a brilliant mix of tutorial and reference. Anyone who is interested in systems programming on UNIX should own this book. It can be used as tutorial for beginners as well as reference for experts.
T Taktakci, 12 Nov 2008
When you talk about programming in Linux environment, you have to think user level and kernel level seperately. This book is a quite nice one explaining the topics in user level programming. I bought this book and read it in about two weeks, in parallel to my other tasks. I must say that it really helped me understand what system programming is. Even if your task is developing kernel level software/driver/module you have to be well versed in user level. I would suggest you read a user level programming book, strongly recommend this one, then study another kernel book which would make things much better for you. When you read the book you feel the writer's overall knowledge and experience on linux environment.
The Linux system call and C API explored in depth., 15 Jan 2008
As a perl programmer recently thrown in to the world of C development on
Linux, I have been looking for something that would take my K&R level of
experience and bring it up to date with modern methods, hopefully
letting me write more efficient and reliable programs.
Robert Love, former "Chief Architect, Linux Desktop" at Novell, kernel
hacker of many years, and Gnome developer of well known features such as Beagle
and NetworkManager, attempts in this book to document the Linux system call
and C API to common systems programming tasks. Given that he developed
the pre-emptive kernel and inotify he has the knowledge.
Getting this book out of the box, I had wrongly been expecting a cookbook
style that I would get instant gratification from. Although structured
around common programming tasks, it doesn't lend itself to just dipping in.
The section on time lists a handful of ways that "time" is available to the
programmer; jump into the middle of the section and you might miss
the most suitable one for the job in hand. The book rewards reading it
in larger chunks.
This doesn't mean it is necessary to read it from cover to cover. Logically
organised into chapters around "things you want to do", such as file access,
memory management and process management it will lead you in with a survey of
techniques you might be familiar with, before drilling down with advanced
methods.
Knowing advanced methods for performance is great, but not at all costs. One
of the most useful and practical lessons this book gives is to encourage you
to think about error conditions that may occur during a system call. Early
on, in the section on reading files, a detailed example is given on reading
from a file. Every possible case of return code from the read call is described
together with what it means and how you should handle it - it can be surprising
that 7 possible outcomes are listed, with good descriptions of what to
do with each of them.
This good practice by example continues throughout the book. Every system call
described also lists the errors that may occur. This does show up a slight
weakness: many system calls share a common set of errors which are repeated
many times in the text. If you are not paying attention it may feel like you
are just flipping through man pages. However you are soon halted by the easy
introduction of an advanced concept to get your teeth into.
These are done in a nicely graded level for each topic. In "file access" to give
an example, you are lead from simple read/write calls, through to what
the C library can provide in buffering, to improved performance using
mmap. The techniques continue with descriptions of I/O schedulers and
how the kernel will order hardware disk access, scatter/gather, and ends up
with how it is possible to order block reads/writes yourself bypassing any
scheduler.
You are hardly aware of the progression, as the pacing is very well done.
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