Need a good introduction to the shell environment and scripting? Learning the bash Shell is a great place to start. Written for the novice, this book offers a straightforward style that starts out slowly and does not overwhelm you. Chapters all include helpful code examples and tables of commands and options. Terms are all carefully defined and explained. The appendices include a handy reference list of commands, including those for vi and emacs.
The first few chapters cover everything from the history of bash to customizing your environment. Beginners will find it helpful that both emacs and vi are covered thoroughly in the chapter on command-line editing, giving them the option to choose the editor with which they feel most comfortable.
Chapter 4 on basic programming really gets you started by explaining scripts, functions, and variables with easy to follow examples. (You can find a PDF of chapter 4 on the O'Reilly website.) Further chapters include looks at flow control, standard I/O and process handling. The chapter on process handling does an excellent job detailing the multitasking capabilities of bash and explaining the importance of job control.
This new edition covers bash 3.0 but if you are running an older version there are footnotes that cover any variations found in previous versions. Don't know what version you have? Not to worry because you will learn how to check your version and install an updated one if you wish.
This book is really intended for those with only a rudimentary knowledge of UNIX/Linux. More advanced users will probably find themselves skimming through large portions of this book. Chapters on debugging, administration and scripting might be interesting but again even these chapters are concerned with only the beginnings of these subjects. These chapters are fairly short and designed to give you a base to explore things further on your own. For the novice, however this book will give you an excellent grounding to go off and try things and the many tables are quick and easy references to send you on your way to exploring bash.
Learning the bash Shell
