Thoroughly Disappointed

I have relied on O'Reilly for many UNIX SA topics. System Performance Tuning was a very boring read for me. It seemed to cover too many topics, none in enough depth. I really was eager to learn about the intricacies of the vmstat, iostat, etc. commands. While the book does discuss them, it sprinkles the use of them throughout the book, and relies very heavily on the Solaris variety of them.

I was under the impression that this book would be targeted for seasoned SA's. I was very wrong- there is no need for discussions on how "threads are not processes" or generic definitions of what RAID or a network is; prior knowledge of these should all be assumed in this kind of book.

Not only was the book poorly constructed and not nearly deep enough, but there were also technical mistakes throughout. This really bugs me: once I see a single glaring mistake in a technical book, I begin to second-guess anything that doesn't appear right (even though it may be correct!)

I hope the next version is better done.

Other Reviews

• Thoroughly Disappointed
• Indispensable place to start
• Good when it's right, but be careful...
• A comprehensive, "user friendly" technical sourcebook
• Previous revies refer to an older version