Learning the UNIX Operating System, 5th Edition
by Jerry Peek, Grace Todino, and John Strang


This page lists only errors in the most recent printing.

If you have any technical questions or error reports, you can send them to
booktech@oreilly.com.  (Please specify the printing date of your copy.)


This page was last modified on March 4, 2002.


Here's a key to the markup:

        [page-number]: serious technical mistake
        {page-number}: minor technical mistake
        <page-number>: important language/formatting problem
        (page-number): language change or minor formatting problem
        ?page-number?: reader question or request for clarification


CONFIRMED errors and comments: 



(quickref)  page 2 of quickref card;
The command

lynx 'address'

should have straight (not curly/slanted) doublequotes around it, like:

lynx "address"

the singlequotes will actually work, but we show doublequotes in Chapter 6.


(2) Warning in middle of page

Warning starts with a ^M character


(11) footnote
  Change "in Glossary" to "in the Glossary"


(19) Second to last paragraph

Last sentance reads:

You can skip ahead to "the section "Running Programs."

Remove extra quotation mark:

You can skip ahead to the section "Running Programs."


(27) line 17
    The text between the first and third clicks
  should be
    Text between the two clicks

(29)  last line;
The word "boxes" doesn't make sense.  Change the last line to read:

The three buttons at the top right corner have symbols inside them.


(31) Tip section

 after CTRL-D there should be a period, not a semicolon; 
 the new sentence should start afterward.  That is:
 
 "If you have a shell prompt, type exit or press CTRL-D.  If the
 program has a menu..."


(43) fourth line 

change:

"you can make your own files" 

to 

"you can store your own files".  

Also in same line, change:

"you can also store" 

to 

"you can also make".

(43) third paragraph 

two instances of "pico" need to be changed from Courier (constant-width) to boldfaced non-Courier (Roman)


(45) second bullet

in "(a subdirectory of root)", the word "root" should not be italicized


(47) last paragraph

Remove "^M" from the beginning of the paragraph


(49) Listing Files with ls: second paragraph

Remove ">" from beginning of paragraph


(50) 5th Paragraph

In paragraph starting "When you use ls -a", the two "-a" options need a wider dash.


(54) second paragraph of "Looking Inside Files with less"
  Add a sentence to the end of the paragraph (which shouldn't
  change the page break) that says:

      less is called a pager program.

  The word "less" should be boldfaced and "pager program" should
  be in Italics.

  By the way: somehow that sentence seems a bit clumsy to me.
  If you can think of better wording, please go ahead and use it.


{55} Table 3-1 "Useful less Commands"

Command "b" should have the description: "Move backward one page"

Command "v" should have the description: 
"Invoke Editor specified by $VISUAL or $EDITOR, or vi by default"

Command "h" should have the description: "Help"


(56) first bullet, near end of page
"wildcards" needs a cross-reference to Chapter 4, the section on Wildcards.  (We
haven't explained Wildcards before this point.)



{64} line 20
    If this file is a program or a directory, both umask settings also
    give execute (x) permission to all users.
  should be:
    If this file is a directory, both umask settings also
    give execute (x) permission to all users.


{65}  first line;

The sentence

"You can execute any of these programs from the command line, as well."

should be rewritten as:

"You can execute a setup file entry from the command line, as well."

because the setup file entry

LESS='eMq'

is not a program.


(67) Example code: 


columns are jagged. Delete extra space after the "1674"


(68) First Paragraph

Replace "hyphen" with "dash" to be consistent with rest of book


(70)

two places, change "dollar sign" to "currency sign" to be consistent with rest of book


(71) first paragraph in "pico tour" section

change:

"use only letters and numbers in the filename" 

to:

"follow the file naming conventions earlier in this chapter."


(71)item number one

change "the previous example" to "Figure 4-1"


(73) last paragraph.
   The sentence:
	  If you choose CTRL-T, "To Files," you'll go to a
	  file browser where you can look through a list of your files
	  and directories.
   should be made into its own paragraph.  [The way it is now, I get
   the impression that the following discussion of filename completion
   pertains to the browser screen, but it really belongs to the
   ^O (WriteOut) screen.]

   When you make this change (page 73), if you want me to help you
   shorten the other text on the page to delete a line -- so this
   change won't affect page breaks -- just let me know.  For instance,
   shortening the first paragraph in item 6 by one word would save a
   line [by deleting the word "state.)" that's on a line by itself].


(73)  1st paragraph of item 6;

At the end of the first line, the word "pico" should be capitalized and should NOT be boldfaced.  That is, the sentence should read "...good idea to save your work from Pico every few minutes."


(73)  3rd paragraph of item 6;
In "This part confuses some pico beginners," the word "Pico" should be capitalized.


(80)  Problem checklist;

We're generally using the word "dot" to describe the character ".".  So, to be consistent, the word "period" should be changed to "dot".


(82)  table 4-1, left column;

"header" should have straight quotes, not curly quotes, around it.  (These quotes need to be typed literally by the reader.)


(82)  text related to option "-d" in table 4-1;
(Before I describe the error, I want to mention that I'm the book's author.)

This book's Polish translator was confused by the term "double-spaced".  In his translation, he mentioned 
that -d adds space between *lines*, not space between characters.  I wonder if double-spaced is a colloquial 
American English term that needs to be replaced with something everyone (not just typographers and Production 
Editors :) will understand?  Maybe editors at ORA offices overseas can advise you on this?


(84)  Problem checklist, second item "My printout is garbled...", second sentence;

To clarify this sentence, change it to read: "For instance, a file in PostScript format can look fine when you use a PostScript viewer on your terminal but look like gibberish when you try to print it."


(88)  2nd paragraph;

The next-to-last sentence should end with a period, not a comma.  That is, change "...most powerful and flexible Unix features, We'll..." to read "...most powerful and flexible Unix features. We'll..."


{88} and p {89}, both password file examples:

    In the middle of the "root" line of the example, change
	x&k8KP30f;(
    to
	U.XYTe.4By/pM

  because a tradtitional encrypted Unix password can only contain
  letters, digits and the characters asterisk, minus, period, slash.



(89)  2nd paragraph;

In this sentence:

When you add "> filename" to the end of a command line...

I'd suggest deleting the phrase "the end of".  Although people usually write it that way, the redirection operator doesn't have to be last on a command line.


(94)  table 5-1;

Some of the dashes in the left column seem to be too narrow.  Check to be sure that they're all en-dashes.


(95)  3rd paragraph;

In the sentence: "...modify the output of the ls -l command." the dash in "-l" needs to be wider: use an en-dash instead.


(96)  last line;

This book's Polish translator pointed out that the last line isn't consistent with previous lines.  
To be more consistent, it could be changed to read:

Enter pr users | lp (or lpr)

with "lpr" boldfaced, as most of the rest of the line is.
 


[99] footnote
     For rsh and rcp, you can either store your remote password in a
     file named .rhosts in your local home directory, ...

  This is wrong. It is even dangerous because it may fool beginners to
  put a clear-text password into a world-readable file. It should be:

     For rsh and rcp, you can either enter the full network name of your
     local computer in a file named .rhosts in your remote home
     directory, ...


{101}, end of the section "Windows from Other Computers"

  In the first paragraph, delete the phrase:

      , when you use it together with an SSH agent program,

  so that the first paragraph starts like this:

      The ssh program can open remote windows securely...

  In the example at the middle of the page, add an extra line
  underneath the existing line so that the example becomes:

    localmach$ ssh jdnelson@biolab.medu.edu datavis
    jdnelson@biolab.medu.edu's password:

  This change will cause page break problems, I think.  I can see
  two ways to lose a line and avoid page break problems:

  1) On the second line of the first paragraph, change

         fairly easily, and without needing

     to:

         easily, without needing

     and see whether that makes the first paragraph fit onto just
     two lines (instead of three, like it is now).  If you need to
     delete more words, try changing the sentence to end this way:

         easily, without logging into the remote computer first.

  2) If that change (in 1) doesn't do the job, you could edit the
     last paragraph in the section so that it starts like this:

         Figure 6-2 shows the xterm program running on your local
         computer versus when ssh coordinates access to the remote
         datavis program.

     That phrase "versus when ssh coordinates..." seems clumsy to
     me.  Maybe you can think of a better way to word the sentence?



(102)  2nd paragraph;

The two locations "http://www.oreilly.com" and "www.oreilly.com" should have straight quotes, not curly quotes, around them.  That's because the reader types those quotes literally (the reader should NOT try to type two backquotes `` or two singlequotes).


(104)  Figure 6-4;
Follow this link "backward" to the previous page

is incorrect because the left-arrow key doesn't follow a link; it simply goes back to the previous location.

I'd add that the text by the right arrow isn't very precise because a link may point to a *different location* on the *same* page (
not always a *new* page).

So I'm suggesting that the figure be revised in the next printing to have these two new bits of text:

- Change the text by the left arrow to read:

Go "backward" to the previous location

- Change the text by the right arrow to read:

Follow this link "forward" to a new location


{105} line -6

  Change this:
      Another program, ftp, is more flexible and secure than rcp (but
      much less secure than scp).
  to this:
      Another program, ftp, is more flexible than rcp (but
      much less secure than scp).


(115)  3rd item in bulleted list;

Delete the first quote in this sentence: (See "the section "Pine address book," later in this chapter.)


(117)  2nd paragraph;

In the second line of the paragraph, the dash keycap should have a wider dash (an en-dash


120 figure 6-10, caption
      Pine newsgroup collection list screen
  should be
      Pine newsgroup folder list screen


{120-122}  various places;

This book's Polish translator pointed out that the book generally uses "RETURN" as the name of the key instead of using "ENTER".  (
The Preface, p. xi, explains that ENTER basically does the same thing as RETURN, and that we use RETURN in the book.)  But, on page
s 120, 121 and 122, the keycaps show ENTER.  To be consistent, these keycaps should be changed to say RETURN.

I think most readers can figure this out, so I'd like you folks to decide how soon to fix it.


(133)  first text paragraph;

In the seventh line of the paragraph are two small changes.  In the command "ps x", it would be nice to have more space between the "ps" and the "x" so it's clear that they're separate words.  And in the command "ps -u username", the "-" should be a wider en-dash to match other options throughout the book.


{133} Example 7-1
  Change the beginning of the third line of the example from:
      27285 pts/3    0:01 csh
  to:
      27281 pts/3    0:01 csh
  because two processes can't have the same PID number.



(139)  2nd paragraph;

Change "one of the long pipelines the section" to "one of the long pipelines in the section"


{143} "alphanumeric"
  Change the phrase
      including punctuation characters (such as _ and ?)
  to read:
      sometimes including the underscore character (_)


(146)  last paragraph;
An alphanumeric terminal displays alphanumeric characters--and possibly simple graphics (lines, boxes and 
maybe a few special symbols). It can't handle a window system and typically doesn't have a mouse or other 
pointing device; if the cursor can be moved around the screen, it's probably done with arrows or other keys 
on the keyboard. See also alphanumeric.

Please note that the last word should be in Italics.


When you make this change, would you also move the footnote marker (the *) to the previous paragraph?  I think 
it would be better if it were put at the end of the second sentence:

"...and the output is a glass or plastic screen.*"


(149)  middle of left column;

Under "- (hyphen) for command options", two changes: the dash should be wider (an en-dash), and we use the word "dash" in the rest of the book (not "hyphen").


(149)  bottom of left column;

Under "# (hash mark)", change the subentry "using IRC" to "IRC, using" -- to match other similar entries [like the subentry under "ampersand (&)"].


(150)  middle of left column;

In the entry "bracket ([]) as wildcards", should the word be plural (brackets)?


(152)  middle of left column;

There's a bogus "N" category with just one entry.  It should probably be put into the "F" category, and maybe the "n" should be removed.

Also, the entry should have the word "(less)" after it, as other index entries do, because "nf" is a command for the less pager.


153 index "less"
    Page number "S" should probably be "54-55"


154 index "not command"
    Delete this bogus entry


(154) index "pager"
    "pager" has two quite different meanings in the book:
        - pager in a desktop panel to switch desktops
        - a pager program like less, more, pg

    So add a second entry (or make "pager" into two subentries?)
    like this:
	pager programs, 54
    where the indes entry points to the new sentence I added on
    page 54 (earlier in this message)