If you're one of the many Unix developers drawn to Mac OS X for its BSD core, you'll find yourself in surprisingly unfamiliar territory. Even if you're an experienced Mac user, Mac OS X is unlike earlier Macs, and it's radically different from the Unix you've used before, too. Enter "Mac OS X for Unix Geeks" by Brian Jepson and Ernest E. Rothman, two Unix geeks who found themselves in the same place you are. Their new book is your guide to figuring out the BSD Unix system and Mac-specific components that are making your life difficult and to help ease you into the Unix inside Mac OS X. This concise book includes such topics as:

• A quick overview of the Terminal application

• Understanding Open Directory (LDAP) and NetInfo

• Issues related to using the GNU C Compiler 9GCC

• Library linking and porting Unix software

• An overview of Mac OS X?s filesystem and startup processes

• Creating and installing packages using Fink

• Building the Darwin kernel

• Running X Windows on top of Mac OS X

The book wraps up with a quick manpage-style reference to the "Missing Manual Pages"--commands that come with Mac OS X although there are no manpages. If you find yourself disoriented by the new Mac environment, Mac OS X for Unix Geeks can help you acclimate yourself quickly to the familiar, yet foreign, Unix landscape.

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 6 Ratings

How I learned Mac OS X - 2009-01-10
Reviewer Rating:
I love Mac OS X, but I could not learn how to use it until I bought this book. Of course I bought "The Missing Manual" by David Pogue, but even with that excellent book, I could not learn how OS X accounts and permissions work from the GUI point of view. Then I bought "Mac OS X for Unix Geeks" and I saw clearly how OS X accounts and permissions work from the Unix-like foundation. Now I can open a Terminal window and type "pwd" to see my home directory is in the "/Users" directory. I can go to the root ("cd /") and list the contents ("ls") to see how the rest of the machine is laid out. Now that I see where everything really is (hidden by the GUI), now I can learn how the multiple accounts and permissions work. And now I can use the GUI, too.

My opinion may be in the minority, but I found this book was essential to get me started using my Mac, even to use the GUI that is supposed to be so user-friendly and self-evident.

Very useful! - 2009-04-24
Reviewer Rating:
I am very happy to have found this book. I have been using BSD and Linux based platforms for many years now, and I was a little bit blown away by how much there is to adjust to on OS X. This book provided a fantastic set of hints as to where I should look to discover the OS X way of doing things. Highly recommended!

Exactly what the title announces - 2009-03-28
Reviewer Rating:
As the title say, this is a book to facilitate the transition of Unix
experts (or at least, proficient users) to OS X, and it certainly does.
We recently bought a Mac Pro to be used as a server but it came with the
usual OS X (not the server version) installed. I have worked before in
Linux an other Unices. Since our needs are restricted (serve file systems
via ssh, open remote desktops and serve web pages) the client version of
OS X (which, as Linux, is also server is some capabilities are enabled)
can be used. The book gives tips to make this and many other things,
apart from pointing to the most useful packages of software to be installed in a machine that is to be used for desktop, server and
programming.
Summarizing, an excellent book.

Some good information, some fluff - 2009-01-19
Reviewer Rating:
I am a longtime Unix/Linux user/expert. I also used MacOS before switching to Windows (partly so I could dual boot into Linux) in ~1998. I just switched back to Mac, largely because Macs now have Unix under the hood and let me run (via virtualization) Windows and Linux simultaneously. I wanted a book to help me understand the things that are similar and different between Mac OS X and Linux. This book was generally good, but had some fluff that I wasn't interested in. In general the book had enough technical details to be useful and I could just skip the fluff.

Learn how to compile code, install open source software through Fink and MacPorts, and more - 2009-01-12
Reviewer Rating:
Brian Jepson, Ernest E. Rothman and Rich Rosen's MAC OSX FOR UNIX GEEKS, 4TH EDITION now covers Leopard and offers a fine survey of the 'geekier' side of Mac OS X. This book bridges Apple's Darwin OS and traditional Unix systems, offering insights on how to perform common Unix tasks in Mac OS X's different environment. Learn how to compile code, install open source software through Fink and MacPorts, and more.

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