Product Description

Renowned for its friendliness, Mac OS(R) X has delighted many a loyal Mac(R) user with its combined ease use and underlying strength. By no means simplistic, its intelligently designed operating system and user interface boast of sophistication and power, while still offering accessibility to even the most inexperienced computer users. But Mac OS X has gone one step further: it's turned unsuspecting Mac users into Unix(R) users, too. Perhaps you're already familiar with Unix, just not on the Mac. Or perhaps you opened your Utilities folder, spotted the Terminal icon and double-clicked on it just to see what it does. Suddenly faced with a command line interface, you may have asked, "What does this mean?" followed by the most pressing question, "Why on earth would I ever want to venture into this seemingly user-unfriendly territory?" The new edition of Learning Unix for Mac OS X Panther answers these questions and more. This compact book provides a user-friendly tour for the uninitiated of the Mac's Unix base. You can safely explore Terminal and familiarize yourself with the command line, learning as you go about the hundreds of Unix programs that come with your Mac. You'll begin to understand the power and flexibility of Unix. And if Unix isn't new to you, you'll discover how it translates into this latest Mac incarnation. Updated to cover Mac OS X Panther (Mac OS X 10.3), this book will keep you current with the latest features of your Mac. Learning Unix for Mac OS X Panther begins with a quick but in-depth introduction to Terminal and the command line interface. All the common commands are 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. You'll learn 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, and much more. Unix continues to thrive as an operating system because of its power, flexibility, and simplicity, and the vast community that supports it. Mac OS X Panther makes it possible for you to run Unix programs side-by-side with native Mac programs on your Mac desktop. Learning Unix for Mac OS X Panther puts the power of these programs at your fingertips.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #827413 in Books
• Published on: 2004-01-09
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 160 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
The stable, adaptable Unix underpinnings of Mac OS X have surely contributed to the operating system's fantastic success in the market. Learning Unix for Mac OS X Panther comes to the aid of the loyal Mac user, recognising that nothing could be further removed from the friendly Mac user interface than the Unix shell environment. There's a steep learning curve to be surmounted by Mac users who want to get the most out of their new System. Step forward Learning Unix for Mac OS X Panther: an introductory Unix and shell-scripting text tailored to the specificities of Mac OS X, suitable for someone who's never worked with Unix before.

Because the capabilities of the Unix shell are vast, the authors devote many pages to showing how key commands (such as ls and chmod) work in the most commonly encounter scenarios. More usefully (because Unix help screens explain the basics pretty well by themselves), they carefully explain numerous recipes that solve the problems everyone encounters--such as the fact that Unix and many Mac applications encode the line breaks in text files differently. The authors' style consistently succeeds in communicating both facts about Unix and a sense of adventure about what you can do with it. This is a real treasure for anyone wanting to get the most out of the latest Mac OS.

Topics covered
How to use the Unix operating system that underlies Mac OS X. Specifically, the authors show how to manage files, edit text with pico and vi, print text and graphics, and connect to the Internet. Special coverage shows how to explore the large assortment of open-source software suited to the Mac. David Wall, Amazon.com

About the Author
Dave Taylor is a popular writer, teacher and speaker of business and technology issues. The founder of The Internet Mall and iTrack.com, he's been involved with UNIX and the Internet since 1980, having created the popular Elm Mail System. He's also been a Mac fan since the year it was released. Once a Research Scientist at HP Laboratories and Senior Reviews Editor of SunWorld magazine, Taylor has contributed software to the official 4.4 release of Berkeley Unix (BSD). His programs are found in all versions of Linux and other popular Unix variants. Brian Jepson has published print and online articles that examine the intersection of Open Source and Windows (particularly .NET). Mac OS X is one such intersection, combining a solid Unix core with the pioneering Apple user interface. Brian's prior experience developing applications in Unix and Linux give him an appreciation of the target audience's point of view. His thorough explorations of NeXTSTEP and Mac OS X--conducted over the last few years--kept him oriented as he developed Mac OS X Panther for Unix Geeks. Brian is also an O'Reilly editor and co-author of Mac OS X for Unix Geeks and Learning Unix for Mac OS X.

Excerpted from Learning Unix for Mac OS X Panther by Dave Taylor, Brian Jepson. Copyright © 2004. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
CHAPTER 5 – Printing

Working in the Macintosh environment, you’re used to a simple and elegant printer interface, particularly in Mac OS X, where the Printer Setup Utility makes it a breeze to add new printers and configure your existing printers. Until the advent of the Common Unix Printing System (CUPS), the Unix environment has never had a printing interface that even comes close in usability. As of Mac OS X 10.3, the Printer Setup Utility and CUPS are combined in a way that brings joy to command-line and GUI lovers alike.

Add a printer with Printer Setup Utility, and you’ll have access to hundreds of different printer models that are supported in Panther. The Linux Printing archive has even more Mac OS X compatible drivers.

Formatting and Print Commands
Before you print a file on a Unix system, you may want to reformat it to adjust the margins, highlight some words, and so on. Most files can also be printed without reformatting, but the raw print out might not look quite as nice. Further, some printers accept only PostScript, which means you’ll need to use a text-to-PostScript filter such as enscript for good results. Before we cover printing itself, let’s look at both pr and enscript to see how they work.

PostScript is a page-description language from Adobe supported by some printer models. PostScript printers were once the norm among Macintosh users and are still popular. If you’re using an inexpensive USB inkjet printer or a low- to mid-range laser printer, chances are good that your printer doesn’t support PostScript. Some of the utilities described in this section require PostScript, others don’t. Refer to your
printer’s documentation (or the manufacturer’s web site) to ascertain whether your printer supports PostScript.

If you don’t have a PostScript printer and are working in Unix, don’t despair: almost all of Unix is text-oriented, so even a basic inkjet printer will be able to print code listings, simple email messages, and manpages without a hiccup.

pr
The pr program does minor formatting of files on the Terminal or for a printer. For example, if you have a long list of names in a file, you can format it onscreen into two or more columns.

The syntax is:

pr option(s) filename(s)

pr changes the format of the file only on the screen or on the printed copy; it doesn’t modify the original file.

Other options allow you to specify the width of columns, set the page length, etc. For a complete list of options, see the manpage, man pr.

Before using pr, here are the contents of a sample file named food:
$ cat food
Sweet Tooth
Bangkok Wok
Mandalay
Afghani Cuisine
Isle of Java
Big Apple Deli
Sushi and Sashimi
Tio Pepe's Peppers
$

Customer Reviews

Badly written book!
I am a long time Mac user old enough to have used UNIX a very small amount many years ago. That makes this book a little easier for me.

The authors have no idea how to teach. They keep putting in minor details which the user doesn't need, and ignore the big picture. They frequently mention things without explanation, saying it will be explained later, or used advanced terms with no explanation at all. For example, they give commands with arguments (i.e. ls -a ) without any explanation of what the arguments (-a) mean.

There are occasional tips about how to link the conventional Finder with the Unix interface which is useful, as a straight Unix book wouldn't do that.