5 ms·

Can people who have the relevant knowledge give their input on how good of a starting-point this is?

dredmorbius 12y ago
Not bad as these things go.
zatkin 12y ago
You really should blend your intake from various sources. As someone who has worked with UNIX for a few years, I'll read through this site and probably end up learning something new. That's my experience with UNIX is that it's a constant learning process that goes on for many years.
- pjmlp 12y ago
  > That's my experience with UNIX is that it's a constant learning process that goes on for many years. Well, that is to be expected given the fragmentation in the UNIX world. One never knows how the specific UNIX is going to behave, which command line arguments are available besides the common ones and what sort of POSIX undefined behavior exist.
SpaceInvader 12y ago
It's not bad, but consider it rather an linux guide, not unix.
- StudyAnimal 12y ago
  Did you read it? Their example Unix was OS X.
McUsr 12y ago
It seems like a well written tutorial, not to worded, not to terse, and should be a good introduction, that gives a broad overview of Unix. -And not Unix on OsX, which saddens me, all the time the author has made it on a Mac. C'mon, just a short piece on the open command, please…. :)
tambourine_man 12y ago
Seems ok at a glance. If you want a classic though, check out Unix Power Tools at O'Reilly
- a3n 12y ago
  I have the hard copy and ebook, and it's great. I've been using some type of ∗nix OS since the late eighties, and I will never learn the whole thing. Unix Power Tools is one of the few door-stop sized books that are worth having. A few of the items are somewhat dated, but ∗nix today, at least what's covered in UPT, is mostly what ∗nix has always been. EDIT: changed ascii asterisk in front of all instances of nix to u+2217, the plain asterisk translates to large bodies of italicized text on HN. Which I knew.
- vram22 12y ago
  >If you want a classic though, check out Unix Power Tools at O'Reilly Yes, that's very good. If I was to compare it with my recommendation in this thread, of The UNIX Programming Environment (UPE), I'd say that the Power Tools book is like a cookbook, while the UPE book is like a tutorial (but a power tutorial :)
vram22 12y ago
Haven't read this fully, so not commenting on it (apart from my other comments in this thread), but can recommend this: 1. Get and read The UNIX Programming Environment by Kernighan and Pike. https://www.google.co.in/search?q=the+unix+programming+environment https://www.google.co.in/search?q=the+unix+programming+envir... A classic. Outdated [1] some, for modern Linuxes and BSDs, so: 2. Supplement it by reading Linux / BSD man pages and get a book or two on one of those OSes, or other Unix variant you are using, such as Mac OS X. [1] But you are unlikely to find another book that better conveys the Zen of UNIX, so to speak. The authors were early UNIX users and developers, and Rob Pike (now at Google) is one of the creators of the Go language.
- cogburnd02 12y ago
  "by Kernighan and Pike." [1] http://www.ugu.com/unixcards/Brian_Kernighan.jpg http://www.ugu.com/unixcards/Brian_Kernighan.jpg [2] http://www.ugu.com/unixcards/Rob_Pike.jpg http://www.ugu.com/unixcards/Rob_Pike.jpg
  - vram22 12y ago
    That's cool. I haven't visited UGU (UNIX Guru Universe) for quite a while. Great site it was back then. Will check it again.
mturmon 12y ago
Unix user for 30 years. I took a glance over it, and it seems pretty good, esp. as a starting point. Some people in the thread here are griping about some details (like terminology) but that's not what you care about most when learning. You will evolve your own style of command line usage from what you read and what you are able to remember. Even very skilled people will do things differently.

Not bad as these things go.

You really should blend your intake from various sources. As someone who has worked with UNIX for a few years, I'll read through this site and probably end up learning something new. That's my experience with UNIX is that it's a constant learning process that goes on for many years.

pjmlp 12y ago
> That's my experience with UNIX is that it's a constant learning process that goes on for many years. Well, that is to be expected given the fragmentation in the UNIX world. One never knows how the specific UNIX is going to behave, which command line arguments are available besides the common ones and what sort of POSIX undefined behavior exist.

SpaceInvader 12y ago

It's not bad, but consider it rather an linux guide, not unix.

StudyAnimal 12y ago
Did you read it? Their example Unix was OS X.

McUsr 12y ago

It seems like a well written tutorial, not to worded, not to terse, and should be a good introduction, that gives a broad overview of Unix. -And not Unix on OsX, which saddens me, all the time the author has made it on a Mac. C'mon, just a short piece on the open command, please…. :)

tambourine_man 12y ago

Seems ok at a glance. If you want a classic though, check out Unix Power Tools at O'Reilly

a3n 12y ago
I have the hard copy and ebook, and it's great. I've been using some type of ∗nix OS since the late eighties, and I will never learn the whole thing. Unix Power Tools is one of the few door-stop sized books that are worth having. A few of the items are somewhat dated, but ∗nix today, at least what's covered in UPT, is mostly what ∗nix has always been. EDIT: changed ascii asterisk in front of all instances of nix to u+2217, the plain asterisk translates to large bodies of italicized text on HN. Which I knew.
vram22 12y ago
>If you want a classic though, check out Unix Power Tools at O'Reilly Yes, that's very good. If I was to compare it with my recommendation in this thread, of The UNIX Programming Environment (UPE), I'd say that the Power Tools book is like a cookbook, while the UPE book is like a tutorial (but a power tutorial :)

vram22 12y ago

Haven't read this fully, so not commenting on it (apart from my other comments in this thread), but can recommend this: 1. Get and read The UNIX Programming Environment by Kernighan and Pike. https://www.google.co.in/search?q=the+unix+programming+environment https://www.google.co.in/search?q=the+unix+programming+envir... A classic. Outdated [1] some, for modern Linuxes and BSDs, so: 2. Supplement it by reading Linux / BSD man pages and get a book or two on one of those OSes, or other Unix variant you are using, such as Mac OS X. [1] But you are unlikely to find another book that better conveys the Zen of UNIX, so to speak. The authors were early UNIX users and developers, and Rob Pike (now at Google) is one of the creators of the Go language.

cogburnd02 12y ago
"by Kernighan and Pike." [1] http://www.ugu.com/unixcards/Brian_Kernighan.jpg http://www.ugu.com/unixcards/Brian_Kernighan.jpg [2] http://www.ugu.com/unixcards/Rob_Pike.jpg http://www.ugu.com/unixcards/Rob_Pike.jpg
- vram22 12y ago
  That's cool. I haven't visited UGU (UNIX Guru Universe) for quite a while. Great site it was back then. Will check it again.

mturmon 12y ago

Unix user for 30 years. I took a glance over it, and it seems pretty good, esp. as a starting point. Some people in the thread here are griping about some details (like terminology) but that's not what you care about most when learning. You will evolve your own style of command line usage from what you read and what you are able to remember. Even very skilled people will do things differently.