Reference Desk - if they deserve their desk space - should be interesting for some strange reason or other. The appeal of the new smart reference Scott Hawkins, Linux Desk Reference, is that kind of basic Unix commands by task. Hawkins flipping through a book is like browsing a thesaurus. Know-how-return-on-investment of time for browsing the Linux Desk Reference is one of the highest in the library of Linux ... The lines blur between true POSIX-compliant Unix functions, shell capabilities, and individual applications. For users of versions of non-open-source Unix (Solaris, Irix, HPUX, etc.), game-synonym-name is still played, but the fun ended quickly. In the end, the meat Linux Desk Reference is a summary of the grammar-less command-line flag, described by a note, warning, and the occasional sample. The book also contains too many horizontal lines that violate the eyes in moments of nonintuitive. If not, Linux Desk Reference get his patch of pine, right in between the Strunk & White and Roget's.