But for those who can't navigate Amazon and book reviews. How about a personal tutor who will let you sit in his lap while he teaches you.
Posted on 07/24/2010 1:51:09 PM PDT by BraveMan
My new position has me dealing with several Sun Terminals controlling industrial equipment. I have ZERO experience with this O/S though I did manage thru an fsck command the night before (multiple power outages).
I am looking for FReeper advice: recommended books, forums, classes, etc. Thanks in advance . . .
Get a book on ‘UNIX for Dummies’ or ‘Learn Unix in 24 hours’.
Look for manuals online - SPARC stations and others of that ilk. They are out there.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=solaris+for+dummies&aq=f&aqi=g2&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=
Solaris for Dummies. They have an ebook version on those links. It might be cheap and you can study this weekend.
http://www.ebookchm.com/ebook___free-download-solaris-for-dummies-pdf-rapidshare_.html
$4.49 - looks like you can download to Kindle or read online.
Clingon is easier. LOL
man is your friend. fdisk, fsck, w, top, last, ps ax, ls -las, find, awk, grep, sed.
man man is the first command that you should run. Keep an eye on the log files. tail -f filename in a dedicated window keeps that particular file updated so you can see stuff as it whizzes by.
Good luck, hang in there, and develop a tough skin.
You will need a 2x4 about 2.5 ft long.
Oh, and google BOFH.
/johnny
/johnny
The Solaris operating system can be downloaded for free from Sun. Just choose the correct version for the type of cpu (Intel, AMD, or Sparc) it will be running on. Then start learning.
Lots of good advise already, but if you have a Mac, open a terminal window and you will find a very similar environment. Could be a nice place to play/ learn away from the office.
My first piece of advice is to set up a sandbox system that you can afford to experiment on and screw up - before you screw up your servers. Solaris for X86/X64/Sparc is free and can be downloaded from Sun - err Oracle. If you have a dedicated system you can experiment with - great. If not, look to also download VirtualBox from Oracle. VirtualBox will allow you to run whatever OS you have on your personal PC or laptop now, and install and run Solaris at the same time. With Solaris now installed on your sandbox system, you can make mistakes - even bad enough mistakes to force you to reinstall the whole thing. After a few complete installs, you tend to stop making the really bad mistakes!
One of my favorite beginners books on Unix is an oldie but a goodie. I like this book a lot because it presents things without of lot of wordiness - just sticking to the basic facts that you need. It doesn't do too much, nor too little. Berkeley Unix - here's the URL: http://www.amazon.com/Berkeley-UNIX-Simple-Comprehensive-Guide/dp/047161582X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1280005085&sr=8-1
Learning how to read the man pages is quite important. They are not written to teach you what to do - but rather if you basically understand what a command is for, they explain all of the various options that might be helpful to you, and for some of the more complicated commands - they even at times give decent examples. It takes a while to get to the point where the man pages add value - but once you are there, you get quite a bit a value from them.
There is a big library of Solaris specific books. Some were published by Sun and most are likely out of date now, but still quite helpful. Solaris Advanced System Administrator's Guide is one of the more useful books in the collection. These books are good references for Solaris specific tasks. Be prepared to supplement the Solaris books (especially if dated) with more current information from the man pages. Man pages tend to be up to date.
For general Unix tasks - O’Reilly has a huge library of Unix books. If you want to understand more about using a text editor - try the Vi book from O’Reilly. Writing scripts? Try the Bash and/or CSH O’Reilly books. More advanced text processing? Try SED and AWK. Unix has dozens and dozens of tools designed to do specific types of tasks.
A lot of leaning Unix is understanding what different tools can and can't do and then trying to do things with those tools. Maybe I have 100 files in which I have to replace the last admin’s name with my name. I know how to use Vi - so I could take a couple of hours and edit each and every file. But I sort of understand that SED or AWK can be used for this. Let me spend an hour learning how to use SED or AWK - then actually processing the files with the tool may only take a minute or two. If you are doing a task and are thinking - there must be a better way to do this - rest assured with Unix there is. It's then just a matter of how much time and effort it takes to learn the better way.
Lastly - finding a friend who knows something about Solaris is really helpful. Solaris is a great OS and has some very advanced features you may come to love - like ZFS. For the past couple of decades it's been known to be a rock solid operating system, so much so that you active administration tasks may be less on Solaris then on some other Unix’s.
Have fun and good luck!
Very naive question, IMO you will never really learn a UNIX OS. Look at it as a lifetime adventure where you learn more and more each day. I've been at it for over 25 years, still learning. With UNIX, you have to learn to learn. For instance how do I mount a file system? Google "Unix file system mount". Start reading.
Come on, give the new guy some time before you start yanking his chain.
Might I suggest this YouTube video..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97_NvGbiHMA
Outstanding! I’ll be whistling that tune the next time I’m wrestling with a particular Sparc server.
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