Unix for the Impatient - Softcover

"IF YOU ARE THINKING about using UNIX, you must have this book."

The popular handbook --
now with a hypertext version for the Hyper-Impatient

UNIX for the Impatient is is an in-depth, comprehensive guide to UNIX -- a handbook you can use both for learning and as a ready reference. Clear, concise, and readable, the book is written for the technically oriented UNIX user who doesn't want to wade through verbose tutorials but isn't already an expert. Its functional organization makes it easy to find the right tool for any task, and an extensive discussion of underlying UNIX concepts, supplemented by a glossary, enables even a UNIX beginner to penetrate the mysteries of UNIX terminology.

UNIX for the Hyper-Impatient, on the accompanying CD-ROM, complements the printed book by giving you even more powerful ways to retrieve information quickly. The CD-ROM contains the entire text of the book, together with the DynaText hypertext system for navigating through it. The DynaText software will run on a variety of UNIX systems (with Motif)*, as well as on Microsoft Windows and Macintosh. Valuable features include links for retrieving the syntax and options of any UNIX command as well as its full description; a dynamically expandable table of contents; links for tracing cross-references; search operations over either section headings or the entire text using combinations of terms, phrases, nearby words, or wildcards; facilities for the reader to add personal annotations and hyperlinks; and the ability to save or print excerpts of the book. The CD-ROM also includes the Slackware distribution of Linux, a free but thoroughly professional version of UNIX, and the full set of files for the Emacs editor.

This up-to-date and practical work is based on the IEEE POSIX.2 Standard now widely adopted by UNIX vendors and implementors. Important System V, BSD, and GNU variations and enhancements are also presented. Topics include user utilities, shells, the vi editor and other standard editors, the GNU Emacs editor, Internet access tools, the awk language, the X Window System, and system administration from the user's perspective.

Linux version of the DynaText browser not yet available.

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Paul W. Abrahams, Sc.D., CCP, is the author of TeX for the Impatient, a book whose success inspired UNIX for the Impatient. A consulting computer scientist and past president of the Association for Computing Machinery, he specializes in programming languages, design and implementation of software systems, and technical writing. He received his bachelor's degree in mathematics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1956 and his doctorate in mathematics there in 1963, studying artificial intelligence under Marvin Minsky and John McCarthy and writing his dissertation on "Machine Verification of Mathematical Proof". He is one of the designers of the first LISP system and also the designer of the CIMS PL/I system, which he developed while a professor at New York University. He also participated in the design of the Software Engineering Design Language (SEDL), developed at the IBM T.J. Watson Laboratories. Currently he is working on the design of SPLASH, a Systems Programming LAnguage for Software Hackers and on a new book, OS/2 for the Impatient. In 1995 he was honored as a Fellow of the ACM. Paul resides in Deerfield, Massachusetts, where he writes, hacks, hikes, hunts wild mushrooms, and listens to classical music. His Internet address is abrahams@acm.org.

Bruce R. Larson is the founder of Integral Resources, a systems integration and UNIX consulting firm, a co-founder of BRInet (1995), which provides Internet connection and consulting services, and a partner in Internet Exchange Limited (1994), which provides dialup and ISDN connectivity in the Boston area. His specialties are shell tools, systems programming, IP and X.25 networks, performance monitoring, software integration, mail systems, and security. He has worked with Solaris, AIX, HPUX, IRIX, SCO UNIX, and other Intel-based UNIX systems. His experience includes configuring and administering Internet domains and connecting UNIX systems to X.25 networks, as well as designing and implementing custom installation scripts, kernel-level data extraction tools, shell tools, a software message switch, and IP-based utilities. From 1979 to 1981, he did software modeling for the Federal Aviation Authority under a grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation; in 1988 he received his bachelor's degree in pure mathematics from the University of Massachusetts at Boston. A member of UniForum, the IEEE Computer Society, and the American Mathematical Society, Bruce resides in Milton, Massachusetts. His Internet address is blarson@ires.com