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Running Mac OS X Panther
This volume assumes you know how to use your Mac, how to perform all the routine changes that are easily accomplished with the GUI. Davidson also assumes you don't want to know how to get a movie running as your desktop, or get an Exposé blob floating on the screen or any of the usual sort of 'hacks' or 'hints.' What he gives is a good guide to lifting the hood and performing serious mechanical work or tweaking the performance of your Mac with enough background information so that you can feel confident taking your own steps.
It was good after a few near misses to read an O'Reilly book that was once again well written, well edited, tight and crammed full of information pitched at just the right level. Davidson has done an excellent job with this book.
Davidson starts with a little history, and from the viewpoint he presents, this is not a waste of space; he spends his time explaining exactly how we arrived at the current version of the Mac OS.
Then we have a chapter titled "Lay of the Land" that explores the file system, including both the Finder view and the view you get from the command line. It also explains the four file system domains and the 'Library' directory. The third chapter is a quick (20 pages) look at the Terminal and shell.
Then we get 'Part II: Essentials,' which is the 120-page core of the book. This starts off, logically, with system startup and the login (and log out and shutdown). This is followed by short chapters on users and groups, files and permissions, monitoring, scheduling and preferences and defaults before a marvelous long chapter on the file system. Davidson goes into great detail and closely covers each of the topics, making sure that you get all the details not just 'recipes.'
Part III ("Advanced Topics") starts with a chapter on Open Directory that I found particularly useful. It includes coverage on Kerberos and single sign-on that explains it well, as well as the command-line Open Directory tools. The chapter on printing could have had a bit more guts. It covers the obvious but leaves out such joys as CUPS apart from a half-page sidebar; since sharing printers has caused me more than a little grief I would have appreciated more detail here. The final chapter on networking is better, and provides more useful detail.
It must be said that this section concentrates more on user level detail and leaves out real information on server level software and options. Given the target group for this book, and that a book has to draw a line somewhere, this is quite fair.
Davidson has picked his topics well, almost everyone will find all of Part II useful and educational. Part III is perfect for people wanting to run Panther in a corporate environment. He has balanced the command line and GUI well, pointing out where you can do a job with both and explaining the details.
Oreilly's page for the book has a table of contents and index but no example chapter. If you go to Davidson's page at O'Reilly there is a link to a short excerpt on scheduling tasks as well as several earlier articles Davidson has written for MacDevCenter.
I would recommend this book to any Panther user with a moderate amount of experience. It is not for the newcomer to the Mac, perhaps, but everyone else will benefit from this book.
You can purchase Running Mac OS X Panther from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page
At least the interface on OSX looks better. The poor Ford looks like something a stylist would produce as revenge against his employer.
flames > dev/null
Movie running as a desktop (one method)
Exposé blob
How to Bleed Brakes
When you have nothing left to burn you must set yourself on fire
Just to get this out of the way.
You can buy a multi-button mouse that will work with OSX.
But you have to leave your parents' basement to do it.
3D Printing Tips and Tricks at Zheng3.com
...to keep my Mac running smoothly I have to periodically bleed the brakes and change the oil?
What a lot of work, I'll just stick with Windows.
..that Mac OSX users now think they know 'Nix, and that 'Nix users think they know Mac now?
For anybody running Panther, here is a set of indespensible tips. I go through the steps outlined in that article about once a month, and it keeps my G4 laptop purring like a kitten. The steps about regenerating the prelink binding are especially relevant to performance.
A musician without the RIAA, is like a fish without a bicycle.
Republicans: party of big gov't
Democrats: party of really big gov't
You've got it all wrong there sparky,
Republicans: party of big gov't
Democrats: gov't having a really big party
How to run it:
Plug it in. Turn it on. Bam, OSX mopping that ass up with easy-to-use goodness. Go ahead mod me down, you'll change your mind once you use OSX.
Perhaps.
This is quite similar. Like exact....from 1998. 'tard.
It's cause they already used the cat in their "UML in a Nutshell" book.
"you'll change your mind once you use OSX."
A buddy of mine is a Windows Admin. HE eats, sleeps and breathes Windows. He even got on me for my BSD servers over Windows ones. Then someone talked him into a Mac. Within 24 hours he was a complete convert. He actually said and I quote "What the hell was I thinking!?!?!?!?!"
Evolution or ID?
In German, "nix" is colloquial for "nothing". So the question "Do you know *nix" can be easily misconstrued...
How do you guys pronounce "*nix"? "Nicks"? "Star-Nicks"?
Truth hurts?
Unless you're talking about IBM keyboard nipples, PC laptops with multiple buttons are impossible to use quickly and accurately. You have to tuck your thumb all weird under your hand. Right-click-drag, for example, is incredibly difficult.
You can't do it with two hands, even if you want to.
The MacOS solution is vastly preferable, for laptops only. Click-hold brings up a context menu. If you don't like the delay, ctrl-click. There is no way you can convince me that that is more inconvenient than a two-button trackpad. If you try, I'll suspect that you're lying.
The second I hit a desk, of course, I plug in my Microsoft Intellimouse Optical. My thumb and pinky drive the cursor, while every suitable finger has a button conveniently placed. Totally different excercise than a trackpad.
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
Ctrl, Alt...
I see two buttons right there.
dude you totally mean window$ sux
There is in my opinion nothing better than an old joke. Tell it 5000 times and I'll laugh at every one. If only the trolls were as funny.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
Having said that, I found the lack of a second button on the powerbook very frustrating, for about 2 hours until I mastered the art of ctrl-click. There's that darn opposable thumb again.
I have been looking at such books, but I have to say I like the "OS X in a nutshell" version better, because of their nice and extensive Unix command appendix.
The Jaguar edition has been out for a while, but I'm waiting for the Panther edition.
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
Try forcing the iPod to do a disk scan
I find MacOS X, Windows 2000 and the various Unixes about as easy to use as each other. It's like driving different cars. My Mum's Suzuki van has the wipers and indicators the other way round compared t my sister's Vauxhall, and my Citroen has an entirely different setup altogether (funny buttons clustered on bulgy bits, no stalks at all). One's no better than the other, just different. I prefer the Citroen though, just as I prefer using XFCE with something Unix-y.
'cos it's "the dog's", obviously!
("The dog's" being a contraction of "the dog's bollocks", which is an expression used in Britain to describe something that is as good as it could conceivably be).
"Drives Like Fun! Saves Like Crazy!"
Maybe Panther can adopt this as theirs - although maybe just overseas...
I wonder if this marvelous volume would show me how to put my car back together, because the tranny, block, and head are sitting on the floor, and tons of other parts are scattered on 3 tables and a cart. Oh, and don't forget the several containers I have that hold its old oils and fluids. This used to be a car. Now, it's a paperweight on jackstands.
At least it'll haul ass when I finish it... if I finish it.
In fact the review box on my reviews has always given my name as Tony Williams. Good Slashdot trolls never let the truth get in the way of a good brainfart.
Tony
I was wondering if you could come up with another topic - you're posts are getting WAY too repetitous. Perhaps start in on my politics instead of sexuality. You could accuse me of being a Nazi, a Communist or even (topically) a Muslim terrorist.
Hope to hear from you soon.
Tony
stop licking my dick, fag boy
I learnt Perl and bash with an OS X box.
It is the case that in several macOS X application (most notably Carbon emacs, but there are others), the 'simulated' right click (i.e. ctrl+click) gives you a contextual menu, but a physical right-click with a three button mouse does something else. This is how everything should work, IMO. The sooner apple releases a mouse with optional buttons, the better.
(I don't know what a mouse with optional buttons would look like, but it'd be cool)
Because Apple users train their dogs, ranging in size from Great Danes to Saint Bernards, to fuck their master's arse.
How so? Have you tried using your left-hand thumb or index to click and your right index finger to drag? If there's any fault with the touchpad in normal notebooks, it's that often the middle button is missing. After I got used to Konqueror's opening links in a separate window when mid-clicked, I don't want to use any other method for clicking on links. The simultaneous clicking on both buttons to simulate the third button is a poor substitute.
So that would be the same reason that the O'Reilly Unix administration books have a menagerie on the cover too?
Yes, but preferences do vary. Perl books, for instance, have a camel in the cover because Larry Wall once took a trip to Egypt and fell in love with a beautiful female camel. He would put a 100 gallon tank of water before her, and, while she drank, Larry would build a mound of sand behind her and fuck her pussy...
for my 12" powerbook G4 HOWEVER since I found THIS I don't even bother anymore. The right side of the trackpad is vertical scroll. The bottom edge is horizontal scroll. I set a finger tap in the lower left corner to right mouse button click. I set expose up to "choose all apps" and "clear off desktop" with taps in the other corners. With practice, it's a lot faster than a mouse.
For every annoying gentoo user, are three even more annoying anti-gentoo crybabies. Take Yosh from #Gimp for example.
Well, you can. You're right. If you're using your right index finger to point, your right palm is covering the right click button on any PC laptop I've seen. You can lift your right hand, and press the right click button with your left thumb or index finger.
That is a big annoyance for me. I feel that at that point, the control button is a whole lot easier to reach. When I use a PC trackpad for an extended period of time, I find that my right thumb hurts from reaching underneath my hand and poking sideways.
Simultaneous clicking is a pain in the ass, you're right. Modifier keys are the best solution I've heard of for a pointing device that occupies your button fingers.
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
was one truckload of fresh meat and another of kittylitter.
OK, now what?
Nope. If he was referring to Davidson, he wouldn't have been talking out his ass like that.
See? We Mac users are just as advanced as you nixie people...
... the mk1 Lotus Cortina twincam. A classic in every sense of the word.
:-)
Shame they're a small fortune to pick-up... I'll have to do with my mk1 Escort instead
Thank you for this timely warning. I don't want to become homosexual so I will try to avoid using Mac OSX. Can you tell me exactly how much exposure to OSX causes gayness? Also, what OS can I then use in order to revert to heterosexuality if I do accidentally become exposed to OSX? I assume you are not an OSX user, judging by the very masculine and powerful way in which you use the caps lock key. Perhaps you could post a FAQ to answer these important questions. The sexual health of the Slashdot community depends on you.
--- Yx3 = Delilah ---
The MacOS solution is vastly preferable, for laptops only. Click-hold brings up a context menu.
And it could continue to do that if Apple put three buttons on their laptops. If you don't want to use the three buttons, you can continue to use just the left button with key combinations.
But in real life, just about everybody plugs a three button mouse into their desktop Mac because it is simply more intuitive and usable that way: a button for pointing, a dedicated button for context menus, and a dedicated button for scrolling. Having a one button mouse on the notebooks is just confusing.
You have to tuck your thumb all weird under your hand
No, you don't, since your right hand is already at an angle. But if that were a problem, it could be addressed by moving the buttons slightly to the side.
Unless you're talking about IBM keyboard nipples, PC laptops with multiple buttons are impossible to use quickly and accurately.
Laptops with trackpads are impossible to use quickly and accurately, whether they have one button or three. The reasons why Apple keeps shipping one-button trackpads instead of three button nipples or two button trackballs are simple: appearance, style, cost, and branding. Trackpads are cheap, they don't mar the appearance of the laptops, and Apple considers this particular arrangement part of their brand. Functionality has nothing to do with it.
Two reasons. (1) because back in the day there was Unix, Ultrix, Xenix, and, for all I know "Bobnix". (2) Unix was a trademark of AT&T which both caused the various name permutations and generally pissed off the hacking community.
Clear, Dark Skies
Functionality has nothing to do with it.
I honestly disagree with this, having had a terrible time using PC laptop pointing devices, and simply a mediocre time using Apple laptop pointing devices.
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
I honestly disagree with this, having had a terrible time using PC laptop pointing devices, and simply a mediocre time using Apple laptop pointing devices.
Which "PC laptop pointing devices" are you talking about? Most PC laptops these days have the same trackpads that Apple popularized. The only other choice that is still commonly available is the nipples, and people either seem to love those or hate those.
My favorite laptop pointing device, a built in trackball, just doesn't get made anymore.
In any case, my point is that I don't think usability matters much in Apple's decision to keep trackpads, no matter what that usability may be: Apple keeps single-button trackpads primarily for branding, cost, and design reasons.
lmfao - mod this shit up you fuckers