Errata for Learning the Unix Operating System

Warning starts with a ^M character

Change "in Glossary" to "in the Glossary"

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."

The text between the first and third clicks should be Text between the two clicks

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.

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..."

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".

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

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

Remove "^M" from the beginning of the paragraph

Remove ">" from beginning of paragraph

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

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.

"wildcards" needs a cross-reference to Chapter 4, the section on Wildcards. (We haven't explained Wildcards before this point.)

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

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

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

change: "use only letters and numbers in the filename" to: "follow the file naming conventions earlier in this chapter."

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

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].

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."

In "This part confuses some pico beginners," the word "Pico" should be capitalized.

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

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

(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?

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."

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..."

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.

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

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

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.

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).

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

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

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

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.

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

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.*"

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").

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

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

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

"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)