Solaris for newbies
 

Hi All -

Can someone point me to a book or a website designed to help solaris newbies? I am competent in OS X, Windows, and a few linux distributions. I am in need of basic howto's and the like. I have been to Sun's website and found it cold and unfriendly. Thank you for your time and help.

Mr. Slappy

HOWTO do what?


You will find that the man pages on solaris are much much more
detailed and professional than their linux counterparts.

Well, you can download the pdfs from Sun. And I can only agree that their site isn't the most attractive. I guess it's a side-effect of being almost exclusively enterprise centered.

I guess I should have been more clear. I am looking for items such as howtoforge.com and a specific book that could help me understand the Solaris ways of doing things. I know that every OS has proper ways to do things and I would like to know what that is. I feel that telling me to use the man command is non productive as I already use it, but I am looking for a more over all picture. I appreciate you trying to help. Where do you go to learn more?

Mahalo,

Mr. Slappy

I'm not sure of a simple way to get an overall picture.

The latest Unix Systems Administration Handbook from Prentice Hall (by Nemeth, Snyder, Seebass & Hein) covers Solaris, HP/UX, Red Hat, and FreeBSD. It covers overall approaches and then will highlight when things differ.

I always have the O'Reilly Unix in a Nutshell sitting at the side of my desk. Been using it for many years, but it is still useful as a quick reference.

And, finally, when you need in depth details and examples, either http://docs.sun.com/app/docs or the systems adminstrators portal http://www.sun.com/bigadmin/home/index.html -- The documentation is really thorough with explanatory chapters and then step by step task oriented chapters, and they are content searchable. The "BigAdmin" portal has a lot of user contributed documents and examples. It may not be the most friendly site around, but I find it easier to navigate than, say, HP or a number of others. If you want to learn and use Solaris, you will have to become familiar with the resources on Sun's web site.

I confess I cheated and got 5 full week hands on courses when I started learning Solaris. That's a huge kick start. But, then, you already have OS X and a couple of linux distributions.

It's a long haul, but just keep reading, doing, and ask questions when you need to.

Thank you choogendyk for your concise and specific recommendations. Really appreciate it and will pick up the latest Unix Systems Administration Handbook.

Mahalo,

Mr. Slappy