Customer Reviews

MAC OS X UNIX Toolbox: 1000+ Commands for the Mac OS X

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This booked is packed with well organized examples, but, the authors assume you already know a bit about about UNIX or Linux. However, the examples are so well done that even a complete newb to UNIX can figure it out (albeit with more effort and more slowly than someone who is already familiar with UNIX or Linux--difficult, but, not impossible). Great for a support tech, like me, who's been supporting Windows for years, but, has been suddenly (and joyfully) tossed some Macs to support.

I'm giving it 4 stars as the publisher, Wiley Publishing Inc., decided to go cheap and print the book on paper thats usually used for mass market paperbacks. For a reference book I think that's a bit unacceptable--especially for the price.

To be fair I haven't finished reading this book yet but after reading the first few chapters its pretty clear that this is indeed a book for people who have used command line on other Unix systems or have a solid understanding on how systems operate. Although there appears to be a tonne of wealth here about OS X Terminal commands, the author only briefly explains the 'why' and then dives straight into the 'how'. For a newbie like me I was looking for a manual that would de-mystify the multitude of Terminal commands and throw in clear explanations on when and why. Having said that this book is still really easy to read even though it is assumed you know what is being talked about.

excellent book, lots of great commands to get you used to the command line. Only downfall is Amazon is not packaging their books well anymore, I ordered $100 worth of books that were all thrown in a box and arrived all banged up! This is the 2nd order in a row, I will think twice about ordering again as I dont care for my books being all banged up! They used to use a cellofane wrapper to hold them all together but guess it was a cost cutting measure, sad to see damaged books..

I definitely enjoyed the book and found it useful but I have several observations regarding the choice of provided content. First, I am not sure why individuals writing books about the internals of a given system (i.e. most Linux/Unix 'bibles and this book) find it necessary to 'lock' the reader into a given application such as Fink. Yes it has it's place, but a some what limited place. Fink repository is nice but anyone who truly wants to become efficient using the 'Unix' side of Mac OS X should be taught the how/where/why of installing from source. For example, the how/why a given user would/should install to /usr/local. Secondly and similar to the first, if your going to discuss Fink, that is, go the easy as well as limited aplication install route, why even bother introducing the user to vi/vim. These are hardcore user apps that scare even the tech-stable so one can only imagine what they will do to the tech-newbie. If you're going to introduce Fink why note stick with TexEdit or even introduce a file format neutral application such as TextWrangler. Finally ... Perl ... really ... are you serious and 6 whole pages on Perl. I'm almost speechless. Anyways, this book is good if you want a general overview of the 'back-end' of OS X. If you're looking for more in-depth, or just plain depth, look elsewhere.

There aren't 1000+ commands covered in the book. It's only 288 pages so unless there are 4 or 5 commands on each page (which there aren't) then it's not going to add up to 1000. There are probably more like 100 commands that, with multiple usage examples, may equal close to 1000 EXAMPLES but there are definitely not 1000 DIFFERENT COMMANDS covered in this book or any of the other books in the * Toolbox series.

Outside of that, the book is a good introduction to the Mac OS X command line. I would give it 4 stars if the title wasn't outright false advertising. A more accurate title would be "Introduction to the Mac OS X Command Line" which would better describe what this book really is.

Don't buy if you expect to learn 1000 new and exotic Unix commands because this book does not cover them. Do buy if you are looking for a simple introduction to the Unix core of Mac OS X.

Just like the first few pages of the book says, this is more of a reference for someone looking to solve a specific problem using the UNIX base of Mac OS. It's not something you're meant to read cover to cover. I have taken a browse through it and learned quite a few interesting things, despite being an intermediate OS X user at best.

Highly recommended for medium proficiency and up users! Keep a copy next to your system.

I have just bought the Kindle edition. I can't yet judge on the contents, but the ebook version has got a huge readability issue: On my iPhone and on my Mac the command examples appear in minuscule lettering, no matter what text size I choose using preferences. they don't zoom along with the text proper and so seem to be too small bitmaps of other type.

I would seriously ask amazon to fix this, because like that the book is virtually useless in the kindle version...

This is a horrible book. So not worth the money. The examples are bad and have tons of typos. There are sample commands with no useful write up about what they are actually doing. I find man pages and Google more appropriate.

If your looking to learn the Unix portion of Mac OSX this is not the book. You would learn a-lot more with better examples reading the FreeBSD manual, and Advanced Bash Scripting online.