UNIX in a Nutshell
by Arnold Robbins · first published 1999
50% recommend43% neutral7% critical
Why HN recommends it
Compact desktop reference for Unix commands and utilities. It is easy to digest and quick to look things up, and it has helped some readers build early sysadmin careers.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
<p>As an open operating system, Unix can be improved on by anyone and everyone: individuals, companies, universities, and more. As a result, the very nature of Unix has been altered over the years by numerous extensions formulated in an assortment of versions. Today, Unix encompasses everything from Sun's Solaris to Apple's Mac OS X and more varieties of Linux than you can easily name.</p><p>The latest edition of this bestselling reference brings Unix into the 21st century. It's been reworked to keep current with the broader state of Unix in today's world and highlight the strengths of this o
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-Showstopper by G. Pascal Zachary -The Design of Everyday Things by Donald Norman -UNIX in a Nutshell (O'Reilly book written by Arnold Robbins)
on “Ask YC: What would you put on a hacker's bookshelf?” ↗…smaller projects and thus keeping things, including my Makefiles, very simple. For project structures like that, I think your tools and book are overkill, so I'll recommend this reference from Oreilly's UNIX in a nutshell. I found that this is by far the most easily digestible reference for GNU Make I can find that's free. It's fairly to the point and concise as far as reference go, you can read the whole thing and have…
on “Why Use Make” ↗…anymore. I can't remember the book anymore, but this is basically what it was like: https://dspinellis.github.io/unix-v4man/v4man.pdf See if you can find a version newer than 1973, though... O'Reilly's Unix In A Nutshell isn't bad. Read your man pages cover to cover. It's for the same exact reason you learn a bunch of "useless BS" in school: to save you time down the road because you'll know where to go for the solution.
on “How to Learn Unix Tools” ↗…text file comes out pretty well. And when you want to start adding sections/etc, there are only a handful of formatting codes to learn (or copy/paste). I got started from a tiny chapter in O'Reilly's Unix in a Nutshell. You're welcome to steal from my own repo above. (I'm sure the formatting is nowhere close to best practice, but it's good enough for personal use.)
on “Um – Create your own man pages so you can remember how to do stuff” ↗"UNIX in a Nutshell" and "Essential System Administration" helped kick-start my career back in '95-96, and I'll always be grateful for that. I was in their "O'Reilly Irregulars" group a few years ago, where folks volunteered…
on “A+ for O'Reilly Customer Service: Keep the books and donate them” ↗I have "UNIX in a Nutshell" and "Essential System Administration" (the better 1st and 2nd Editions, not the 3rd which was ..eh) to thank for my career.
on “Tim O'Reilly: How I Failed” ↗…Desktop distros try both Ubuntu and Fedora and whichever one you feel more comfortable with will work. If you're more interested in going deep under the hood with a server operating system buy a copy of Unix in a Nutshell and Unix Power Tools (O'Reilly) and get a copy of FreeeBSD or Gentoo.
on “Ask HN: What Linux-distro to learn about Linux?” ↗Well I find the unix in a nutshell book to be an invaluable desktop reference if I have senior moment and need to look something up. http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9780596100292.do And its probaly easier to use
on “Linux Command Examples” ↗…http://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/ - Linux Documentation Project: http://tldp.org/LDP/ - Linux Command Line and Shell Scripting Bible: http://www.amazon.com/Linux-Command-Shell-Scripting-Bible/dp... - UNIX In a Nutshell (I haven't read this in a while but it is on my shelf): http://oreilly.com/catalog/9781565924277 - Learning UNIX (also O'Reilly): http://www.amazon.com/Learning-UNIX-Operating-System-Fifth/d... * Bash:…
on “Must Read CS Books For Self Self-Taught Programmers” ↗…years ago, the TLDP bash programming HOWTOs were more pragmatic and easy to follow (I think that's here: http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Bash-Prog-Intro-HOWTO.html and http://www.tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/ ). I guess UNIX in a Nutshell was good in its day, but is quite old now, even in its 4th edition. DNS & BIND is one I recommend to anyone who ever has to touch anything related to networks, because so many problems I have seen in…
on “Humble Book Bundle: Unix” ↗…learning the 'UNIX' way. If you really want to put up the effort to learn this, and you don't have any projects or anything that requires this knowledge, I've noticed lots of tech offices have a copy of UNIX in a nutshell always have a copy around. I've checked it out myself and it's pretty useful (I already 'know'), not sure how good is it for learning this stuff from the ground up.
on “Devops/Sysadmin Cheatsheet” ↗> Just as with Unix, just as with DOS, the more confounding everything is, the better it is Unix == confounding? I'm sorry but even as a complete n00b and needing to buy "Unix in a Nutshell" in the early 1990's, Unix refreshingly made complete sense compared to DOS+QEMM+win3.1+IRQ's+spend all your time tuning and trying to get things to maybe work. It was like night and day. Yes there…
on “When Interfaces Kill: What Happened to John Denver (1999)” ↗…few items scattered around the desk (the computer is locked down and cannot be taken) Random Books: Pointers on C C Programing Language Unix Power Tools Sed and Awk Classic Shell Scripting Unix in a Nutshell A set of index cards (half size 2.5x3) with lists for next tasks for each project/issue being tracked. A couple of notebooks A coffee mug and a cup of water A green marker for the Whiteboard There…
on “Ask HN: What is on your desk besides your computer (and components), and phone?” ↗…like, well maybe I'll get this book, this book, and that book. But then it was a no-brainer. In fact on the recommendation of a couple of posts here for DNS & Bind, I bought the whole hog. --- $1: Unix in a Nutshell (4th ed.) sed & awk (2nd ed.) lex and yacc (2nd ed.) Learning the bash Shell (3rd ed.) Linux Pocket Guide (3rd ed.) $8: (all of the above, plus) bash Cookbook Classic Shell Scripting…
on “Humble Book Bundle: Unix” ↗Started working in tech in 1996. All desktops, no laptops, no mobile phones. Worked your time, maybe more if needed, then you left the office and didn't take work home. References were books. "UNIX In A Nutshell" and "PERL In A Nutshell" were pretty much on everyone's desks, in addition to the K&R C book and various C++ books. Systems were simpler in that you didn't have multiple frameworks to deal with. My…
on “Ask HN: What was being a software developer like about 30 years ago?” ↗