Arnold Robbins - Unix in a Nutshell

• Covers Solaris 10, the latest version of the SVR4-based operating system from Sun Microsystems,[] GNU/Linux, and Mac OS X.

• , Unix Commands, has been heavily reorganized and revised, in order to cover the three systems.

• ]ksh93, and tcsh.

• , The Bash and Korn Shells, now covers the popular Bash shell, along with the 1988 and 1993 versions of ksh. Coverage of the vanilla Bourne shell has been dropped.

• , tcsh: An Extended C Shell, now covers the widely-used tcsh shell instead of the original Berkeley csh.

• , Package Management, is new. It covers package management programs, which are used for program installation on popular GNU/Linux systems. It also describes similar facilities for Solaris and Mac OS X.

• , The Emacs Editor, now covers GNU Emacs Version 21.

• , The vi, ex, and vim Editors, now contains merged coverage of the vi and ex text editors. Important commands and features from the popular vim editor are also included.

• , The sed Editor, now includes coverage of GNU sed.

• The coverage of awk in , The awk Programming Language, has been updated as well, dropping separate coverage of the original, old awk.

• , Source Code Management: An Overview, which provides an introduction to source code management systems, has been added.

• , The Concurrent Versions System, on CVS, has been added.

• , The Subversion Version Control System, on the Subversion version control system, is brand new.

• , The GNU make Utility, has been revised to focus on GNU Make.

• , The GDB Debugger, on the GDB debugger, is brand new.

[] The version used for this book was for Intel x86-based systems.

[] Because the Free Software Foundation treats Bash and Emacs as proper nouns, we do too, here and throughout the book.

This book should be of interest to Unix users and Unix programmers, as well as to anyone (such as a system administrator) who might offer direct support to users and programmers. The presentation is geared mainly toward people who are already familiar with the Unix system; that is, you know what you want to do, and you even have some idea how to do it. You just need a reminder about the details. For example, if you want to remove the third field from a database, you might think, " I know I can use thecutcommand, but what are the options? " In many cases, specific examples are provided to show how a command is used.

We have purposely chosen to omit system administration commands. System administration is a complicated topic in its own right, and the Bibliography lists several good books on this important subject.

This reference might also help people who are familiar with some aspects of Unix but not with others. Many chapters include an overview of the particular topic. While this isnt meant to be comprehensive, its usually sufficient to get you started in unfamiliar territory.

Finally, if youre new to the Unix operating system, and youre feeling bold, you might appreciate this book as a quick tour of what Unix has to offer. The Beginners Guide section in can point you to the most useful commands, and youll find brief examples of how to use them, but take note: this book should not be used in place of a good beginners tutorial on Unix. (You might try Learning the Unix Operating System for that.) This reference should be a supplement , not a substitute. (There are references throughout the text to other relevant OReilly books that will help you learn the subject matter under discussion; you may be better off detouring to those books first. Also, see the Bibliography.)