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Solaris 9 For Dummies

Posted by timothy on from the built-in-joke dept.

Spencerian writes with a review combining two things you might not expect in one volume: the "For Dummies" label and Sun Solaris. (Raise your hand if you've never, ever looked through a "For Dummies" book.) Read on for Spencerian's summary of Solaris 9 For Dummies, which he says is a good book for the Solaris newbies, but not for everyone. Solaris 9 For Dummies author Dave Taylor pages 354 publisher Wiley Publishing rating 8 reviewer Kevin Spencer ISBN 0764539698 summary A" ...For Dummies" book like Solaris 9 For Dummies will never make you popular with other geeks. However, if you are a Solaris admin, perhaps giving this book to your users might stop them from asking you the same questions over and over.

I'm pretty intimate with the ...For Dummies book formula. I worked at the company a few years ago. The ownership of the book series has changed a bit, as has its cover art, but the basic setup remains.

Solaris 9 For Dummies is, as with many ...For Dummies books, a starter guide and reference. This isn't a book for administrators, and says so. Solaris 9 For Dummies maintains the book series' reputation as strong general references for users who are thrust (sometimes unwillingly) into new or different technology and need the basics in getting around, fast.

Author Dave Taylor is no stranger to UNIX, having written several notable UNIX beginner, intermediate and advanced references on UNIX in general, including books on Red Hat Linux, Solaris, and Mac OS X. Solaris 9 For Dummies works for SPARC hardware as well as Intel-based hardware. More about Dave Taylor's work can be found at his web site, Intuitive.com.

The ...For Dummies series books are pure references. They aren't meant to be read from cover to cover, which gives the author an advantage by writing topics and chapters without a lot of preamble. The information is just shallow enough to understand but never trivial, giving readers typically only what they require. The typical cross-references and tips are available to guide you along. Chapters delve into topics you expect from discussing a UNIX such as Solaris, such as moving about the new GNOME interface (which will replace the old CDE interface over time), running the basic applications and utilities, and the like. In the traditional format of these books, Solaris 9 For Dummies comes with a tear-out cheat sheet. This cheat sheet gives readers a basic CDE and GNOME interface menu command tree to make it easily to find, say, the Empty Trash command.

The book's topics include details on:

  • File management
  • Making a decent password
  • Shells
  • Text editors
  • Using Writer and StarOffice
  • Internet, Web, and Mail access
  • Essential system administration
The author knows that UNIX isn't UNIX without a certain level of geekspeak, and so provides readers with a well-crafted introduction in the use of command lines and how they can be a Good Thing when using Solaris often for particular tasks. Many UNIX writers (especially developers) wrongly assume that anyone who uses a UNIX knows where and how to find or do what most might consider a routine task. In a ...For Dummies book, this thinking is not allowed, so the author adds enough background for you to get the gist, guides you on the essentials, and provides information that points you to find more complex answers elsewhere.

Solaris 9 For Dummies will not make your whites brighter, increase your personal intimate pleasure, or bring peace to the Middle East, and it's certainly not flashy. It's just a good book for the Solaris newbies, plain and simple. If you hack your kernel just for pleasure (gotta shave your palms regularly, I'm sure), you can be reasonably guaranteed this isn't the book for you. However, if you are an Solaris administrator and get plagued with user questions about basic tasks, maybe you should have your boss buy a few copies of Solaris 9 For Dummies for your users so you can continue your Quake3 fragfest uninterrupted.

You can purchase Solaris 9 For Dummies from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

5 of 328 comments (clear)

  1. First intro book to Solaris by kevin_conaway · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Hmm.. when I first started to learn how to use Solaris, Im sure I would have like a book like this. I could never find (and still probably cannot) find an introductory book to Solaris.

  2. The burning question... by Nick+of+NSTime · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Why? Is there really a need for a Dummies book about Solaris? It's not like you can just walk into CompUSA and pick up Solaris 9. How does Wiley market a book like this?

    We have some Solaris users where I work, but all they do is run their applications. They're not power users, and they don't want to be power users. I guess I'm just having a hard time understanding the intended audience for this book.

  3. Re:Scary sitting on a shelf by sys$manager · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I'm the Unix administrator and I have a "for Dummies" book sitting on my shelf.

    It's there because I wrote it.

  4. My first UNIX(r) experience by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    My first UNIX experience was Solaris 7 (paid only for S&H) on my k6-II (uber-ch33p parts from Egghead.com Auctions), and a decent introductive work called Introducing The UNIX System (ISBN: 0070450013) that i got at a local libary book sale for $1.50.

    Though the book taught me the basics of logging in, how the file directory system had worked (yes, i had only encountered flat filesystems before), basic commands like ls cd cp rm mv and things.... It did nothing in the way of explaining X or any other aspect of the hardware. In fact, i had no idea that UNIX had a GUI until i told the System Configuration Assistant to "install everything".
    I ended up in a configuration for it and was stoked. Unfortunately, my video card wasn't supported, however.

    Though i was excited to actually have a real, live UNIX in front of me, i think that over time the gaps of knowledge that i didn't have about hardware and the somewhat crufty nature of Solaris (along with its pokiness on an x86 machine), essentially got me soured on Solaris and made the jump to (*gasp*) Caldera OpenLinux. (Thankfully i've discovered slackware, freebsd and debian since 1998)

    I had a generic UNIX book, and i had the Solaris Manpages, and i read them both extensively. But starting from total Ground Zero it would have been nice to have a little hand-holding, or maybe something that was Solaris-specific. I just recently discovered Admintool.

    Obviously i still turned out "okay" in the long run, but perhaps someone less tenacious than me would have just given up and bought Windows, or a Mac. Or maybe those people wouldn't have been UNIX people anyways.

    Fwiw, there are a pile of "Solaris for beginners" and "introduction to Solaris" books out, btw.

    -phaeton

  5. rating: 8...problems with 1-10 scales by JimBobJoe · · Score: 2, Interesting

    This is an observation, but I have to wonder what a rating of 8 means (for this book.)

    The reason is, individuals have their own ideas of where their 1-10 scales are centered. There are some people who center truly center the scales at 5, meaning that an 8 is a relatively good score. Some center them much higher, like in the 7 range, meaning that they give high numbers to absolutely everything. For myself, I center my scale relatively lowly...meaning that I never given a 10 for anything, a 9 is damn hard to come by, and a 5 is a relatively good score coming from me (I've described 3 as "ok" which pretty much makes 3 the center of my 1-10 scale.) This of course would imply that the spacing along a scale not on 5 is not geometric...but may be logarithmic.

    It's a random thought off the top of my head...but I guess I'm saying that I dont think that 1-10 scales are really a good way of expressing opinion without knowing how that individual uses that scale.