If you're a developer or system administrator lured to Mac OS X because of its Unix roots, you'll quickly discover that performing Unix tasks on a Mac is different than what you're accustomed to. Mac OS X for Unix Geeks serves as a bridge between Apple's Darwin OS and the more traditional Unix systems. This clear, concise guide gives you a tour of Mac OS X's Unix shell in both Leopard and Tiger, and helps you find the facilities that replace or correspond to standard Unix utilities. You'll learn how to perform common Unix tasks in Mac OS X, such as using Directory Services instead of the standard Unix /etc/passwd and /etc/group, and you'll be able to compile code, link to libraries, and port Unix software using either Leopard and Tiger. This book teaches you to:

• Navigate the Terminal and understand how it differs from an xterm

• Use Open Directory (LDAP) and NetInfo as well as Directory Services

• Compile your code with GCC 4

• Port Unix programs to Mac OS X with Fink

• Use MacPorts to install free/open source software

• Search through metadata with Spotlight's command-line utilities

• Build the Darwin kernel

And there's much more. Mac OS X for Unix Geeks is the ideal survival guide to tame the Unix side of Leopard and Tiger. If you're a Unix geek with an interest in Mac OS X, you'll soon find that this book is invaluable.

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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