As someone who has ported half a dozen applications across half a dozen UNIX platforms, I looked forward to reading this book. It contains much useful information for beginning systems administrators and UNIX programmers. Like most O’Reilly books it is well prepared and light in touch, and reeks of experience, not theory. This book is about the dark side of the source.

The first part of the book describes the steps in finding and installing new UNIX software. This is a thorough, complete, and accurate guide to what can happen and what you need to do about it. It starts with why you use other people’s code. It briefly describes the tools used to download and unpack software: ftp, tar, cpio, ar, shar, compressed files, and uuencoded files. It shows how to tell them apart and what to do with them. It describes the various goodies you expect to get: README, INSTALL, Makefile, and so on. It describes how to set up directories of source code; how to configure a package; and how to build, compile, and test it. It finishes with tasks that are important but easily forgotten: installing documentation, and saving and reporting any modifications you make.

The second part attempts to list all the variations between different UNIX flavors. For each discrepancy, it recommends a way to fix it. This takes 260 detailed pages. The book contains much practical wisdom. It does not mention the problems I have suffered, and few of the problems mentioned have happened to me. This discrepancy may be because the systems mentioned on page xv are mainly Intel-based. I work with Sun, Silicon Graphics, IBM AIX, and Data General DG/UX systems. I assume that the book is better for the systems that are listed: SCO Xenix, Interactive UNIX, Consensys, BSD/OS, FreeBSD, SunOS, and IRIX 5.3.

There are five appendices. These compare data types and options for compilers, assemblers, and loaders. The book also has a list of places to get sources.

This book does not tell you how to write portable C programs for UNIX. It is not a textbook. It is a tutorial and reference work for people who, for the first time, need to get a UNIX program and make it run on their systems. The book assumes that they are already familiar with the C programming language and its libraries. It will make sure that they do not get lost in the process. As the book states, though, it cannot describe all the problems that could possibly arise or show how to fix them. Those managing UNIX systems should at least scan the first part of this book and then keep it on their shelves.