Linux Journal August 2012

Sams Teach Yourself Series

by Dave Taylor, Bill Childers (Editor), Kyle Rankin (Editor)

If you're in need of a tutorial to learn UNIX from the ground up, this is it. Sams Teach Yourself UNIX in 24 Hours, Fourth Edition will let you experience UNIX through hands-on tutorials divided into 24 one-hour lessons so that you can learn the most common UNIX tasks at your own pace. The author will guide you through the basics of maintaining and manipulating a UNIX/Linux operating system. This hands-on approach will allow you to work through the exercises and grasp common UNIX/Linux concepts, Using the Command Line Listing Files and Managing Disk Usage Slicing and Dicing Command Pipe Shell Programming Printing in the UNIX Environment Using telnet, ssh, and ftp Perl Programming in UNIX Gain the fundamental knowledge you need to begin working with UNIX with the help of Sams Teach Yourself UNIX in 24 Hours, Fourth Edition.

Genres: Nonfiction, Computers, Computer Science, Technology, Reference

154 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 12, 1991

About the author

Dave Taylor has been involved with the online world since it was the ARPAnet and is recognized globally as an expert on technical and business topics. He has been published over a thousand times, launched four Internet-related startups, written more than twenty business and technical books and has an MBA and MS Ed.

He runs the popular YouTube consumer electronics review channel AskDaveTaylor, is a columnist for the Boulder Daily Camera and appears in other publications both online and in print. Dave teaches undergrad and graduate courses on marketing, public speaking, film, and media & society at the University of Denver, where he's also a recognized Leader in Teaching Excellence.

Based in beautiful Boulder, Colorado, Dave is an award-winning speaker, sought-after conference and workshop participant, and frequent guest on radio and podcast programs, an active member of his community and father to three young adults who are themselves also avid readers.

You can find Dave online at AskDaveTaylor.com and catch up on his latest film, game, and car reviews at PlanetDave.com.

Reviews

[Bernie4444 · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is fair. But there are better for beginners.

Brutus is an honorable man.

I use Sam's books. And this book does what it says. In 24 hrs you can pass a test on what is UNIX.

You get a lot of fundamentals without the reasoning behind the patterns. If you learn the concepts and patterns of UNIX, it is easier than having to learn details.

This book is used in some UNIX classes. Of course, you need pre-UNIX classes for CDE and post-UNIX Sam’s Teach Yourself Unix in 24 Hours classes on X windows and further classes on networks, and so on, and so on.

Or you can get it all at the beginner level with “The Complete Idiot's Guide to Unix”.

[Elwin Kline · Rating 4 out of 5]

I actually really enjoyed reading this book.

I few months ago I took a Linux System Administrator course that was 8 weeks long, full of videos, interactive labs in a Linux environment, projects, etc. This book was not as deep as the college class was, but in all fairness there's really no way it could compete, especially with the lab work.

One big take away from this book for me, is that for this kind of stuff you really have to get hands on training to really learn the material. As much as I enjoyed the refresher training I received from this publication, nothing beats actually being in a *nix environment going through the commands line by line.

Again though, for a supplemental text book to go along with hands on, this book is great and does exactly what I feel its purpose is intended to be.

I would only recommend this book if you have actual *nix experience, I would not use this as first timer introduction type material. And at the same time, holding the expectation that you probably won't learn a whole lot of new stuff, because you have previous experience, but you will sharpen up skills and a lot of memories from your previous training will come back to life which is of course great reinforcement and making you more knowledgeable within *nix environments and improving your skill/ability level.

With all of that established and with that defined expectation, this book deserves a solid 4/5 for content and delivery about Unix basics.

[(unknown) · Rating 1 out of 5]

openbsd is not the best *nix to start with.

[Dr. Barrett Dylan Brown, Phd · Rating 3 out of 5]

yeah i know it looks lame, but it's a required textbook. And so far it's not that bad.

[Kevin Inscoe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent tutorial for the novice to the UNIX operating system. I have taught out of this book several times at work.

[Diego Loayza · Rating 3 out of 5]

Unix we stand!