Product Description

This compact book offers a user-friendly tour of your Mac's Unix base. As you explore Terminal and familiarize yourself with the command line, you'll also learn about the hundreds of Unix programs that come with your Mac and begin to understand the power and flexibility of Unix. Updated to cover Jaguar (Mac OS X, 10.2), this book should keep you current with the latest features of your Mac. The book begins with a quick but in-depth introduction to Terminal and the command line interface. After learning about launching and configuring the Terminal application, you'll find out how to manage, create, edit, and transfer files. You'll find all the common commands simply explained with accompanying examples, exercises, and opportunities for experimentation. There are even problem checklists to help you along the way if you get stuck. It shows how to: customize your shell environment; manage files and directories; successfully print from the Unix command line; edit and create files with the vi editor; perform remote logins; access Internet functions; understand pipes and filters; use background processing; and use Fink, an easy way to install open source Unix software on Mac OS X.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #659496 in Books
• Published on: 2003-01-24
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 158 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Learning Unix for Mac OS X is targeted towards Mac users who have migrated to Mac OS X, have no Unix experience, and want to understand why Unix geeks rave about the command line. The book focuses on the terminal application to access the command line and "introduces the basic system commands". For example, there is a whole chapter on how to navigate and create files.

Well written and easy to follow, the chapters are well structured with clear sub-categories containing useful examples, highlights, exercises and problems you may face. Users new to Unix should read the preface since it explains how Mac OS X is related within the Unix family and explains some Unix concepts such as multiuser and multiprocessing.

Learning Unix for Mac OS X is a great book for those with little or no Unix experience. The book does not go into serious detail regarding the various Unix commands--only a few arguments of each command are discussed. This is not necessarily a bad thing since it keeps the book short and easy to read, however more advanced readers may be disappointed if they are expecting a book that turns them into Unix geeks. Those users are recommend to see other Unix books from O'Reilly such as UNIX Power Tools, UNIX in a Nutshell and Using Csh and Tcsh. --Parvesh Chhibber

Review
"Good introduction to working at the UNIX command line on Mac OS X." Computer Shopper, July (3 stars)

Netsurfer Digest, May 23, 2002
"....It’s a good resource for the advanced beginner who wants to play under the hood."

Customer Reviews

Does what it says
This is an exceptionally useful book that does just what it says: it teaches Apple Macintosh OS X users how to use the Terminal application (which comes as part of the new operating system), and then how to use the version of UNIX that comes with it. It provides one of the best, most readable introductions to UNIX that I've come across, so if you want to learn UNIX from scratch, you might find this book useful even if you don't use a Mac. My only complaints are (a) I'd like the book to be longer - this is a measure of how good it is; (b) I'd have liked more on what you could do with UNIX on your Mac. But still, it's an excellent introduction. I read it like a novel, but now refer to it frequently.

What's This Book For?
I bought this book on a bit of a whim, but after reading most of it came to the conclusion that it didn't help at all. To use UNIX on OS X you need to know 2 things: UNIX and OS X. This books does not teach either to any real depth. There are some great UNIX books out there, and some excellent Mac OS X books too. This book (as cheap as it may be) is caught between a rock and a hard place. Don't bother.

Like many O'Reilly Titles...Ropey
Unfortunately this book is one of the many O'Reilly titles that trail in the wake of a few that excel themselves.

Whilst well written I can't seem to appreciate the point of this book. It claims to be an introduction to the UNIX command line for users who are new to the operating system. However, having worked through it I wouldn't say I really see the point of the command line.

The pages in this book, in my opinion, really belong at the beginning of a more detailed manual to the Terminal application. On their own they can't really justify themselves as a half decent book. Users are better off learning the basics off some of the very decent articles I found published on the web.