The Mac OS X Command Line: Unix Under the Hood [Paperback]

Kirk McElhearn (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0782143547 | ISBN-13: 978-0782143546 | Publication Date: December 10, 2005 | Edition: 1

The Mac command line offers a faster, easier way to accomplish many tasks. It's also the medium for many commands that aren't accessible using the GUI. The Mac OS X Command Line is a clear, concise, tutorial-style introduction to all the major functionality provided by the command line. It's also packed with information the experienced users need, including little-known shortcuts and several chapters devoted to advanced topics. This is a book to get you started, but also a book you won’t soon outgrow.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Work More Quickly and Easily—and Learn Some New Tricks
The Mac command line offers a faster, easier way to accomplish many tasks. It's also the medium for many commands that aren't accessible using the GUI. The Mac OS X Command Line is a clear, concise, tutorial-style introduction to all the major functionality provided by the command line. It's also packed with information the experienced users need, including little-known shortcuts and several chapters devoted to advanced topics. This is a book to get you started, but also a book you won’t soon outgrow.

Coverage includes:

• Using Terminal, the gateway to the command line
• Making Terminal easier to use with shortcuts
• Configuring your shell: bash and tcsh
• Navigating your file system in Terminal
• Moving and copying files from the command line
• Accessing hidden files with Terminal
• Editing configuration files with command-line text editor
• Finding any kind of file or content using simple commands
• Printing from the command line
• Archiving, compressing, and decompressing files
• Managing users, groups, and permissions
• Accessing network volumes and the Internet using simple commands
• Managing programs and processes
• Using system maintenance commands

About the Author

Kirk McElhearn, co-author of the best-selling Mastering Mac OS X Third Edition, is a professional author, journalist and translator. He has written user manuals for many popular Macintosh programs, and articles for publications including MacWorld magazine and TidBITS. 

Product Details

• Paperback: 438 pages
• Publisher: Sybex; 1 edition (December 10, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0782143547
• ISBN-13: 978-0782143546
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 7.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #296,271 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Clear and easy to follow, December 5, 2004

By 

Guy Forster (Cambridge, UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Mac OS X Command Line: Unix Under the Hood (Paperback)

As anyone who's used one of Kirk McElhearn's other books on the Mac OS will be unsurprised to hear, I found this book very easy to follow -- so easy in fact that I found I could skip the first few chapters. That's probably because I'm not a complete command-line virgin (I remember the days before Windows and the first Mac OS, and as a web designer I've done a bit of tinkering in Unix on some of the web servers I use) but even if you are, from my impression of the first chapters, this book can tell you everything you need to know to start using the command line.

The book is designed as a chapter-by-chapter tutorial, teaching you the things you need to know in a methodical order, but it contains enough information, and has a good enough index, to be used as your main reference for the command line once you've mastered the basics.

My only criticism would be that while it tells you how to do all sorts of useful things, it doesn't have enough real-world, detailed examples of the kind of uses you could put your new knowledge to -- I was expecting some kind of 'case studies' feature, giving real examples of how to use commands you've just learned to automate your back-up procedures, for example. The information's all in there, but to some extent you have to work out what you can do with it for yourself.

But I guess that's only a minor criticism -- you probably wouldn't read this book in the first place if you didn't have some idea of the kind of thing you can do with the command line.

So all in all, it's a great starting point, and I can see that in the future I'm going to find it a valuable reference.

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Mostly good stuff, September 10, 2005

By 

Chuck Brandstater "Smitty" (Cambridge, MA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Mac OS X Command Line: Unix Under the Hood (Paperback)

Structured in a distinctive but helpful way, "The Mac OS X Command Line: Unix Under the Hood" is quite a solid introduction to the command line, a mechanism that not only speeds and simplifies many tasks but also lets you do a number of things unavailable under the GUI. Its 400+ pages, arranged fundamentally as a tutorial, are replete with basic steps and shortcuts alike. The book covers everything from Terminal ("gateway" to the command line) to the file system to text editing and printing; in the later chapters, it moves on to such relatively advanced topics as file compression and archiving, groups and permissions, networking, program and process management, system maintenance, and shell configuration. Interleaved between the chapters (and here is where the book's structure is distinctive) are sections devoted to key Unix concepts that recur to the point of transcending multiple chapters; these nine sections, referred to as Interludes, tackle things like command syntax, pathnames, redirection, the "open" command (more powerful than it may sound), wildcards, and ways of automating commands.

Besides obviously providing a nice treatment of the basics, the book offers plenty of advanced material for the experienced user. The index is nice to see and easy to use. Other nice touches are a command list, chapter summaries in the introduction, and an appendix with additional readings.

Allowing for a variety of problem areas, in large measure evidently outside the author's control, this is a book well worth reading and using. It is true that some of the editing errors are thoroughly confusing (references to subsequent material as supposedly already presented, references to misidentified chapters, related graphics positioned out of logical order, and so on); still, the book is redeemed by the readily understood and applied, comprehensive, and mostly well-organized content.

Chuck Brandstater

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars This book is more for Unix novices, April 7, 2007

By 

computer-hobbyist "MacHamlet" (Texas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Mac OS X Command Line: Unix Under the Hood (Paperback)

I found 2 chapters to be very useful, Chapter 12 on Working with Users, Groups and Permissions and Ch. 14 on Managing Programs and Processes. The remaining chapters are pretty much standard Unix commands; but, very well written for Unix novices. Overall the book is well written that I would use it as a Unix reference for commands that I am familiar with (example, didn't know ls -F would show me the directories with a slash).