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Learning UNIX for Mac OS X
For starters, I was annoyed to find that the book's title implied a larger format than the 139 pages it comprises. The book has an audience problem because of its size. UNIX guys like thick books. Is this book mostly for newbies to OS X, to UNIX, or to Mac OS X's implementation of UNIX? Despite this targeting problem, the book's contents are still useful, but I think its audience is more geared to new UNIX users. The book just doesn't have much depth for even a reference title, especially for a topic such as UNIX, and particularly for a new, little-documented UNIX family operating system such as OS X.
While Mac OS X is a BSD variant, it has a few idiosyncrasies that may throw off a veteran UNIX user, and this book manages to address most, if not all of these notable problems. For instance, Dave notes problems in sendmail that prevent it from working from the command line in Mac OS X's Terminal application, and presents a fix for the problem. If you use command lines in UNIX all the time, the book does present good instructions on getting Lynx, IRC, newsgroups, pine, and the like up and running in Terminal. The book shies away (quite appropriately) from any graphic interface items unless required, such as when changing Terminal's preferences.
This book was very recently published (May 2002) but already has fallen behind with the release of Mac OS X 10.2 (Jaguar). Some components of Jaguar, such as CUPS support for stronger printing options, are completely missing from this book. If you have Jaguar installed on your computer, don't dive headlong into the NetInfo Manager steps for LPR printer configuration. Books typically don't age this fast, but in the case of this book, small changes seem to mean a lot to this title's usefulness -- the introduction of CUPS may have made Chapter 5's contents almost irrelevant.
Another small nag involves the lack of information on useful commands for Mac OS X users that weren't available (or were difficult to find) with the old Mac OS 9. One such command, cron, makes my life easier for handling some tasks on my home computer. It's not even mentioned in this book, nor will you find much information on shell scripting or compiling UNIX code you might happen to find. I guess I'm most annoyed at the lack of compile information since the Apple Developer Connection marked this book as a Recommended Title.
Despite our fondness for (and tolerance of the slightly-higher prices of) Macintosh computers, Mac users aren't made of money and don't like to buy a bookstore's worth of tomes for basic information. It would have made a lot of sense to talk more about compiling software since Apple's software or other GUI products don't meet or can configure all UNIX needs. And I won't even talk about the lack of coverage about XDarwin, an application that starts XFree86 within a Mac OS X installation, allowing X Window applications to run atop or in tandem with the OS X interface. XDarwin has become popular enough for it to become part of the stable XFree86 distribution. Given that not every UNIX user is a command-line freak, this is a pretty critical omission in my mind.
So, who should buy this book?
If you are completely new to UNIX and have been a gooey-kiddie who's used almost nothing except Mac OS 9, this is a very good reference to get your toes moist with UNIX. However, as drug dealers say, "the first taste is free." This book will leave you wanting more detailed information. More experienced UNIX users can probably find out what they need about Mac OS X's command line from a few free locations such as Mac OS X Hints.
One last thing: A pox upon Tim O'Reilly for not using the platypus for the animal on the book's cover. Given that the open-source core operating system of Mac OS X is named Darwin and has a nicely-modified take-off on the BSD mascot that depicts both the name of the OS and its BSD origins, I would think that O'Reilly would have jumped on this obvious cover.
You can purchase Learning UNIX for Mac OS X from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
make me wanna drop 3 grand on a new shiny titanium powerbook
I for one usually read O'Reilly books on any given subject because they are smaller, more to the point and less filled with useless graphics (usually screen shots), than most publishers. Granted O'Reilly isn't always that way (how many shots of -borderwidth did "Learning Perl/Tk" need?), but as a rule they are better than most publishers (cough*Oracle Press*cough).
Hexley does seem the obvious choice, but all the Apple-themed O'Reilly books have a dog motif. I guess they thought consistency was better.
Constitutionally Correct
Yeah, you must be a real hardcore techie.
Read dummies books too?
I've been having major problems with OS X Server 10.2 thats driving me insane.
:/
Thinking in a more unix way, I starting trying to hunt down the proccess involved..but all to no avail. I couldnt find any proccesses that seemed to be having problems..and was told by a friend in the know that my issue was more of a mac gui thing...something I know nothing about
A good decent book on OS X Server 10.2 would be really nice at the moment
"Enlightenment is your ego's biggest disappointment." --Yoginanda
One of the thickest books I own is the O'Reilly Unix Power Tools book.
Why should MacOSX Users learn UNIX? The other review of this book I read said that that point wasn't covered.
Moof!
IT seems that this book is of the 'Gotta get something published on this topic NOW'. Hey, see if JimBob can write a 100 pages on topic X!
I'm seen this example with this book and with things like Rob Flickenger's 'community wireless networks'.
It's not at all that they AREN'T good books, or not informative, but they are, indeed, lean and seem to be something just to get published.
After all, we now have OSX: the missing manual (second edition coming soon) and other OSX manuals (which I can't name cause it aint out yet) that are more of the OReilly 'tome' size (400 + pages)
I am not a publisher and I really dont know how the publishing business really works, but as an end user and a buyer of dozens of Oreilly books, this 100 page short book thing seems to be a way to get a book, ANY book, to the market ASAFP while larger tomes are worked on.
$.02
Microsoft owns nowhere near 51% of Apple's shares. The shares they bought in 1996 were a) non-voting and b) maybe a percent, at the very most. Although I believe the shares have been converted to voting shares at this point, but still, incredibly far from being controlling shares. Not to say Microsoft still doesn't hold sway over Apple in some way.
Microsoft doesn't even own 5% of apple. OS X has all the power of Unix and more.
It sounds like the book he really wanted to get was O'Reilly's Mac OS X for Unix Geeks. It includes a lot of his gripe topics like:
* 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
--------- Beware the dragon, for you are crunchy and good with ketchup.
MS owns 51% of Apple?
"+1, Interesting"?
"-10, Pure bollocks" is more like it.
I didn't know Mac users had that kind of attention span!
(ducks...)
People couldn't type. We realized: Death would eventually take care of this.
UNIX guys like thick books
That's a misnomer, My Kernighan & Ritchie C book gets a lot of use and it's only ~280 pages. Large does not espessially mean better.
1. Books don't need batteries.
:)
2. You can make notes in the margings (books have better built-in handwriting recognition).
3. Books are made from sustainable, recycleable materials.
5. Books look nice on your shelves and smell nice
I think you might be mistaken as i have a friend who is high up in the industry who assures me OS X is microsoft
I believe Microsoft has sold their 'Non Voting' shares in Apple.
Microsoft, as a show of faith purchased $150,000,000 worth of Apple shares. In no way does Microsoft own %51 of Apple.
http://www.Slaveway.com
Yes, your friend sounds very high indeed.
I can't believe that this idiotic^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hpost got modded up.
Microsoft has nothing to do with MacOS X, and no, Microsoft does not own 51% of Apple.
Note to moderators: the parent post is a "Troll", not interesting, insightful, or anything positive...
"Send an Instant Karma to me" - Yes
microsoft own 51% of shares in apple since 1996 i think
Was it nice crack?
a grrl & her server
From yahoo finance => Institutional ownership: 59%
as long as Microsoft is not an institution is quite hard that it can own 51% of apple shares
It was August 1997, MSoft ponied up something like $168 million. Apple at that time was a $10 Billion (with a B) company - so that is less than 2%, and as the previous poster mentioned, it was non-voting stock anyway.
Reminds me of some of the truly moronic comments I got at the time. "So what are you gonna do now that Bill Gates has bought Mac?" Sheesh.
> One of the thickest books I own is the O'Reilly Unix Power Tools book.
Do you realize how dumb that sounds?
I'll bite
n ix_specification.html#platform
Nowhere near as powerful? Perhaps-I'm ignorant of the differences. Regardless, the Open Group seems to think OS X is unix. Check out http://www.unix-systems.org/what_is_unix/single_u
Not that this really matters to me, I'd enjoy OS X even if it were labeled as Belly Button Lint.
That's right. Gnu's Not Unix, either. What is Unix? Perhaps it is but a dream..
must... stay... awake...
yes microsoft as microsoft own 51% of shares in apple since 1996 i think
Jesus! What kinda smoke have you been inhaling?
MS bought 150M $ USD worth of NON-voting shares of Apple back in 1996. That's peanuts. Apple was worth net 2.1 billion at that time.
That's nowhere near 51%.
Besides, you're factually wrong to start with. BSD was a set of tools that sat on top of AT&T's Unix. It eventually grew so large it required only a few files to become it's own OS. That was the kernel. They eventually got that.
Mac OS X (or, Darwin, actually) is entirely FreeBSD (some tidbits of NetBSD too), except for the microkernel, which is Mach (no relation to "Mac").
And YES, Darwin/Mac OS X *IS* Unix, as it has licensed the trademark from the Open Group, the rightful owner of the trademark.
What makes a Unix is not the kernel. It's how the package operates and how well is follows the standards (such as but not limited to Posix). The Unix trademark is awarded upon proper registration and evaluation of the OS. There are costst involved, is is pretty much the only thing that keeps Linux being called a real Unix.
This is all explained in Second Timaeus, alas the dialog appears to have been lost...
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
Also, O'Reilly already used a platypus for "Web Database Applications with PHP and MySQL", so no dice there.
However, I just got an idea to somehow play off of the BSD Daemon/Apple connection by using a picture of the story of the devil offering Eve fruit from the tree of knowledge. Also sort of a connection to Darwin via the evolution/creationism debate.
OK, so it's a pretty big stretch ;-)
Karma: Bored. (Thinking about resurrecting the "Anyone else is an imposter" joke.)
The book has an audience problem because of its size. UNIX guys like thick books. Is this book mostly for newbies to OS X, to UNIX, or to Mac OS X's implementation of UNIX? Despite this targeting problem.....
This is crazy!!! There is no "targeting problem" -- the book is written for people who are new to UNIX -- that is the target audience. The book is right on for this crowd. As mentioned by others, there are other books that the UNIX savvy will find useful. -- Why would someone who owns "Unix PowerTools" or "Essential System Administration" even consider bying a book with "Learning Unix" in the title???
Oh, for mod points...
Why not fork?
My farts are plentiful and foul today. Be glad you aren't in my office.
Mmmm, stinky.
trying to convey information visually in an easy to understand format! I'll show them!
I for one usually read O'Reilly books on any given subject because they are smaller, more to the point and less filled with useless graphics (usually screen shots), than most publishers. publishers (cough*Oracle Press*cough).
That means that the trolls have taken at least 33 kharma points away from the value of this discussion. Keep up the good work, trolls!
i suck
maybe he got killed by steven king
Yeah, well. Sounds like they "switched" off their sense of humour!
:p
Can't these people take a joke?
People couldn't type. We realized: Death would eventually take care of this.
Apple gave us a lot of power but has not told us how to use it. In the mean time We are encouraged not to use them until they are documented, but being geeks we cant resist poking and prodding. And assuming that because we know linux or BSD that we know Mac OSX. Then we get MAD when we get into trouble from our uniformed meddling or we discover some bit of uglyness behind the veil that we dont like exactly how apple has implemented it. Whereas before we were bilssfully unaware and untempted. It seems like all the anti-apple slashdot critiques that are at leaset slightly based on experience are along the lines of "well linux doesn't do it that way, so apple is wrong."
When I first got OS X beta, I nievely tried to set /etc/fstab and /etc/exports. Got steamin mad. Then discovered netInfo. (I vaguely knew where to look from NeXTstep) Thought that was truly wonderful and sorely needed unification of unix configuration. Blessed apple. But apple had not issued the manual. No matter, I waded in, did some cool things, and by the end of the day my computer was unbootable from one leeetle mistake. (had to re-install). Cursed Apple for not documenting this. (I had called them on the phone and they warned me not to meddle with it!) But within 6 months the NetInfo manual was indeed out along with some idiot proof gui "training wheel" tools for making changes to certain records.
My experience with OSX has been extremely positive. I make some whopper mistakes, but that was really y fault. mac unix is unix but its not LINUX and HFS+ is NOT UFS. But that does not make it worse. In fact on the whole I think its much better. But if you assume that cp and mv do the same thing they do in linux, well you will eventually get a surprise.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Hey, numbnuts! Do ya reckon the rapid moderation might be because you really are off topic? Just maybe? No?
Well, what the hell does early moderation have to do with:
Apple,
OSX,
Darwin,
thick books,
big ticket hardware,
attempting to make newbie guides relevant to Unix gurus,
deluding long-time Mac freaks into believing that they are using a real operating system,
or Disney rip-off cartoon platypii(*)?
???,
profit!!! (oops, Freudian typo - sorry folks!)
(*) Does anyone else see the Huey/Dewey/Louie -> Hexley similarity?
Ahh - My eye!
The doctor said I'm not supposed to get Slashdot in it!
Oh come on, why didn't you blow that mod point on modding the grandparent up instead of parent down? What a waste.
Why not fork?
Clearly not!
I guess the run-of-the-mill slashbots modded you up then the humor-impared elitist apple mac nazi assholes modded you down.
C'est la guerre!
__
Overcaffeinated. Angry geeks.
I've been reading the 622 page admin guide. My first impression was "622 pages!!!! that is not why I bought an apple." After reading it two things are clear. First they are very gentle so even a unix weaking can understand both the big picture and the little picture. Second, it is not a unix manual,instead it focuses on using gui tools and a fixed, thought rather broad, set of tasks (e.g.setting up LDAP, mounting a disk). It still does not teach unix. A book teaching command line unix that specialized in mac's has stillnot been written (Yes I am aware of the various attempts). My third impression is that it needs a second edition. There are a lot of incompletely explained concepts that only an experienced NeXSTstep user would understand or descriptions that dont quite match the actual gui-tools. But it's wonderful to have a reference now.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Don't bo-guard that joint
I thought it was interesting.
http://freshmeat.net/articles/view/557/
Here is a MacOS X UNIX tutorial I just found yesterday. If you're an old time Mac user or just want to learn some UNIX commands then this is something you might want to check out...
http://www.osxfaq.com/Tutorials/LearningCenter/
--- Brad (http://www.LinuxReview.net)
It's "bogart." As in Humphrey.
skwirl42 wrote:
;)
> Microsoft owns nowhere near 51% of Apple's shares.
> The shares they bought in 1996 were a) non-voting
> and b) maybe a percent, at the very most. Although
> I believe the shares have been converted to voting
> shares at this point, but still, incredibly far
> from being controlling shares.
The shares were dumped on the market back in Fall of 2000, which together with a big loss reported that quarter seriously tanked Apple's stock. While the rest of the industry crowed about Apple's eminent demise, the earnings warnings started rolling in.
The next quarter, Apple had returned to the black. The computer industry was a shattered landscape, where only a single tree still stood proud. It was Apple's turn to laugh.
> Not to say Microsoft still doesn't hold sway
> over Apple in some way.
Sorry, the agreement expired in August. Microsoft is just a third party developer and a competitor now. While pundits talk of patching up the marriage, Apple has gone to war!
Even if Apple should loose Office, Microsoft themselves will give Apple its biggest selling point. When Palladium comes, users will flee to the Apple that has pledged to fight for their fair use rights.
Windows: "Go talk to my friend, an 800 pound monopoly-abusing gorilla!"
Mac: "And here's my good buddy, the 66,000 ton Godzilla!"
Godzilla: Stomp!
G Countdown: 26 days (www.godzillaoncube.com)
I think a Saudi Prince is the biggest investor in Apple. I saw an article on him. He is seen as one of the savviest investors in the world. He was against the selling of US stocks, and urged other Saudi not to sell.
GIMP runs well in OSX.
Hey you spelled girl wrong! ;-)
If you want a really, seriously, thick book on OS X (probably a bit dated post-Jaguar), try "OS X Unleashed". It covers both the Mac and Unix sides. The X Window System is covered, as is setting up a mail or ftp server, programming in Perl, using MySQL, even installing Lynx (if you want a text based browser).
;)
It makes a great reference book, and comes in real handy whenever you need a heavy, if slightly soft, weight around the house.
"Godzilla's coming"
Io, "Godzilla 2000" (US version dialog)
G Countdown: 26 days (www.godzillaoncube.com)
Why is it that we get ?'s on the main page, but when you read the article, stuff displays properly on that page? Please either reject people who insist on submitting with this crap, or fix it consistently throughout slashdot.
Not that I disagree with the jist of what you're saying, but fink does not a unix make.
Cygwin sits on top of windows and provides most of what fink does (minus the snazzy apt-get functionality) but no one would argue windows is unix.
Mac OS X is a unix IMHO, but fink is not the reason.
You say
I have been looking through the admin guide and I realized one big thing: dead tree docs are so much better than electronic docs! I am seriously thinking about printing the whole damn guide and binding it. The only thing holding me back is just what you said, the guide is way too general.
I want a very in-depth guide, or set of guides, similar to the old Inside Macintosh series, but for MacOS X Server admin. So what if it covers Unix topics, or GUI topics? Cover it all and break it down into modules that you can buy and read as you want. Have an intro book for general topics, have a book on mail, a book on web serving, a book on firewalls and NAT, etc. I'm sure Netinfo and LDAP will take a book just by themselves.
The point is that these introductory Mac books just don't cut it any more. They are all pretty much clones of each other and they tell you simple stuff like how to set up your web browser. That's great for the home user, but it does nothing for the professional system administrator looking to use Macs.
Sapere aude!
but no one would argue windows is unix.
Although it is nominally POSIX compliant. Which I usually take as an example of how weak the POSIX standards really are, rather than any endorsement of windows.
No, but Bruce Paltrow (Gwynneth's dad) DID die...
I hate Grammar Nazi's
It should have said:
Linux guys like thick cocks
And YES, Darwin/Mac OS X *IS* Unix, as it has licensed the trademark from the Open Group, the rightful owner of the trademark.
Excuse me???
Mac OS X is not certified Unix by the Open Group. See their list of certified Unices. Notice the distinct lack of Mac OS X (and GNU Linux for that matter) in their lists.
--AC
I'm just glad I got this for free -- somebody bought it for me off the Amazon.com wish list for fuckMicrosoft.com (plug, plug).
I, too, was amazed at how THIN it was. Aside from having a hard copy of the directions for tweaking Sendmail so it works locally, I don't expect to get much use out of this book.
If you want to do some serious, under-the-GUI hacking, get "Mac OS X Unleashed." Seriously ass-kicking, as most of the Unleashed series tends to be. (Had to pay for that one . . . )
--- Why yes, I am the webmaster of Microsuck.com
But GNU is Not UNIX, is it?
The FreeBSD handbook, available for free on the web, contains more useful Unix information pertaining to OS X than this book.
Rien n'est plus beau que le creux du 0.
Either is IRIX or FreeBSD. What's your point?
Many Unices include GNU tools.
Thanks for your concern.
It's the book I currently recommend to people from a UNIX background who are interested in OS X. Yes, it's a bit dated right now as of the Jaguar release, but it's decent even now, and the highly-likely updated version for Jaguar should be out soon (in my opinion, I don't know any specifics or inside info on publlishing dates).
....so there! Nyaa nyaaa nyaaaaaa
Rien n'est plus beau que le creux du 0.
Apple is on the Open Group's list of platform vendors that support the single UNIX specification.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
Note: The BSD m4 Macro processor is dated as
/usr/bin/m4 --version
1991 and is nowhere as powerful as the GNU m4.
what does bsd m4 have to do with Darwin?
[14:02:33][jeremy:~]$ uname -a
Darwin Jeremy-Erwins-Computer.local. 6.1 Darwin Kernel Version 6.1: Fri Sep 6 23:24:34 PDT 2002; root:xnu/xnu-344.2.obj~2/RELEASE_PPC Power Macintosh powerpc
[14:02:37][jeremy:~]$
GNU m4 1.4
No one cares about a 1/2 ass broken implementation of Unix(tm) like linux anymore. Now that Mac OS X and BSD are on the rise, the industry can move forward instead of rehashing old ground due to fatal Not Invented Here disease that linux has in everything ranging from APIs to already written code.
I ended up reviewing this book for The Computer Paper, and my editor summed it up with the title: "Unix book doesn't explain why Mac users should learn it".
Okay, I know it is aimed at the beginner, but aside from teaching the basics, none of it really goes into learning any of this would be useful to the reader. Why teach someone about using the lynx browser for example, and not show them how to use grep for finding files, or the basics of shell programming to automate common tasks.
Best book of its type that I've seen so far on this specific topic is Mac OS X Unleashed. For the beginner, I'd recommend Mac OS X: The Missing Manual which probably has about as much info on the Unix end of things while having plenty of good general useful info on OS X.
If you don't have clue 1 about a topic a dummies book is a good place to start.
After you gets some basics then move up.
Seen a lot of know it alls fail just because they didn't know about some really basic stuff.
It seems to confirm my newfound belief that "Anonymous" is Latin for stupid.
Actually it's more in the neighborhood of 15%, and it's non-voting stock. And though Apple does admit to changing the kernel, this is no more different the many UNIX variants. They are all, and will always be UNIX. So please before you post, get your facts straight.
Have a nice day!
We are all born originals - why is it so many of us die copies? -Edward Young, poet (1683-1765)
Mac users will require more initial hand-holding to become comfortable with the command line. And they'll need instant gratification to convince them that dealing with such an apparently-archaic interface is worth the effort.
If you know someone who is in this situation, get them:
- The latest version of BBEdit.
- An easy-to-use shell scripting book as a reference. Reading a book like Teach Yourself Shell Programming from beginning to end is going to either bore them or scare them off. But as they are experimenting at their own pace and discovering just what they can do with shell scripting, they'll want a reference to thumb through for solutions to the problems they encounter.
Start them out with something simple and relatively familiar, like df, and explain what information it provides.Then show them df | bbedit. They'll feel more comfortable seeing a connection between the GUI world they know.
Then shown them df | grep disk0s9 | bbedit.
And df | grep disk0s9 | awk '{print "Disk Size: " $2/2000 " MB"}'.
Work on basic one-liners first, then show them sed, head, tail, wc, etc. And when you go to show them something new one day and you discover that they wrote something on their own purely because they were interested, you know the fire has been lit.
And if they have any doubts about the value of shell scripting, show them the Linux version of my Buddy program, which is really just a collection of over 70 shell scripts (most of which are reasonably-well commented) and explain that the Mac OS X version is just the Linux version with an AppleScript Studio GUI slapped on top.
You're right. Golias - the point of this book wasn't to have an exhaustive document about Unix or Darwin (there are man pages and some great Web sites with that information) but to address the market of people who migrated to Mac OS X (perhaps from OS9, perhaps from Windows) and suddenly had this nifty new capability of the Terminal.app and the shell. If the reader wants a more comprehensive book for learning Unix, well, of course, there are a variety of O'Reilly titles, and there's always my Teach Yourself Unix in 24 Hours, which, contrary to some mindless slams earlier in this discussion, is actually a very pleasant way to go from embarassed newbie to Smart Person Who Gets This Stuff. If I say so myself. :-)
It wouldn't be a bad idea if those people who've read the book and have ideas about what should be added to the next edition (focused on 10.2 and, um, perhaps beyond) sent me a note about it!: taylor at intuitive dot com
"Mac users will require more initial hand-holding ..."
Your blanket statement seems to assume that Mac users, in general, do not have Unix experience. I don't think that is true. I for one, use Unix all of the time at work. So it was a snap to start using Unix on my Mac at home.
In addition, I would point out that Macs are very popular on college campuses where Unix is also prevalent.
If you follow OS X discussion boards, you will certainly see a fair number of newbie questions about Unix. However, you will also see at least as much discussion about some fairly sophisticated technical issues related to BSD on OS X, indicating a fairly proficient user base.
There are many Mac and Windows users who do have Unix experience, but your comments suggest that your perspective is skewed because you work in a Unix environment. We're talking about people who are not using Unix (hence the title of this discussion, "Learning UNIX for Mac OS X) but could benefit from it.
--I NEED a "24" hour course in basic unix, so I just might get your book. Been struggling with linux and CLI, coming from mac classic background,and the sheer bloated variety of the online help and man pages has driven me to nutso land and back, and not having a working printer at the moment makes it doubly hard. It's nigh on impossible to make heads nor sense of anything when every single bleeding sentence has 18 acronyms you have to go look up and memorize to go forward. One-step-at-a-time works better for old dogs like me in the new-tricks department, thankew very much. Any sort of "dummies" book is appreciated. I've already got a lot more than 24 hours into it, with zip results of any practical nature other than becoming more confused. Thanks! I'm gonna order it!
You are right. I meant to point out that a lot of linux/unix apps do not need to be tweaked much to be able to run on OSX, but that came out wrong.
__
Overcaffeinated. Angry geeks.
if you are a perl guru and are interested in getting into osx programming, check out camelbones...
http://camelbones.sourceforge.net/
Large print giveth, and the small print taketh away
I've reviewed a small amount (say, thirty) Linux / Unix / and (a couple of) Windows books for an Australian computer magazine (APC).
/etc/passwd file, then another fellow explaining NIS does a longer version of the same explanantion using a different analogy, rather than building on what the audience already knew. The change is style and analogies is often confusing for those new to the platform.
As a rule, if a book has more than two authors and is more than four hundred pages long, its quality is generally poor. This is because such titles - eg, most of the Unleashed series - take content from several diffferent authors, but don't maintain consistent style of build a solid learning path. One fellow explains the
I'm not saying all huge books are like this, but because of their nature they're more than likely to need a good editor to make all the disparate content a little more seamless, and because most are churned out like nobodies' business they rarely get this attention.
Other examples of why big books are often poorer includes the 1400 page Upgrading and Repairing PCs compared to the 700 page O'Reilly's PC Hardware in a Nutshell. Upgrading and Repairing loves including charts of the details about every PC product made by every manufacturer since the edition was published. This information is generally out of date, but th books publishers tell you you can fidn newer information onlien at the oublishers web site. Well, er, actually, I can find it at any web site. PC Hardware in a Nutshell is a lot mroe concise but contains most of the useful information. What it lacks in out-of-date charts it makes up in providing users with real-world experience and facts-supported opinion by the two authors - eg, they'll tell you that HP don't often release or support newer firmware for the CD drives they rebrand, so it might be best to avoid HP gear.
Another famously bad exampel of a large book is John Chirillo's Hack Attacks Encylopaedia. Its ~1500 pages (IIRC) of mainly unedited text files from outdated h4x0r tools, with a chapter by John at the start. It disgusts me that a) he has the nerve to call himself the authro of the title when he's clearly the edit, and a lazy one at that b) that this is a so called premium security title and is charged accordingly.
Mac users aren't made of money and don't like to buy a bookstore's worth of tomes for basic information.
You bet they aren't made of money, they blew it all "upgrading" their computer by throwing out the old and buying something completely new.
Yes, it's true. UNIX guys like thick cocks, not books. It's a typo from the review.
You forgot #4
4. ????
Actually it's more in the neighborhood of 15%, and it's non-voting stock.
It was nowhere near 15%, and the shares were sold many months ago.
And though Apple does admit to changing the kernel, this is no more different the many UNIX variants.
It's not accurate to say that Apple changed the kernel. They're using their own kernel, xnu, which is based partly on the Mach work out of CMU and partly on work done by NeXT and, later, Apple themselves.
So please before you post, get your facts straight.
Physician, heal thyself.
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered *BSD community when IDC confirmed that *BSD market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that *BSD has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. *BSD is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.
You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict *BSD's future. The hand writing is on the wall: *BSD faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for *BSD because *BSD is dying. Things are looking very bad for *BSD. As many of us are already aware, *BSD continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
FreeBSD is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time FreeBSD developers Jordan Hubbard and Mike Smith only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: FreeBSD is dying.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
OpenBSD leader Theo states that there are 7000 users of OpenBSD. How many users of NetBSD are there? Let's see. The number of OpenBSD versus NetBSD posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 NetBSD users. BSD/OS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of NetBSD posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of BSD/OS. A recent article put FreeBSD at about 80 percent of the *BSD market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 FreeBSD users. This is consistent with the number of FreeBSD Usenet posts.
Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, FreeBSD went out of business and was taken over by BSDI who sell another troubled OS. Now BSDI is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.
All major surveys show that *BSD has steadily declined in market share. *BSD is very sick and its long term survival prospects are dimmer than dim. If *BSD is to survive at all it will be among OS dilettante dabblers. *BSD continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, *BSD is dead.
Fact: *BSD is dying
W00t! LOLZZZ
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
Morons like this who *think* they know everything. Most of the "techies" on this board can't even write proper English.
6. Profit!
There's "Unix for Dummies" if he needs Unix help.
I like big butts and I cannot lie.
That list is Unix 98, you doofus. Even HP/UX and IRIX aren't listed, and I'd like to see you claim that they aren't Unix.
In addition to having already used the platypus for another title, O'Reilly is following a pattern of using various dogs for the MacOS X titles (Learning Cocoa, Learning Carbon, etc).
This book seems to be aimed at exploring the OS under the smooth MacOS. How do u think a book on the smooth Desktop over the roughedged Linux would be recieved ? The whole Linux community seems to be shifting to the Linux Desktop.... Lindows , Lycoris (yet to become stable) . large releases like RedHat8 , Suse 8.1 and Mandrake too are moving towards the desktop. Next up UnitedLinux. How about some books on this ? Are we going to have some standardization done ?
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