Slashdot Mirror
Mac OS X in a Nutshell
The Gist The book is quite well structured, and organized into into 5 parts. The first is a quick overview of the Macintosh GUI. The second part, "System Configuration," is mainly devoted to getting the system running well (covering preferences, networking, the file system and Java). The third section, "System and Network Administration," is a good guide to several lower-level tasks, including an excellent chapter on directory services and NetInfo. The fourth is about development, including Apple's IDE "Project Builder" and CVS. The final part covers the Unix underpinnings of OS X and X Windows. This includes a Unix command reference of over 200 pages.
The Good The book is also well written, with light, easily understood prose and some good screen dumps, tables and diagrams to make some of the more complex points easily understood. I appreciate the detailed contents section, good quality index and black chapter tabs at the side of each page for finding the information I need.
Everything seems to be covered, though you may sometimes find yourself needing to go elsewhere for more depth, but this is really only to expected in a book that is trying more for breadth across an entire operating system than depth in one particular area.
Despite having used and developed on a Mac for over 15 years and OS X since the late beta stage I still found myself discovering something new and useful every few pages in the book.
The Bad The section of the book I appreciated least was the Unix Command Reference. 200 pages, most of which are adequately covered by the online man pages or a quick 'command --help'. Not that it isn't useful having this information on paper, and not that this section isn't more complete than the man pages and less error-ridden. It's just that my favourite operating system has a large number of commands that are hard to find by name alone. Online, I tend to rely on apropos to find what I need. Back when you paid a large amount of money for a Unix license they came with hard copy manuals that included a permuted word index of the same top slug that apropos searches, which made them infinitely more useful. O'Reilly could improve the heck out of this book by giving us the same thing for what I felt was otherwise an almost totally wasted 200 pages (though I admit that the combination of the chapter on NetInfo and the command references for nicl and niutil etc. actually have me now understanding and using NetInfo well.)
Once again O'Reilly have provided a web page for the book that is mostly marketing material -- though in this case the Errata page is useful. At the bottom of the page they have a number of links to "Related O'Reilly Articles" but have only listed three by the authors of the book, leaving out, for example, X11 and Open Office on Mac OS X by Wei-Meng Lee and Configuring sendmail On Jaguar by James Duncan Davidson to name two MacDevCenter articles I've found incredibly helpful.
Conclusion
This book is not quite in the "must buy" category. If you do want a book to help you with the more technical aspects of OS X or to help you move to OS X from Unix or Windows hacking then this one is worth a serious look. It certainly better covers the technical aspects than OS X Bible and others of that style (such as the Missing Manual or Robin Williams' Little Mac OS X Book.) The only other volume that really compares is OS X Unleashed and it has way too much coverage of the simple stuff and the various applications, is not as well structured and has a wordier, less terse and technical style. It's also more expensive and twice the size and weight.
You can purchase Mac OS X in a Nutshell from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
i wonder how much of this will remain true once Panther rolls out (sept?)
I have been buying fewer books of this type recently. In the past, a good O'Reilly book was the best way to get on top of a subject. But, with a few google searches, I can find most everything I need about common topics, like MacOS X.
The argument for disconnected access with books is a bit tougher with a 750page book.. Not really a mobile tool.
Okay, as a word of warning, my comments are based on looking through the book at a local bookstore, and confirming my conclusions by reading the review. I agree with the "Bad."
In aiming a book at the power user for Mac OS X, it's safe to omit almost everything about the GUI. It's not too difficult to learn the GUI in the first place (after all, it's supposed to be intuitive). I think what would most interest the power user is the UNIX underneath.
Now, the so-called "power user" really comes in two forms: one, power users coming from the old Mac OS, and two, UNIX power users. Both of these groups could benefit from a book that concentrates on how OS X's UNIX works. (Note, I'm not talking about an introduction to UNIX, covering grep and piping one command into another, and so forth.)
Besides on essentially wasting so many pages on the GUI (in my opinion), the book falls short in just the way the reviewer noted: namely, thin documentation of the UNIX base and how it differs from others. There is some good coverage; but what is needed is more than a "nutshell"; what is needed is a fuller explanation of the commands.
What is needed is more than what goes only slightly beyond being printed manpages.
quiquid id est, timeo puellas et oscula dantes.
Agreed - I bought it mainly because it was published by O'Reilly, and to be honest it's the only book from them that I've ever bought and don't keep going back to.
With most technical books, I'll give them a cursory read-through, and then they go onto the shelf for constant referencing (referral? refferation? Whatever), but this one is just mouldering off in a corner somewhere. Pretty much that whole book can be summed up with "It's FreeBSD, more or less".
Patience grasshopper. So many of your rants are just showing your ignorance of Macintosh way of doing things. The things you like about linux/windows are the very things most of us hate, honestly. But, I will try to help you...
:-)
Drag your applications folder or your hard drive to the right side of the dock. This will give you a 'start' menu.
Keyboard equivalents are all SHOWN in macintosh menus. The keyboard shortcut is on the right side of the menu selection. e.g. save is ALWAYS apple-s. The apple key is generally 'implemented' in windows using control. e.g. M$ copied wholesale, the cut/copy/paste/undo from Mac. They did not even change the keys! Just use apple instead of control. The cloverleaf/puppy foot symbol is the symbol for the apple key.
If you do not like key assignments or if you want to assign keyboard shortcuts where there aren't any, then you will need keyboard maestro or quickeys or some other type of additional software. These will also help you in other ways.
You can NOT get rid of the menu bar. This is the best feature of the OS. Menus on each window is assinine, as bad (nearly) as parent/child windows. This is just my opinion, sure, but I am not begging you to help me with KDE, am I?
Likewise, "minimize"/"maximize" do not apply, the correct term is 'zoom'. Similarly, there is no 'shortcut' that was a rip off of 'alias' in the first place (as is practically the whole of windows/KDE, you name it.) BTW, aliases work across the network. Shortcuts are lame, as you will realize someday if you continue to learn about Macintosh.
Honestly, it's not OS X that is 'daft' here. All of this is extremely simple stuff. You really need to put your prejudices aside and learn to use the Mac. Then you could stand a chance of knowing what you are talking about. You obviously are capable of learning, else you never would have gotten very far with (lame) KDE or Windows.
Clue: mac is not windows. In fact, Mac predates Windows by quite a lot (in case you had not heard!) You can not drive a ferrari as you would a chevette. You need to understand and want to learn the machine. If you do not want to learn mac, then fine, stick with windows or KDE or somewhere you do not have to think.